Language Quote by Virginia Woolf

““He is forced to coin words himself, and, taking his pain in one hand, and a lump of pure sound in the other (as perhaps the people of Babel did in the beginning), so to crush them together that a brand new word in the end drops out.””

Virginia Woolf

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More by Virginia Woolf

Fatigue is the safest sleeping draught.

Virginia Woolf

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“The train slows and lengthens, as we approach London, the centre, and my heart draws out too, in fear, in exaltation. I am about to meet--what? What extraordinary adventure awaits me, among these mail vans, these porters, these swarms of people calling taxis? I feel insignificant, lost, but exultant. With a soft shock we stop. I will let the others…

Virginia Woolf

“Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword. On one side all is correct, definite, orderly; the paths are straight, the trees regular, the sun shaded; escorted by gentlemen, protected by policemen, wedded and buried by clergymen, she has only to walk demurely from cradle to grave and no one will touch a hair…

Virginia Woolf

“Other worshipful objects were content with worship; men, women, God, all let one kneel prostrate; but this form, were it only the shape of…

Virginia Woolf

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Why does Samuel Butler say, 'Wise men never say what they think of women'? Wise men never say anything else apparently.

Virginia Woolf

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“Sometimes he woke with a brain like lead; at others it was as if a thousand wax tapers were alight and people were throwing…

Virginia Woolf

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The extraordinary woman depends on the ordinary woman. It is only when we know what were the conditions of the average woman's life - the number of children, whether she had money of her own, if she had a room to herself, whether she had help bringing up her family, if she had servants, whether part of the housework was…

Virginia Woolf

A veil of insanity everywhere: Oh why I was born in this age? It is a terrible age.

Virginia Woolf

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Love ought to stop on both sides, don’t you think, simultaneously?’ He spoke without any stress on the words, so as not to wake…

Virginia Woolf

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“It is so vast an alleviation to be able to point for another to look at. And then not to talk. To follow the…

Virginia Woolf

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“What a vast fertility of pleasure books hold for me! (...) I think I could happily live here & read forever.”

Virginia Woolf

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“what a luxury to be alone once more,”

Virginia Woolf

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I put myself in the student's place and remember the frustrations, doubts, determination, and desires I felt when I was going through the initial…

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Usually male directors have to use foul language to get the job done. But I never came down to that level as being a…

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A man walks down the street. It's a street in a strange world. Maybe it's the third world. Maybe it's his first time around. He doesn't speak the language. He holds no currency. He is a foreign man. He is surrounded by the sound, sound of cattle in the marketplace, scatterlings and orphanages. He looks around, around he sees angels…

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“I only have two words to say More or Less”

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It's like saying French shouldn't be taught because you don't understand it because it's new. Shakespeare is just like learning a new, exciting language.

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I am attracted to looking at the different things language can mean even in one sometimes quite ordinary utterance. Writing is partly about listening closely to yourself as you think or compose and being aware of the different tensions and weights among the words, the different directions any one of them could lead. I like to play with the multiplicity…

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