Virginia Woolf

I feel a thousand capacities spring up in me. I am not a woman but a man, for I can think, I can write, I can be a thousand things.

The human face is the most astounding and the most grotesque of all objects in the world.

I detest the masculine point of view. I am bored by it. I am sick of it. I am tired of being told by men what I am, what I may be, what I may not be. I am tired of being told by men that I am not a man, and that therefore I cannot be a writer, or a painter, or a musician.

I am not an Englishwoman. I am a Jewess. I am a woman. I am a writer. I am a human being. I am a creative artist. I am a person who loves life and hates death.

I have an immense desire to be alone; and yet I am afraid of solitude.

I am reading myself into a state of imbecility.

The soul of a writer is a very odd fish.

Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.

I hate the thought of being a woman, to be known, to be famous.

The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

I am not in the least modest. I think I am rather arrogant. I think I am rather aggressive.

The smell of sperm is very penetrating.

How much better to die than to marry Mr. Collins!

I like funerals. They are brave things.

The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their subtlety.

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery—always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for?

I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life.

I am more like a cucumber than a woman.

I have lost all power over words. Can't do a thing with them.

I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.