Virginia Woolf quotes from The Hours (2002)

Virginia Woolf

Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of these terrible times again and I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices and can't concentrate. So I'm doing what seems to be the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I know that I'm spoiling your life and without me you could work, and you will, I know. You see, I can't even write this properly. What I want to say is that I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me. And incredibly good. Everything is gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.
Virginia's letter to Leonard

Virginia Woolf

Leonard, I believe I may have a first sentence.

Virginia Woolf

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.

Virginia Woolf

A woman's whole life in a single day. Just one day. And in that day her whole life.

Virginia Woolf

It's on this day. This day of all days. Her fate becomes clear to her.

Virginia Woolf

I can't think of anything more exhilarating than a trip to London.

Virginia Woolf

I am saying, Vanessa, that even crazy people like to be asked.

Virginia Woolf

Did it matter, then, she asked herself, walking toward Bond Street. Did it matter that she must inevitably cease, completely. All this must go on without her. Did she resent it? Or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely? It is possible to die. It is possible to die.

Virginia Woolf

I've been attended by doctors, who inform me of my own interests.

Virginia Woolf

I am ungrateful? You call me ungrateful? My life has been stolen from me. I'm living in a town I have no wish to live in. I'm living a life I have no wish to live. How did this happen?

Virginia Woolf

If I were thinking clearly, Leonard, I would tell you that I wrestle alone in the dark, in the deep dark. And that only I can know, only I can understand my own condition. You live with the threat, you tell me you live with the threat of my extinction. Leonard, I live with it too. This is my right; it is the right of every human being. I choose not the suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs but the violent jolt of the Capital. That is my choice. The meanest patient, yes, even the very lowest is allowed some say in the matter of her own prescription. Thereby she defines her humanity. I wish, for your sake, Leonard, I could be happy in this quietness. But if it is a choice between Richmond and death, I choose death.

Virginia Woolf

You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard.

Virginia Woolf

Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It's contrast.

Vanessa

Virginia.

Virginia

Leonard thinks it's the end of civilization: People who are invited at 4 and arrive at 2:30.

Vanessa

Oh God.

Virginia

Barbarians.

What happens when we die?

Virginia

What happens? [pause] We return to the place that we came from.

I don't remember where I came from.

Virginia

Nor do I.

What were you thinking about?

Virginia

I was going to kill my heroine. But I've changed my mind. [pause] I fear I may have to kill someone else instead.

Virginia

You return to what?

Vanessa

Tonight. Oh, just some insufferable dinner not even you could envy, Virginia.

Virginia

But I do.