WOOLFING # 5

QUOTES FROM

A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN

(1928):

  

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

A Room of One’s Own – Chapter 1, p. 4

“The human frame being what it is, heart, body and brain all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments as they will be no doubt in another million years, a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

A Room of One’s Own – Chapter 1, p. 18

“Have you any notion how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by men? Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe?”

A Room of One’s Own – Chapter 2, p. 26

“Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.”

A Room of One’s Own – Chapter 2, p. 35

“Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.”
A Room of One’s Own – Chapter 3, p. 58

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
A Room of One’s Own – Chapter 4, p. 90

“I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee's life of the poet. She died young — alas, she never wrote a word... Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the cross-roads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here to-night, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh.”
A Room of One’s Own – Chapter 6, p. 117