Virginia Woolf, Selected Short Stories

Saturday, 16 Apr 2022

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The Introduction

… all made her feel that she had come out of her chrysalis and was being proclaimed what in the long comfortable darkness of childhood she had never been – this frail and beautiful creature, this limited and circumscribed creature who could not do what she liked, this butterfly with a thousand facets to its eyes, and delicate fine plumage, and difficulties and sensibilities and sadnesses innumerable: a woman.

Together and Apart

Fields and flowers and grey buildings dripped down into his mind, formed silver drops on the gaunt, dark walls of his mind and dripped down.

…Their eyes met; collided rather, for each felt that behind the eyes the secluded being, who sits in darkness while his shallow agile companion does all the tumbling and beckoning, and keeps the show going, suddenly stood erect; flung off his cloak; confronted the other. It wa alarming; it was terrific.

MORE COLLECTED QUOTES

Pip Williams, The Bookbinder of Jericho

Jane Eyre. It was an Oxford World's Classics edition. Similar to the one we owned and similarly worn from constant handling. There was a difference between a book that was regularly opened and a book that was not. The smell, the resistance of the spine, the ease with...

Anna Funder, All That I Am

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Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea

Quote 1: The weather stayed awful almost all of the time. Cold and brown and windy. But one day in the middle of April the sun came out and William and I walked out on the rocks–it was low tide–and then we walked to a closed store that was the only other building out...

Tim Winton, Cloudstreet

"Will you look at us by the river! The whole restless mob of us on spread blankets in the dreamy briny sunshine skylarking and chiacking about for one day, one clear clean, sweet day in a good world in the midst of our living. Yachts run before an unfelt gust with...

Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

The sky was clear – remarkably clear – and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed as a common pulse…To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement. The sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past earthly objects, which is perceptible in a few minutes of stillness, or by the better outlook upon space that a hill affords, or by the wind, or by the solitude; but whatever be its origin the impression of riding along is vivid and abiding…

Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

Quote 1:
Months passed, winter easing gently into place, as southern winters do. The sun, warm as a blanket, wrapped Kya’s shoulders, coaxing her deeper into the marsh…

Jaclyn Moriarty, gravity is the thing

Quote 1: ‘Kierkegaard thinks that music begins where language ends,’ Finnegan said. ‘Beyond language—or when language reaches its peak—you get music.’ I considered that. ‘I can’t believe we’re talking about Kierkegaard,’ I said. ‘You’re not. I am. And the...

Alexander McCall Smith, The Joy and Light Bus Company

Mma Potokwani was watching her friend… ‘Dear friend,’ she said, ‘of course I shall help you. Of course, I shall. And we shall start tomorrow, first thing. After breakfast, that is.’ ‘I would never do anything before breakfast,’ said Mma Ramotswe. And they both...

Janet Skeslian Charles, The Paris Library

Grief is a sea made of your own tears. Salty swells cover the dark depths you must swim at your own pace. It takes time to build stamina. Some days, my arms sliced through the water, and I felt things would be okay, the shore wasn’t so far off. Then one memory, one...

Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

Quote 1: When I looked up through the web of trees, the night fell over me, and for a moment I lost my boundaries, feeling like the sky was my own skin and the moon was my heart beating up there in the dark. Quote 2: … what I felt was magnetic and so big it ached like...

Notley Notes