Why does Samuel Butler say, 'Wise men never say what they think of women'? Wise men never say anything else apparently.
When the body escaped mutilation, seldom did the heart go to the grave unscarred.
Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting.
So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman looking at a girl throwing a ball
Often on a wet day I begin counting up; what I've read and what I haven't read.
Life stand still here.
It was a great mistake to have come. He should have stayed at home and read his book, thought Peter Walsh; should have gone to a music hall; he should have stayed at home, for he knew no one.
I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given, and solitude in which to unfold my possessions.
He lay on his chair with his hands clasped above his paunch not reading, or sleeping, but basking like a creature gorged with existence.
An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift. Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks;...
A thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter, defaced, obscured in her own life, let drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter. This he had preserved. Death was defiance. De...
Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.
now that one was mature then, said Peter, one could watch, one could understand, and one did not lose the power of feeling, he said. No, that is true, said Sally. She felt more deeply, more passionate...
I don't believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun.
How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, lifting it a little way, as ants carry a blade of straw so feverishly, and then leave it.
As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.
I feel my brains, like a pear, to see if it's ripe; it will be exquisite by September.
The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their completeness. I like their anonymity.
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
For women live much more in the past...they attach themselves to places;