Abundant choice doesn't force us to look for the absolute best of everything. It allows us to find the extremes in those things we really care about, whether that means great coffee, jeans cut wide across the hips, or a spouse who shares your zeal for mountaineering, Zen meditation, and science fiction.
Virginia Postrel
Related I think we have to believe in things we don't see. That's really important for all of us, wh... JAMES CAAN Sometimes it's hard for us to believe, really believe, that God cares and wants good things for ... BEAR GRYLLS For everything bad, there's a million really exciting things, whether it's someone puts out ... PATTI SMITH I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth's follies - thinking that those who care about... D. H. LAWRENCE A lot of music doesn't do one thing or another. It just doesn't do anything. Then there are ... DAVID LYNCH Most of us think we're too busy or too important to rest for a day. CRAIG GROESCHEL I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES Everything God tells us to do is for our good. Whether it's direction you get in His Word or som... JOYCE MEYER Before Watergate and Viet Nam, the American public, as a whole, believed everything it was told, and... DANIEL KEYS MORAN If the Big Bang is true, that means everything that came out of it, all of the particles, all of us,... DAN GILBERT I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth's follies -- thinking that those who care about us... D. H. (DAVID HERBERT) LAWRENCE I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth's follies--thinking that those who care about us w... D.H. LAWRENCE I don't define lust as anything evil or nasty. Lust as defined by me, is the feeling of desire: a de... C. JOYBELL C. You look at science fiction and look how often it talks about being alien, being alienated about the... NALO HOPKINSON Look whether it be indifferently, as well for sins secret as open, what you find to be your best cor... THOMAS HOOKER (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes... JEAN SASSON It ends or it doesn't. That’s what you say. That’s how you get through it. The tu... CAITLYN SIEHL If you feel comfortable in what you're wearing, you'll look your best, and I think that'... AERIN LAUDER Wake every morning with the same feeling. Live up high and fly on top of the ceiling. I just know th... ANA CLAUDIA ANTUNES "Love enables us to always look for the good in those we truly care about." ~ Tom Baker TOM BAKER AKA THE PONDERING MAN Remember, science fiction's always been the kind of first level alert to think about things to c... STEVEN SPIELBERG Parents were good to us, gave us a lot, took care for us when we couldn’t have taken care for ours... LUKASZ LANIECKI It's great that Time is moving in the direction of validating those who, by choice or circumstan... MEGHAN DAUM Those of us who believe in God and those of us who have dedicated our lives to helping others in the... DICK DURBIN Sometimes you just give everything you have, and you do your absolute best, and it doesn't stack... TIM HOWARD Picking apart a story for its scientific underpinnings doesn't diminish it, it enhances it, make... KYLE HILL The great thing about all my siblings is we all agree we had a horrendous childhood. It's not li... PAT CONROY We have a God who loves us. We are in the palm of his hand. He doesn't leave us, and He doesn... FRANK PERETTI How should I know?" said Alice, surprised at her own courage. "It's no business of mine." The Q... LEWIS CARROLL May I never neither turn left nor turn right in my journey of life, but may I go straight to Christ ... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH NI love watching science fiction because I feel like when it's done well, it's not just mons... ALAN ARKIN Young people, our rights and the things we care about, have been taken away because it doesn't r... ELIZA DOOLITTLE I wrote about the things I discovered along the way and about how whether we believe it or not, ever... ANDREW KENDALL The United States does not have a choice as to whether or not is will or will not play a great part ... THEODORE ROOSEVELT I think science fiction helps us think about possibilities, to speculate - it helps us look at our s... MAE JEMISON At Netflix, we think you have to build a sense of responsibility where people care about the enterpr... REED HASTINGS We look at the African-American community, for a long time those of us who be considered strong - bl... RYAN COOGLER Companies that pretend to care about music and really care about other things - whether it be hardwa... JAY-Z We can't wait until elections to fight for what we care about. We can't hope for a benevolen... MARK PINCUS Sometimes when we have so much going on, it's easy to forsake the things that seem like personal... KRISTIN ARMSTRONG When we talk about 9/11 and 26/11 - which is the shorthand for the Mumbai attacks in 2008 - we'r... KARAN MAHAJAN Computers allow us to squeeze the most out of everything, whether it's Google looking up things,... BUZZ ALDRIN We've been saying Putin is a dictator for years who doesn't care about the law. GARRY KASPAROV Publicity doesn't work for books. It really doesn't. All it does is get your name in front o... KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH Elections are also about the future - the pledges that we are making for this country. For those who... ANNE CAMPBELL Everything we did was criticized. For about thirty years we lived with the world against us, accusin... IAN SMITH When people show loyalty to you, you take care of those who are with you. It's how it goes with ... JOHN CENA It seems like we have a rivalry every week. CU hates us. BYU hates us. Air Force doesn't care for us... DAVID ANDERSON 'Who are we?' And to me that's the essential question that's always been in science ... DAVID GERROLD Dance music doesn't care where you live. It doesn't care who your friends are. It doesn'... GIORGIO MORODER Everyone says Toyota is the best company in the world, but the customer doesn't care about the w... AKIO TOYODA It doesn't do much good to have a quality image, whether it's with the facility or whether i... JAMES SINEGAL The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once (we soon feel ungrateful) or tho... ALAIN BOTTON The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once (we soon feel ungrateful) or tho... ALAIN DE BOTTON Science fiction is the WikiLeaks of science, getting word to the public about what cutting-edge rese... ROBERT J. SAWYER One of the things I like about the Internet is it does force us to realize we're all humans, and... DAVID SZE For me, it's very offensive when I notice that it's all about my appearance, how I look, tha... YULIYA SNIGIR Sometimes we fall, sometimes we stumble, but we can't stay down. We can't allow life to beat... GAIL DEVERS After a lengthy investigation, the violators were identified and charges were filed. It's a great da... DONALD GARNER We go to Europe, and they think we're totally prejudiced 'cause we hang the bars and stripes... JOHNNY VAN ZANT Sustainability is a seemingly laudable goal - it tells us we need to live within our means, whether ... JAMAIS CASCIO Science fiction has always been a means for political comment. H.G. Wells' 'The War of the W... ROBERT J. SAWYER A good novel is something that challenges perception, that allows you to see the world anew through ... JUSTIN CARTWRIGHT We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to ... ANGELINA JOLIE One doesn't soon forget the natural beauty of Washington, although those of us who live here do ... KATHARINE GRAHAM We all have those things that help us carry on through life. It is important that these things upon ... L.M. BROWNING When I was working on 'Men of Honor' with Robert De Niro, there's a pipe that he has in ... GEORGE TILLMAN, JR. Those of us who lived in Washington, whether as journalists or as politicians or as lobbyists, [know... DOTTY LYNCH For our state, in terms of the image that it allows us to project, it really is a shot of confidence... JON HUNTSMAN The truth is that stress doesn't come from your boss, your kids, your spouse, traffic jams, heal... ANDREW J. BERNSTEIN Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good it is to control the mind.... GAUTAMA BUDDHA I don't know much about politics, but you have to look at it with the bigger picture and think w... MO FARAH Again, I am surprised why people seek to eliminate lust and cling to love; as they wish to ignore ha... C. JOYBELL C. You've got some very powerful countries: Poland, the United Kingdom, Sweden and others who have ... NICK CLEGG Those who find no humor in faith are probably those who find the church a refuge for their own black... CHARLES M. SCHULZ It's good to have a manager who shares your interests, or goals. You can presumably trust a husb... DOROTHY STRATTEN Writers of historical fiction are not under the same obligation as historians to find evidence for t... BARRY UNSWORTH One thing I like about Zen. It doesn't believe in achievement. AGNES MARTIN We are all artists in everything we do. Art is creating; it is our link that makes us like god. All ... BETHANY JANE ANDREWS HOEY Science fiction has done a really good job of scaring us into thinking that computers shouldn't ... LUIS VON AHN In foreign policy, there are times when speaking with one voice - and it doesn't have to be mine... CATHERINE ASHTON I'm an avid reader. Novels, non-fiction, comics, it doesn't matter. Best way in the world to... REID SCOTT I feel like science fiction can get a bad rap sometimes because people make something just to throw ... DREW ROY We are always interested in feedback from the student, whether positive or negative. This allows us ... BARBARA HINDMAN Adapting to our Second Adulthood is not all about the money. It requires thinking about how to find ... GAIL SHEEHY Everything in this life passes away — only God remains, only He is worth struggling towards. We ha... SERAPHIM ROSE I think there is something for all of us where you find a balance in your life, where you feel that ... WENDIE MALICK Music doesn't really require whether the person's a young person or old person for whatever ... LEON REDBONE I don't really care how the Patriots are perceived, truthfully. I really don't. I really don... TOM BRADY I think his versatility is great for us and allows us to do different things. So at this point in or... ANDY MURRAY And for those of us from communities with historic collective trauma, we must understand that each o... WALIDAH IMARISHA For us tall people, the whole key is that your hips and your knees should form a right angle when yo... PHIL JACKSON Heroes in drama are people who try hard to reach a virtuous ideal. And whether they succeed or fail ... AARON SORKIN Science Fiction is not just about the future of space ships travelling to other planets, it is ficti... JEAN M. AUEL My dad actually makes the best cookies. My mum is great baker, too, but doesn't share them - it&... BLAKE LIVELY When sighted people cover their eyes or find themselves in a dark place, this is something that'... ROSEMARY MAHONEY What it tells us about the desert is that this is a great place to go and look for really interestin... BRIAN LANOIL It doesn't matter the kind of music, it doesn't matter whether it's a cowboy hat or a ya... DAVID LEE ROTH The disturbing truth about science communication is that we have theories and ways of delivering mes... KYLE HILL I hate big government, but I really hate a government that doesn't work. So when 'they say w... SCOTT WALKER
More Virginia Postrel
Cable companies aren't bad because they're parts of unwieldy media conglomerates. They'r... VIRGINIA POSTREL Our demand for good looks, expressed in the biting comments that ensue when public figures fall shor... VIRGINIA POSTREL Scientists appear most often in horror movies. Through childlike curiosity or God-defying hubris, th... VIRGINIA POSTREL Glamour invites us to live in a different world. It has to simultaneously be mysterious, a little bi... VIRGINIA POSTREL The mere existence of 'Buffy' proves the declinists wrong about one thing: Hollywood commerc... VIRGINIA POSTREL As a general rule, durable-goods production tends to be the most volatile sector of the economy. Sin... VIRGINIA POSTREL The biggest threat to a better life is the desire to keep the future under control - to make the wor... VIRGINIA POSTREL Kidney disease is a low-profile, unglamorous problem, a disease that disproportionately strikes mino... VIRGINIA POSTREL When Baby Boomer women started choosing hotel-like birthing centers over hospital delivery rooms, ho... VIRGINIA POSTREL As borrowers, we may feel guilty about running up debt, anxious about making payments, and resentful... VIRGINIA POSTREL A world of few choices, whether in jeans or mates, is a world in which individual differences become... VIRGINIA POSTREL Rich people in poor places want to show off their wealth. And their less affluent counterparts feel ... VIRGINIA POSTREL Americans born since World War II have grown up in a media-saturated environment. From childhood, we... VIRGINIA POSTREL The impulse for personal adornment is hard to stamp out. VIRGINIA POSTREL The goal of socialism is a fairer allocation of economic resources, which its advocates often claim ... VIRGINIA POSTREL Socialism is about claims of justice, and it is also about money: about wealth, income, physical and... VIRGINIA POSTREL Average Americans order nonfat decaf iced vanilla lattes at Starbucks and choose from 1,500 drawer p... VIRGINIA POSTREL When 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' premiered on the WB Network in 1996, American culture was in... VIRGINIA POSTREL Before it became a ubiquitous part of urban life, Starbucks was, in most American cities, a radicall... VIRGINIA POSTREL The glamour of twentieth-century air travel helped to persuade once-fearful travelers to take to the... VIRGINIA POSTREL The glamour of air travel - its aspirational meaning in the public imagination - disappeared before ... VIRGINIA POSTREL From the days of biplanes and silk scarves, the aviator has been the archetype of masculine glamour.... VIRGINIA POSTREL The Dallas model, prominent in the South and Southwest, sees a growing population as a sign of urban... VIRGINIA POSTREL Clothing creates the illusion that bodies fit an aesthetically pleasing norm. And that illusion depe... VIRGINIA POSTREL Persuasion has become a kind of force. The more the advertiser knows about what consumers want, and ... VIRGINIA POSTREL In Shakespeare's world, characters cannot trust their senses. Is the ghost in Hamlet true and tr... VIRGINIA POSTREL Most of us cluster somewhere in the middle of most statistical distributions. But there are lots of ... VIRGINIA POSTREL We are material creatures who spend much of our lives on material pursuits (even building a cathedra... VIRGINIA POSTREL Society needs both parents and nonparents, both the work party and the home party. While raising chi... VIRGINIA POSTREL European nations began World War I with a glamorous vision of war, only to be psychologically shatte... VIRGINIA POSTREL If you default on your Visa bill, nobody comes to repossess your refrigerator or auction off your sh... VIRGINIA POSTREL Glamour is an imaginative process that creates a specific emotional response: a sharp mixture of pro... VIRGINIA POSTREL Like the skyscraper, the automobile, and the motion-picture palace, neon signs once symbolized popul... VIRGINIA POSTREL Cosmetics makers have always sold 'hope in a jar' - creams and potions that promise youth, b... VIRGINIA POSTREL Chains do more than bargain down prices from suppliers or divide fixed costs across a lot of units. ... VIRGINIA POSTREL The SAT is not perfect. We all know smart, knowledgeable people who do badly on standardized tests. ... VIRGINIA POSTREL The elements that create glamour are not specific styles - bias-cut gowns or lacquered furniture - b... VIRGINIA POSTREL Airline glamour never promised anything as mundane as elbow room, much less a flat bed, a massage, o... VIRGINIA POSTREL 'Frankenstein' did not invent the fear of science; the novel found its audience because it d... VIRGINIA POSTREL The Internet exposes a diversity of opinion, experience, and taste we'd been led to believe didn... VIRGINIA POSTREL Barack Obama has brought glamour back to American politics - not the faux glamour-by-association of ... VIRGINIA POSTREL We've gone from a world in which Starbucks set a cutting-edge standard for mass-market design to... VIRGINIA POSTREL Viewers don't care how big media companies are. They care whether they can dump those they don... VIRGINIA POSTREL Kidney donors don't have to be close relatives of recipients, but they do need to have the right... VIRGINIA POSTREL 'The Matrix' is a movie that is all about glamour. I could do a whole talk on 'The Matri... VIRGINIA POSTREL Living with a single kidney is almost exactly like living with two; the remaining kidney expands to ... VIRGINIA POSTREL The evergreen story of people in debt becomes even sexier in an economic downturn, when debts inevit... VIRGINIA POSTREL Though designed as a mere convenience, clothing sizes establish an unintended norm, an ideal from wh... VIRGINIA POSTREL In post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America, skeptical voters demand full disclosure of everything from ... VIRGINIA POSTREL With its fluctuating forms and needless decoration, fashion epitomizes the supposedly unproductive w... VIRGINIA POSTREL By reshaping or decorating our outer selves, we express our inner sense of self: 'I like that... VIRGINIA POSTREL Behind the criticism of fashion as an artistic medium is a highly ideological prejudice: against mar... VIRGINIA POSTREL 'CSI' has not only remained a top-rated show through seven seasons; it has had real-world co... VIRGINIA POSTREL Standardized sizes made inexpensive, off-the-rack garments economically feasible. They gave shoppers... VIRGINIA POSTREL Although people often equate them, glamour is not the same as beauty, stylishness, luxury, celebrity... VIRGINIA POSTREL Grassroots techies - the mostly unknown people who write code and start companies that don't mak... VIRGINIA POSTREL Like the 'test tube babies' born of in vitro fertilization, cloned children need not be iden... VIRGINIA POSTREL On the Net, the bell curve reclaims its tails. The uncommon is as accessible as the common. The very... VIRGINIA POSTREL Like John Kennedy in 1960, Obama combines youth, vigor, and good looks with the promise of political... VIRGINIA POSTREL Glamour is a beautiful illusion - the word 'glamour' originally meant a literal magic spell ... VIRGINIA POSTREL Religion, art, and science flourish best in a free society. True, freedom does not afford much oppor... VIRGINIA POSTREL The Internet ethos of diversity and competition runs exactly counter to uniform, gatekeeper-oriented... VIRGINIA POSTREL The children who are 'our future' will inherit a world created not just by parental devotion... VIRGINIA POSTREL Neon signs don't consume much power, but they look like they do. A cousin of fluorescent lightin... VIRGINIA POSTREL The growth of medical expenditures in the U.S. is not caused by administrative costs but by increase... VIRGINIA POSTREL When I was in college, I wanted to be editor of 'Reason' when I grew up. It was an impractic... VIRGINIA POSTREL A standard 'well woman' checkup can last as little as 10 minutes, hardly time for any in-dep... VIRGINIA POSTREL Apple doesn't need to maximize book sales. It simply needs to keep publishers happy enough to ma... VIRGINIA POSTREL The low point for neon came in 1982, when Holiday Inn did away with its signature 'Great Sign,... VIRGINIA POSTREL Internet pharmacies return to consumers the choice promised by supporters of the 1938 Food, Drug and... VIRGINIA POSTREL What makes a loft authentic isn't its layout or its history but its ability to give people a tru... VIRGINIA POSTREL Clothes are unique sculptures, dependent on a supporting human form and created to move. VIRGINIA POSTREL Loft living is the antithesis of suburban domesticity, if only because the open spaces don't eas... VIRGINIA POSTREL More than two decades after the birth of Louise Brown, and all the hysteria that surrounded her '... VIRGINIA POSTREL Like the rest of the genetic lottery, beauty is unfair. Everyone falls short of perfection, but some... VIRGINIA POSTREL The Elgin Marbles were supposed to be on the Parthenon. For many works of art, a museum is an artifi... VIRGINIA POSTREL By binding image and desire, glamour gives us pleasure, even as it heightens our yearning. It leads ... VIRGINIA POSTREL Through the 1990s, 'Reason' was a voice of 'dissident feminism,' upholding the equal... VIRGINIA POSTREL America is a mosaic not of groups but of individuals, each of whom carries a host of cultural influe... VIRGINIA POSTREL Cinema isn't just a good medium for translating graphic novels. It's specifically a good med... VIRGINIA POSTREL The Taliban outlawed wearing polish in the late 1990s, punishing some offenders by amputating a fing... VIRGINIA POSTREL The definition of an 'operating system' is bound to evolve with customer demands and technol... VIRGINIA POSTREL As discomfiting as it is to both market optimists and policy activists, a certain amount of instabil... VIRGINIA POSTREL There's a popular saying that the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.... VIRGINIA POSTREL The intimate contest for self-command never ends, and lifetime happiness requires finding the right ... VIRGINIA POSTREL For designers, the rigidity of an alphabet presents a never-ending artistic challenge: How do you do... VIRGINIA POSTREL We know beauty when we see it, and our reactions are remarkably consistent. Beauty is not just a soc... VIRGINIA POSTREL In the fall of 1978, I left the religious, conservative, biracial, slow-paced culture of South Carol... VIRGINIA POSTREL The profusion of fonts is one more product of the digital revolution. Beginning in the mid-'80s ... VIRGINIA POSTREL In a media culture, we not only judge strangers by how they look but by the images of how they look.... VIRGINIA POSTREL Traditional PCs face competition from specialty products like Palm Pilots and from the servers that ... VIRGINIA POSTREL Rising living standards - whether in a village, a region, a nation, or the world - depend first on s... VIRGINIA POSTREL Fit experts envision a future in which you'd carry your body scan in your cell phone or on a thu... VIRGINIA POSTREL Y2K hype taps our native discomfort with the realities of a dynamic, evolving social order. It eleva... VIRGINIA POSTREL Glamour is all about transcending this world and getting to an idealized, perfect place. And this is... VIRGINIA POSTREL A lot of consumers actively enjoy advertising, especially fashion print ads and clever TV commercial... VIRGINIA POSTREL Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. VIRGINIA WOOLF Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in c... VIRGINIA WOOLF To have a successful writing career, you must be willing to sacrifice a great deal. The book, the de... VIRGINIA HENLEY We have a responsibility to help those around us and help others in need. VIRGINIA WILLIAMS One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as w... VIRGINIA WOOLF Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends c... VIRGINIA WOOLF I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It exp... VIRGINIA WOOLF Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and t... VIRGINIA WOOLF Really I don't like human nature unless all candied over with art. VIRGINIA WOOLF Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded. VIRGINIA WOOLF It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality. VIRGINIA WOOLF Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is writ... VIRGINIA WOOLF As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world. VIRGINIA WOOLF So much is asked of parents, and so little is given. VIRGINIA SATIR We must not allow other people's limited perceptions to define us. VIRGINIA SATIR Life is not what it's supposed to be. It's what it is. The way you cope with it is what make... VIRGINIA SATIR Problems are not the problem; coping is the problem. VIRGINIA SATIR There is an abundance of misinformation, exaggeration, and blatant lies being spread by interest gro... VIRGINIA FOXX It was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the human apparatus for painting or... VIRGINIA WOOLF The interest in life does not lie in what people do, nor even in their relations to each other, but ... VIRGINIA WOOLF So the days pass, and I ask myself whether one is not hypnotized, as a child by a silver globe, by l... VIRGINIA WOOLF For love... has two faces; one white, the other black; two bodies; one smooth, the other hairy. It h... VIRGINIA WOOLF Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all ... VIRGINIA WOOLF All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point VIRGINIA WOOLF Novels so often provide an anodyne and not an antidote, glide one into torpid slumbers instead of ro... VIRGINIA WOOLF Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written ... VIRGINIA WOOLF I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again -- as I always am when I... VIRGINIA WOOLF We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print. VIRGINIA WOOLF I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen by them, heard by the... VIRGINIA SATIR Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death! VIRGINIA WOOLF It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entir... VIRGINIA WOOLF The older one grows, the more one likes indecency. VIRGINIA WOOLF Now, aged 50, I'm just poised to shoot forth quite free straight and undeflected my bolts whatever t... VIRGINIA WOOLF At 46 one must be a miser; only have time for essentials. VIRGINIA WOOLF These are the soul's changes. I don't believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one's aspect t... VIRGINIA WOOLF It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top. VIRGINIA WOOLF I hope Britney doesn't get bummed out that Lindsey is a better singer. It is not Lindsey saying ... VIRGINIA MADSEN If we help an educated man's daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not abo... VIRGINIA WOOLF Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others. VIRGINIA WOOLF My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring... VIRGINIA WOOLF We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by fi... VIRGINIA WOOLF I feel certain that I'm going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times.... VIRGINIA WOOLF As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world. VIRGINIA WOOLF What is amusing now had to be taken in desperate earnest once. VIRGINIA WOOLF It's not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it's the way people look and... VIRGINIA WOOLF I always felt that I hadn't achieved what I wanted to achieve. I always felt I could get better. Tha... VIRGINIA WADE My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery --always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring... VIRGINIA WOOLF It would be a thousand pities if women wrote like men, or lived like men, or looked like men, for if... VIRGINIA WOOLF If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure -- the relationship so secret and private compa... VIRGINIA WOOLF Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of... VIRGINIA WOOLF Why are women so much more interesting to men than men are to women? VIRGINIA WOOLF All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority an... VIRGINIA WOOLF Different though the sexes are, they inter-mix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to t... VIRGINIA WOOLF But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking? The entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in,... VIRGINIA WOOLF It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handlin... VIRGINIA WOOLF Really I don't like human nature unless all candied over with art. VIRGINIA WOOLF Inevitably we look upon society, so kind to you, so harsh to us, as an ill-fitting form that distort... VIRGINIA WOOLF Every face, every shop, bedroom window, public-house, and dark square is a picture feverishly turned... VIRGINIA WOOLF The current flows fast and furious. It issues in a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the poli... VIRGINIA WOOLF That great Cathedral space which was childhood. VIRGINIA WOOLF The word-coining genius, as if thought plunged into a sea of words and came up dripping. VIRGINIA WOOLF Young women... you are, in my opinion, disgracefully ignorant. You have never made a discovery of an... VIRGINIA WOOLF Therefore if you insist upon fighting to protect me, or VIRGINIA WOOLF Our brave soldiers and support personnel are engaged in a battle as important as any the United Stat... VIRGINIA FOXX Fly high... Where the only chill that cuts through you is the wind. Where your heart pounds from exh... VIRGINIA ALISON When the body escaped mutilation, seldom did the heart go to the grave unscarred. VIRGINIA WOOLF We all indulge in the strange, pleasant process called thinking, but when it comes to saying, even t... VIRGINIA WOOLF Somewhere, everywhere, now hidden, now apparent in what ever is written down, is the form of a human... VIRGINIA WOOLF The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to fol... VIRGINIA WOOLF If we help an educated man's daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about e... VIRGINIA WOOLF A masterpiece is something said once and for all, stated, finished, so that it's there complete in t... VIRGINIA WOOLF One likes people much better when they're battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than whe... VIRGINIA WOOLF The poet gives us his essence, but prose takes the mold of the body and mind. VIRGINIA WOOLF Boredom is the legitimate kingdom of the philanthropic. VIRGINIA WOOLF It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with... VIRGINIA WOOLF To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves. VIRGINIA WOOLF Henry James seems most entirely in his element, doing that is to say what everything favors his doin... VIRGINIA WOOLF No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself. VIRGINIA WOOLF As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking. VIRGINIA WOOLF When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me I am in darkness—I am nothing. VIRGINIA WOOLF If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. VIRGINIA WOOLF I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It exp... VIRGINIA WOOLF Books are the mirrors of the soul. VIRGINIA WOOLF I will not be "famous," "great." I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, re... VIRGINIA WOOLF To depend upon a profession is a less odious form of slavery than to depend upon a father. VIRGINIA WOOLF Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the... VIRGINIA WOOLF Orlando naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel himself for ever and ever and ever ... VIRGINIA WOOLF Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the... VIRGINIA WOOLF Melancholy were the sounds on a winter's night. VIRGINIA WOOLF Women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems. VIRGINIA WOOLF The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages. VIRGINIA WOOLF Yet Byron never made tea as you do, who fill the pot so that when you put the lid on the tea spills ... VIRGINIA WOOLF Just in case you ever foolishly forget; I'm never not thinking of you. VIRGINIA WOOLF One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well. VIRGINIA WOOLF Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of... VIRGINIA WOOLF A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her c... VIRGINIA WOOLF The connection between dress and war is not far to seek; your finest clothes are those you wear as s... VIRGINIA WOOLF But it is just when opinions universally prevail and we have added lip service to their authority th... VIRGINIA WOOLF The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only... VIRGINIA WOOLF Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do. VIRGINIA WOOLF There can be no two opinions as to what a highbrow is. He is the man or woman of thoroughbred intell... VIRGINIA WOOLF I am to be broken. I am to be derided all my life. I am to be cast up and down among these men and w... VIRGINIA WOOLF I ransack public libraries, and find them full of sunk treasure. VIRGINIA WOOLF Thus when I come to shape here at this table between my hands the story of my life and set it before... VIRGINIA WOOLF