What a born melancholiac I am! The only way I keep afloat is by working. Directly I stop working I feel that I am sinking down, down. And as usual, I… - Virginia Woolf

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Engraved portrait of Virginia Woolf, facing right

What a born melancholiac I am! The only way I keep afloat is by working. Directly I stop working I feel that I am sinking down, down. And as usual, I feel that if I sink further I shall reach the truth. That is the only mitigation; a kind of nobility. Solemnity. Work, reading, writing, are all disguising; and relations with other people. Yes, even having children wold be useless.

English
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About Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf (25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941), born Adeline Virginia Stephen, was a British writer who is considered to be one of the foremost modernist/feminist literary figures of the twentieth century.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Birth Name: Adeline Virginia Stephen Adeline Virginia Alexandra Stephen
Alternative Names: Virginia Stephen Adeline Virginia Woolf Virginia Adeline Woolf Adeline Virginia Stephen Woolf Virginia Stephen Woolf Adeline Virginia Alexandra Woolf

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Additional quotes by Virginia Woolf

Our friends, how seldom visited, how little known — it is true; and yet, when I meet an unknown person, and try to break off, here at this table, what I call “my life”, it is not one life that I look back upon; I am not one person; I am many people; I do not altogether know who I am — Jinny, Susan, Neville, Rhoda, or Louis; or how to distinguish my life from theirs.

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