Mrs.Dalloway

she survived, Peter survived, lived in each other, she being part, she was positive, of the trees at home; of the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; part of people she had never met

Much rather would she have been one of those people like Richard who did things for themselves, whereas, she thought, waiting to cross, half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that

She could see what she lacked. It was not beauty; it was not mind. It was something central which permeated; something warm which broke up surfaces and rippled the cold contact of man and woman, or of women together.

She sat on the floor--that was her first impression of Sally--she sat on the floor with her arms round her knees, smoking a cigarette.

Her maids had too much to do. She would wear it to-night. She would take her silks, her scissors, her--what was it?--her thimble, of course, down into the drawing-room, for she must also write, and see that things generally were more or less in order.

Now the brass knob slipped. Now the door opened, and in came--for a single second she could not remember what he was called!

she looked at Peter Walsh; her look, passing through all that time and that emotion, reached him doubtfully; settledon him tearfully; and rose and fluttered away, as a bird touches a branch and rises and flutters away. Quite simply she wiped her eyes.

The sound of Big Ben striking the half-hour struck out between them with extraordinary vigour, as if a young man, strong, indifferent, inconsiderate, were swinging dumb-bells this way and that.

The way she said "Here is my Elizabeth!" --that annoyed him. Why not "Here's Elizabeth" simply? It was insincere.And Elizabeth didn't like it either.

As a cloud crosses the sun, silence falls on London; and falls on the mind. Effort ceases. Time flaps on the mast.There we stop; there we stand. Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame.

Still at his age he had, like a boy or a girl even, these alternations of mood; good days, bad days, for no reason whatever, happiness from a pretty face, downright misery at the sight of a frump.

Newspapers seemed different.Now for instance there was a man writing quite openly in one of the respectable weeklies about water-closets.That you couldn't have done ten years ago--written quite openly about water-closets in a respectable weekly.

As we are a doomed race, chained to a sinking ship (her favourite reading as a girl was Huxley and Tyndall, and they were fond of these nautical metaphors), as the whole thing is a bad joke, let us, at any rate, do our part

A terrible confession it was (he put his hat on again), but now, at the age of fifty-three one scarcely needed people any more. Life itself, every moment of it, every drop of it, here, this instant, now, in the sun, in Regent's Park, was enough.

a whimpering, snivelling old ass

the passing generations--the pavement was crowded with bustling middle-class people--vanished, like leaves, to be trodden under, to be soaked and steeped and made mould of by that eternal spring

Septimus was one of the first to volunteer.He went to France to save an England which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare's plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress walking in a square.

It might be possible, Septimus thought, looking at England from the train window, as they left Newhaven; it might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.

the ghostly helper, the priest of science

He had committed an appalling crime and been condemned to death by human nature. "I have--I have," he began, "committed a crime--" "He has done nothing wrong whatever," Rezia assured the doctor.

"Nobody lives for himself alone," said Sir William, glancing at the photograph of his wife in Court dress.

But Proportion has a sister

Goodness knows he didn't want to go buying necklaces with Hugh. But there are tides in the body. Morning meets afternoon.

All of which seemed to Richard Dalloway awfully odd. For he never gave Clarissa presents, except a bracelet two or three years ago, which had not been a success. She never wore it. It pained him to remember that she never wore it.

not for years had they spoken of it; which, he thought, grasping his red and white roses together (a vast bunch in tissue paper), is the greatest mistakein the world.

Here he was walking across London to say to Clarissa in so many words that he loved her. Which one never does say, he thought. Partly one's lazy; partly one's shy.

but he liked being ruled by the descendant of Horsa; he liked continuity; and the sense of handing on the traditions of the past.It was a great age in which tohave lived.

all she could say was (and nobody could be expected to understand): They're an offering; which sounded horribly vague.

But why should she have to suffer when other women, like Clarissa Dalloway, escaped? Knowledge comes through suffering, said Mr. Whittaker.

she barred her eyes with her fingers and tried in this double darkness, for the light in the Abbey was bodiless, to aspire above the vanities, the desires, the commodities, to rid herself both of hatred and of love.