Monday, February 18, 2013

'Thought and life are as the poles asunder.'

Life, it has been agreed by everyone whose opinion is worth consulting, is the only fit subject for novelist or biographer; life, the same authorities have decided, has nothing whatever to do with sitting still in a chair and thinking. Thought and life are as the poles asunder. . . . Orlando sat so still that you could have heard a pin drop. Would, indeed, that a pin had dropped! That would have been life of a kind.
Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)

2 comments:

  1. I've been enjoying these quotes from "Orlando," Matt. I don't know if you read Arts & Letters Daily, but they linked to an article on the novel this morning: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/culture/2013/02/shape-shifter-joyous-transgressions-virginia-woolf%E2%80%99s-orlando

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    1. Thanks for the link, Kyle! I look forward to reading it. I really should bookmark that Arts & Letters site.

      Also, finished "Orlando" over the weekend and loved it, if these quotes didn't make that clear. I recommend it.

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