“And you wish to be a poet; and you wish to be a lover.”

“You wish to be a poet; you wish to be a lover. But the splendid clarity of your intelligence, and the remorseless honestly of your intellect bring you to a halt.”

“I always wish that you could marry everybody who wants to marry you.”

“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”

“Leonard Woolf: If I didn't know you better I'd call this ingratitude. Virginia Woolf: I am ungrateful? You call ME ungrateful? My life has been stolen from me. I'm living in a town I have no wish to live in... I'm living a life I have no wish to live... How did this happen?”

“The flower bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice.”

“She had influenced him more than any person he had ever known. And always in this way coming before him without his wishing it, cool, ladylike, critical; or ravishing, romantic.”