A Writer's Ruminations

"Is it not possible—I often wonder—that things we have felt with great intensity have an existence independent of our minds; are in fact still in existence? And if so, will it not be possible, in time, that some device will be invented by which we can tap them? I see it—the past—as an avenue lying behind; a long ribbon of scenes, emotions. There at the end of the avenue still, are the garden and the nursery. Instead of remembering here a scene and there a sound, I shall fit a plug into the wall; and listen in to the past. I feel that strong emotion must leave its trace; and it is only a question of discovering how we can get ourselves again attached to it, so that we shall be able to live our lives through from the start."

— Virginia Woolf, Selected Diaries (via violentwavesofemotion)

"I’m writing again and I feel my force glow straight from me at its fullest. I’m better company, more of a human being."

— Virginia Woolf, from a diary entry dated 19 June 1924. (via fuckyeahvirginiawoolf)

"Sometimes I long for a convent cell, with the sublime wisdom of centuries set out on bookshelves all along the wall and a view across the cornfields — there must be cornfields and they must wave in the breeze — and there I would immerse myself in the wisdom of the ages and in myself. Then I might perhaps find peace and clarity. But that would be no great feat. It is right here, in this very place, in the here and the now, that I must find them."

— Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943 (via bookoasis)

(via theredshoes)