It is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: ‘This is what happened’; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened.
— Virginia Woolf
About this Quote
Quote in Context
Here I come to one of the memoir writer’s difficulties — one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: ‘This is what happened’; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened. Who was I then? Adeline Virginia Stephen, the second daughter of Leslie and Julia Prinsep Stephen, born on 25th January 1882, descended from a great many people, some famous, others obscure; born into a large connection, born not of rich parents, but of well-to-do parents, born into a very communicative, literate, letter writing, visiting, articulate, late nineteenth century world.
Quote Source Information
• "A Sketch of the Past" (written 1939, published posthumously)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Virginia Woolf" (Quotes)
About this Picture
Name: Woolf by Beresford 3
Summary: This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer.
Description: English: Portrait of Virginia Woolf by George Charles Beresford Deutsch: Die zwanzigjährige Virginia Woolf, fotografiert von George Charles Beresford
Date: 1902
Source: Insight
Author: George Charles Beresford (1864–1938)
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