“I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual”

— Virginia Woolf

Last update Sept. 19, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual" by Virginia Woolf?

Virginia Woolf 382

English writer 1882–1941

Related quotes

“I wasn’t meant for reality, but life came and found me.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.”

Roald Dahl book Boy

Source: Boy: Tales of Childhood

“I think that fantasy must possess the author and simply use him. I know that this is true of A Wrinkle in Time. I can’t possibly tell you how I came to write it. It was simply a book I had to write. I had no choice. And it was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Expanding Universe (1963)
Context: I heard a famous author say once that the hardest part of writing a book was making yourself sit down at the typewriter. I know what he meant. Unless a writer works constantly to improve and refine the tools of his trade they will be useless instruments if and when the moment of inspiration, of revelation, does come. This is the moment when a writer is spoken through, the moment that a writer must accept with gratitude and humility, and then attempt, as best he can, to communicate to others.
A writer of fantasy, fairly tale, or myth must inevitably discover that he is not writing out of his own knowledge or experience, but out of something both deeper and wider. I think that fantasy must possess the author and simply use him. I know that this is true of A Wrinkle in Time. I can’t possibly tell you how I came to write it. It was simply a book I had to write. I had no choice. And it was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant.
Very few children have any problem with the world of the imagination; it’s their own world, the world of their daily life, and it’s our loss that so many of us grow out of it.

“A hundred wise men have said in various ways that love transcends the power of death, and millions of fools have supposed that they meant nothing by it. At this late hour in my life I have learned what they meant. They meant that love transcends death. They are correct.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

"Bed and Breakfast", Dante's Disciples (1995), ed. Edward E. Kramer, Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Strange Travelers (2000), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009)
Fiction