“Margaret Ll. Davies writes that Janet is dying and will I write on her for The Times – a curious thought, rather: as if it mattered who wrote, or not. But this flooded me with the idea of Janet yesterday. I think writing, my writing, is a species of mediumship. I become the person.”

Entry of 11 July 1937, in A Writer's Diary (1953)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Margaret Ll. Davies writes that Janet is dying and will I write on her for The Times – a curious thought, rather: as if…" by Virginia Woolf?
Virginia Woolf photo
Virginia Woolf 382
English writer 1882–1941

Related quotes

Grover Cleveland photo

“I feel as if it were time for me to write to someone who will believe what I write.”

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) 22nd and 24th president of the United States

Letter to his brother Rev. William N. Cleveland (7 November 1882); published in The Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland (1892), p. 534.
Context: I feel as if it were time for me to write to someone who will believe what I write.
I have been for some time in the atmosphere of certain success, so that I have been sure that I should assume the duties of the high office for which I have been named. I have tried hard, in the light of this fact, to appreciate properly the responsibilities that will rest upon me, and they are much, too much underestimated. But the thought that has troubled me is, can I well perform my duties, and in such a manner as to do some good to the people of the State? I know there is room for it, and I know that I am honest and sincere in my desire to do well; but the question is whether I know enough to accomplish what I desire.
The social life which seems to await me has also been a subject of much anxious thought. I have a notion that I can regulate that very much as I desire; and, if I can, I shall spend very little time in the purely ornamental part of the office. In point of fact, I will tell you, first of all others, the policy I intend to adopt, and that is, to make the matter a business engagement between the people of the State and myself, in which the obligation on my side is to perform the duties assigned me with an eye single to the interest of my employers. I shall have no idea of re-election, or any higher political preferment in my head, but be very thankful and happy I can serve one term as the people's Governor.

Ellen G. White photo
Anne Morrow Lindbergh photo
Anne Rice photo
William McGonagall photo
Joey Comeau photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Jamaica Kincaid photo

“Everything I do is because of writing. If I go for a walk, it’s because I’m thinking of writing. I go look at flowers, I go look at the garden, I go look at a museum, but it’s all coming back to writing. I don’t really do anything that isn’t about writing, and I don’t really know who I am if I’m not thinking about writing.”

Jamaica Kincaid (1949) Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer

On her obsession with writing in “Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?” https://www.guernicamag.com/does-truth-have-a-tone/ in Guernica (2013 Jun 17)

Clive Staples Lewis photo

“I wrote the books I should have liked to read. That's always been my reason for writing. People won't write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

As quoted in C.S. Lewis (1963), by Roger Lancelyn Green, p. 9

Jim Butcher photo

“When I finally got tired of arguing with her and decided to write a novel as if I was some kind of formulaic, genre writing drone, just to prove to her how awful it would be, I wrote the first book of the Dresden Files.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

A Conversation With Jim Butcher, The SF Site, McCune, Alisa, 2004, 2008-02-04 http://www.sfsite.com/08b/jb182.htm,

Related topics