“She alone spoke the truth; to her alone could he speak it. That was the source of her everlasting attraction for him, perhaps; she was a person to whom one could say what came into one's head.”

—  Virginia Woolf, book To the Lighthouse

Part III, Ch. 9
To the Lighthouse (1927)

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 "She alone spoke the truth; to her alone could he speak it. That was the source of her everlasting attraction for him, p…" by Virginia Woolf?
Virginia Woolf photo
Virginia Woolf382
English writer 1882–1941

Related quotes

“Then he left her there, standing alone, surrounded by word ghosts; things she could have said.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Firefly Lane

M. K. Hobson photo

“Emily looked at him for a long time. There were so many things she wanted to know—but she wanted not to know them even more. She didn’t want any more answers. He had been the one thing she could trust, the one person she could rely on. She wanted to beg him to be that way again. But it wasn’t him who had changed. It was her. It was her own credulity she really wanted back. And credulity, like virtue, could be lost only once.”

M. K. Hobson book The Native Star

Source: The Native Star (2010), Chapter 17, “The Cockatrice” (p. 237)

Roald Dahl photo

“What she needed was just one person, one wise and sympathetic grown-up who could help her.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

Charles Bukowski photo

“she is no longer
the beautiful woman
she was. she sends
photos of herself
sitting upon a rock
by the ocean
alone and damned.
I could have had
her once. I wonder
if she thinks I
could have
saved her?”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Julia Quinn photo

“She needed him to be him. Even if he could not be hers.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Lost Duke of Wyndham

“She spun, as a matter of form and status alone, her woollen yarn and her oft-breaking thread. What else did she spin? he wondered. And the answer, not spoken aloud, was, a web.
And one that now seemed sure to hold him fast.
To hold him fast indeed.”

Avram Davidson (1923–1993) novelist

Vergil in Averno (1987)

Alexandre Dumas photo

“Eh! sire, that is the fate of truth; she is a stern companion; she bristles all over with steel; she wounds those whom she attacks, and sometimes him who speaks her.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus (The Vicomte de Bragelonne) (1847)

E.M. Forster photo

“But that was only the beginning of her mortification. Harold had proved her wrong. He had seen that she was a shifty, shallow hypocrite. She had not dared to be alone with him since her exposure. She had never looked at him and had hardly spoken. He seemed cheerful, but what was he thinking? He would never forgive her.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Albergo Empedocle
The Life to Come and other stories (1972)

“Her one serious failing was that she could not write above love. She could not write a story with more than one important character in it, whom she thought of for the moment as herself; with love there had to be at least two important characters.”

Laura Riding Jackson (1901–1991) poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer

"Daisy and Venison" from Progress of Stories (Deya, Majorca: Seizin Press; London, Constable, 1935)

Related topics