Odder still how possessed I am with the feeling that now, aged 50, I’m just poised to shoot forth quite free straight and undeflected my bolts whatever they are. Therefore all this flitter flutter of weekly newspapers interests me not at all. These are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism. And to alter now, cleanly and sanely, I want to shuffle off this loose living randomness: people; reviews; fame; all the glittering scales; and be withdrawn, and concentrated.
~ Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary
Credits: Quote – Brainpickings: Virginia Woolf on the Paradox of the Soul and the Consolatios of Aging. Photograph: j’aime juste la photo
Reblogged this on Toward the within….
Thanks for sharing Diedre.
My pleasure 🙂
I’m no Virginia Woolf, but turning 50 has been strangely liberating for me as well. Feel like I’m beginning to hit my stride. 😉
So good! 🙂
Ditto what Lori said.
There is something about aging that is freeing though I haven’t gotten to the point yet where I don’t worry about it. Thanks for sharing this wonderful quote.
Lulu, I feel exactly the same way. Exactly.
I like the quote but it must be read with the knowledge that Virginia Woolf, at the age of only 59, could no longer find the sun.
Yes Elizabeth. I’m taking her POV and the beauty of her words, and veering in the opposite direction from her path. And straight for the Sun.
I too, do not believe in aging.
i love this and have embraced it more each day that i live. a distillation of the soul, and the rest falls away.
“…and the rest falls away” – love that….thanks Beth
and that is why i love Virginia Woolf so much
I need to dig in to some of her writing. Any recommendations of where to start?
i’ve only read a few but ‘to the lighthouse'(her 1927 novel) is definitely something special.
Or if your an obsessive like me and like origins you could pick up her biography,she was as much an eccentric writer as she was a person,reading about her agonies will help in deciphering her work.Her 1928 novel ‘Orlando:a biography’ would be a great place to start.
Happy reading
Thank you. I appreciate the recommendations.
I love some of the things Virginia Wolf had to say, and this is so good. She obviously didn’t like the frivolous side of life, and I don’t blame her. I didn’t know she got to her 50’s though, thought she died in a her late 40’s. Just looked her up and it seems she reached 59. Learned something today!
Ah, I didn’t know that either. Thanks for sharing Suzy.