1. “Nothing could be seen except the wave-lights themselves breaking and the white spray lifting and falling
2. “The fact is, he thought, she is charming in her way.”
3. “It was necessary to work slowly and gradually, to watch the ripening of her emotion.”
4. “One wanted fifty pairs of eyes to see with, she reflected.”
5. “She thought, how strange it was that one should be sitting here, alive, she breathed in the air, and look! There was nobody! What did that mean? And why did she feel, somehow, relieved?”
6. “It was his fate to stand in the midst of that howling storm of human souls, bound to them all by his love.”
7. “It was one of those moments when things are given one’s undivided attention.”
8. “The only way to escape the tedium of life was to travel, to visit strange places, to meet new people.”
9. “To want and not to have, sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain.”
10. “But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave.”
11. “In those days she was, as she put it, giving parties, or trying to, for it was difficult to decide whom to ask, and whom not to ask.”
12. “What she loved was this, here, now, in front of her; the fat lady in the cab.”
13. “She had now seen the universe, and seen it not as something remote from herself, but as something belonging to her and to all mankind.”
14. “What does one live for? Why, one asks oneself, does one take all the trouble to put oneself forward, to make oneself conspicuous?”
15. “People go on marrying because they want to find someone who will make them feel special. And because they think that, after a while, they will have succeeded.”
16. “In that flash she saw behind the pattern of the world, the presence which was its substance.”
17. “It was true that she had said, on coming down to the beach, that she was not thinking of him.”
18. “To him she was perfection itself.”
19. “The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude.”
20. “They would be always there, she thought, up in the sky, since the sky was like a glass globe, and the world below it was their toy.”
21. “With her foot on the threshold she paused a moment. She listened to the wind, now rising, now falling, and mingling with the roar of the waves.”
22. “How many times have I stood like this, in a doorway, and watched her walk away?”
23. “But she had not that gift, which, he remembered his father saying, characterized his own mind, a gift that came to women very seldom.”
24. “So with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming on the roof, a downpouring of immense darkness began.”
25. “Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.”
26. “In the midst of chaos, there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing was struck into stability.”
27. “There is a sense in which we are all each other’s conscience, and there is a sense in which we are not.”
28. “She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.”
29. “He had no self-consciousness in love; it was the object that absorbed him.”
30. “It was not knowledge, but unity, that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge.”
31. “It was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the human apparatus for painting or for feeling; it always broke down at the critical moment; heroically, one must force it on.”
32. “What she loved was this, here, now, in front of her; the fat lady in the cab.”
33. “The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.”
34. “What is the meaning of life? That was all — a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.”
(Summary)
To the Lighthouse is a novel by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1927. The novel is set in the early 20th century and is divided into three parts. The first part, “The Window,” is set in the summer of 1910 and focuses on the Ramsay family, who are spending their holiday on the Isle of Skye. The central character is Mrs. Ramsay, a kind and gentle woman who is devoted to her family. The second part, “Time Passes,” covers the years between the two World Wars and focuses on the decay of the Ramsay’s holiday home. The third part, “The Lighthouse,” takes place ten years after the first part and follows the Ramsay family as they return to the Isle of Skye.
The novel explores themes of time, memory, and the nature of art. The first part focuses on the relationships between the members of the Ramsay family and their guests. Mrs. Ramsay’s attempts to bring together her son James and her friend Lily Briscoe are a central focus of the narrative. The second part of the novel is set during the war years and describes the decay and eventual destruction of the Ramsay’s holiday home. The third part of the novel is a reflection on the past and the characters’ attempts to reconcile themselves to their memories.
Throughout the novel, Woolf employs a modernist narrative style, using stream of consciousness and multiple narrators. The novel’s exploration of subjective perception and the fluidity of time are key aspects of its modernist style. The novel is considered one of Woolf’s most important works and is regarded as a landmark of modernist literature. It has been adapted into several film and stage adaptations, including a 1983 BBC television production.
