Yet there are moments when the walls of the mind grow thin; when nothing is unabsorbed, and I could fancy that we might blow so vast a bubble that the sun might set and rise in it and we might take the blue of midday and the black of midnight and be cast off and escape from here and now.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Woolf describes rare mental moments where focus is absolute, allowing the imagination to escape time and space completely.
- In plain terms
- Sometimes the mind is so focused you can imagine escaping time and place.
- What can you take from it?
- Seek moments of total mental absorption.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- When do you feel absorbed?
- What do you escape to?
Another view
Such states are rare and hard to sustain in daily life.
More from Virginia Woolf
Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death... others through sheer inability to cross the street.
Permalink to quote #28 I like the copious, shapeless, warm, not so very clever, but extremely easy and rather coarse aspect of things; the talk of men in clubs and public-houses; of …
Permalink to quote #30 Here on this ring of grass we have sat together, bound by the tremendous power of some inner compulsion. The trees wave, the clouds pass. The time approaches w…
Permalink to quote #27
Related quotes
Ophelia's mind went wandering you'd wonder where she'd gone through secret doors down corridors she'd wander them alone
Natalie MerchantNatalie Merchant quote #32 So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon i…
Michel de MontaigneMichel de Montaigne quote #113 It has been my experience that there is no substitute for time where thinking is concerned. Why is it so? The answer seems to be that in many cases to think me…
Eric HofferEric Hoffer quote #138