A Quote by Virginia Woolf

My mind turned by anxiety, or other cause, from its scrutiny of blank paper, is like a lost child–wandering the house, sitting on the bottom step to cry.

Virginia Woolf

Quote Topics

Anxiety Blank Blank Paper Bottom Cause Child Cry House Like Lost Lost Child Mind Other Paper Scrutiny Sitting Step Turned Wandering

Quote Author

Virginia Woolf
British - Author
January 25, 1882 - March 28, 1941

Several years ago we had an intern who was none too swift. One day he was typing and turned to a secretary and said, "I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?" "Just use copier machine paper," she told him. With that, the intern took his last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five blank copies.

Dave Barry

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.

Neil Gaiman

I cry all the time. It's more like when didn't you cry. My friends are like, 'Oh God, she's sobbing again.' I cry if I'm happy, sad, normal... What really gets me is when I read a sad story about a child in the paper, especially at the moment with my hormones raging.

Sara Cox

Blank paper always symbolizes the anxiety of the painter.

Claude Picasso

Of all false assertions that ever went into the world under the banner of a great name and the mail armor of a well-turned phrase, Locke's comparison of the mind to a blank sheet of paper appears to me among the most untrue.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Every time you look at a blank piece of paper, you're doing something new. You have to step onto that blank territory and remind yourself the sky didn't fall in the last time you wrote. Writing is a question of overcoming your fears-and everybody has them.

William Zinsser

And now my old dog is dead, and another I had after him, and my parents are dead, and that first world, that old house, is sold and lost, and the books I gathered there lost, or sold- but more books bought, and in another place, board by board and stone by stone, like a house, a true life built, and all because I was steadfast about one or two things: loving foxes, and poems, the blank piece of paper, and my own energy- and mostly the shimmering shoulders of the world that shrug carelessly over the fate of any individual that they may, the better, keep the Niles and Amazons flowing.

Mary Oliver

For me, coming to a fashion house and bringing my love and respect to it - and, hopefully, earning the love and respect of the house - is the only way to do it. I think of it as my own house in that sense as well. So I like not working from a blank piece of paper. I like that there's something from the past, some kind of identity that I have to work with. There are these good ghosts around, these good energies that kind of reinforce what you do.

Peter Dundas

I lost a lot. It was almost like I was a retired player where I lost all of my athleticism. I lost everything. Being able to get it back, step by step, little bit at a time, it was like surprising myself.

Shaun Livingston

My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That's heaven. That's gold, and anything else is just a waste of time.

Cormac McCarthy

Samsara is the mind turned outwardly, lost in its projections. Nirvana is the mind turned inwardly, recognizing its true nature.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Every minute we were together, I felt like I was wandering in the dark through a strange house, groping for a light switch. And then, whenever I found one and turned it on, the bulb was dead.

Tom Perrotta

In Westminster, I make sure I maximise my ability to represent my constituents. I can do that in a variety of ways: by asking written questions or questions in the House of Commons, through the scrutiny of bills and by sitting on the environmental audit select committee every week, as well as other committees.

Jo Swinson

[P]ain is a marvelous purifier. . . It is not necessary to beat the child into submission; a little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely.

James Dobson

It was like falling off a building and suddenly, bang, you hit the bottom. The first time it happened was on an ordinary day at home. I was taking down some curtains. I took one step, turned around, took another step and then I fell and hit my head hard on the rowing machine.