As deadlines are arising, I have decided the next few blog posts will be some of my favourite literary quotes… short but sweet… and I hope they will make you ponder as much as they make me!

‘I want to give life and death, sanity & insanity; I want to criticise the social system, & to show it at work, at its most intense’

Virginia Woolf’s diary, Tuesday 19th June 1923

This diary extract was written during the time Woolf was conjuring up Mrs Dalloway… or as she referred to it then, The Hours.

This diary passage highlights some serious themes, and if you think about Mrs Dalloway, they are very identifiable. From the life, death and mental well-being of Septimus Warren Smith (and Woolf, herself), to Woolf wanting to criticise the social stigma of having a mental health issue. Woolf’s creativity and intellectualism was (and arguably, still is) overshadowed by her mental well-being – and I think that she aimed to show the normality and commonality of suffering from these illnesses – and breaking the class barrier whilst doing so! We see the figure of Sir William Bradshaw in Dalloway, who remarkably prescribes going to the ‘music hall’ to Septimus… Woolf definitely highlights the ridiculous recommendation through the devastating suicide of Septimus.

This is such a power quote, showing us an inside to what Woolf aimed to do, through her writing. Her diaries are some of the most intriguing, emotional and moving reading I have ever come across.