QuoteProject
Tom's great yellow bronze mask all draped upon an iron framework. An inhibited, nerve-drawn; dropped face - as if hung on a scaffold of heavy private brooding; and thought.
Virginia Woolf
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote evokes the complexity of human emotions and the façade we often present to the world.

Virginia Woolf's quote reflects on the contrast between outer appearances and inner realities, suggesting that beneath the surface, individuals may be grappling with profound thoughts and emotions. The imagery of a mask represents the personas we adopt, while the 'iron framework' symbolizes the rigidity of these façades that can trap our true selves, burdened by personal struggles and introspection.

Themes

MaskFacadeEmotionIntrospectionIdentity

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a discussion about the themes of identity in art during a presentation.

More from Virginia Woolf

I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.
Virginia WoolfRead
Death is woven in with the violets,” said Louis. “Death and again death.”)
Virginia WoolfRead
He began to search among the infinite series of impressions which time had laid down, leaf upon leaf, fold upon fold softly, incessantly upon his brain; among scents, sounds; voices, harsh, hollow, sweet; and lights passing, and brooms tapping; and the wash and hush of the sea.
Virginia WoolfRead
I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts.
Virginia WoolfRead
I do think all good and evil comes from words. I have to tune myself into a good temper with something musical, and I run to a book as a child to its mother.
Virginia WoolfRead
London perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play and a story and a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets... To walk alone through London is the greatest rest.
Virginia WoolfRead

Similar quotes

An artisan without memories, whose only dream was to die of fatigue in the oblivion and misery of his little gold fishes.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead
We're all born storytellers. It's part of the species. But, more specifically, I suppose a particular combination of sensitivity and trauma made me a writer: an essential disquiet with reality, which required exploration through portrayal.
Nic PizzolattoRead
I don't know why you'd want to say your work comes from nature, because art is related to perception, not nature. All abstract artists try to tell you that what they do comes from nature, and I'm always trying to tell you that what I do is completely abstract. We're both saying something we want to be true.
Roy LichtensteinRead
All that is good in art is the expression of one soul talking to another, and is precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it.
John RuskinRead
I don't care about being a pioneer. People act like it would be cool to be a pioneer. I'm okay to be looked at as that, but it's just that we don't get transmitted our cultural heritage as women artists.
Celine SciammaRead
We could in the United States make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good.
Thomas JeffersonRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.