Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

— Virginia Woolf

Anyhow, whether undergraduate or shop boy, man or woman, it must come as a shock about the age of twenty—the world of the elderly—thrown up in such black outline upon what we are; upon the reality; the moors and Byron; the sea and the lighthouse; the sheep’s jaw with the yellow teeth in it; upon the obstinate irrepressible conviction which makes youth so intolerably disagreeable—“I am what I am, and intend to be it,” for which there will be no form in the world unless Jacob makes one for himself. The Plumes will try to prevent him from making it. Wells and Shaw and the serious six penny weeklies will sit on its head.

— Virginia Woolf

Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighborhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts.

— Virginia Woolf

Anyone whose worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm.

— Virginia Woolf

Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation.

— Virginia Woolf

Are they not criminals, books that have wasted our time and sympathy; are they not the most insidious enemies of society, corrupter, defilers, the writers of false books, faked books, books that fill the air with decay and disease?

— Virginia Woolf

Are we not acceptable, moon? Are we not lovely sitting together here, I in my satin; he in black and white?

— Virginia Woolf

Are we so made that we have to take death in small doses daily, or we could not go on with the business of living?

— Virginia Woolf

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

— Virginia Woolf

As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.

— Virginia Woolf