Quote by Virginia Woolf

Why, if one wants to compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the Tube at fifty miles an hour--landing at the other end without a single hairpin in one's hair! Shot out at the feet of God entirely naked! Tumbling head over heels in the asphodel meadows like brown paper parcels pitched down a shoot in the post office! With one's hair flying back like the tail of a race-horse. Yes, that seems to express the rapidity of life, the perpetual waste and repair; all so casual, all so haphazard...But after life. The slow pulling down of thick green stalks so that the cup of the flower, as it turns over, deluges one with purple and red light. Why, after all, should one not be born there as one is born here, helpless, speechless, unable to focus one's eyesight, groping at the roots of the grass, at the toes of the Giants?

Summary

This quote offers a vivid and imaginative comparison of life to the experience of being propelled through a subway at high speed and then suddenly being exposed and vulnerable at the end. It conveys the notion that life is hectic, unpredictable, and filled with constant change. The reference to the post office shoot further emphasizes the casual and haphazard nature of existence. However, the quote also reflects on the idea that afterlife could be a serene and gradual process, symbolized by the gentle unfolding of flower petals and the possibility of being born into a peaceful and blissful state.