Quote by Virginia Woolf
She would not say of any one in the world that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, far out to the sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary. How she had got through life on the few twigs of knowledge Fraulein Daniels gave them she could not think. She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that.
Summary
This quote highlights the narrator's sense of detachment and introspection. She feels both young and old, simultaneously present and distant from the world. The mention of being out to sea alone suggests a feeling of vulnerability and isolation, as if living even a single day is extremely precarious. Despite lacking knowledge and conventional intelligence, she finds solace and fascination in observing simple things like taxi cabs. The narrator resists reducing herself or others to fixed identities or labels, emphasizing the complexity and fluidity of personal experiences and the limitations of defining oneself.
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