How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
She's endured teasing on the subject for more than thirty years; she decided long ago to give in and enjoy her own voluptuous, undisciplined responses, which, as Richard put it, tend to be as unkind and adoring as those of a particularly irritating, precocious child. She knows that a poet like Richard would move sternly through the same morning, editing it, dismissing incidental ugliness along with incidental beauty, seeking the economic and historical truth behind these old brick town houses, the austere stone complications of the Episcopal church and the thin middle-aged man walking his Jack Russell terrier […]. (1.6)
Clarissa Vaughan's "undisciplined" capacity to love is very different from that of her best friend, Richard Brown. Even though Clarissa is a professional editor, it is Richard, the poet, who is much more likely to "edit" the world and, in doing so, restrict his enjoyment of it.
Quote #5
If she were to express it publicly (now, at her age), this love of hers would consign her to the realm of the duped and the simpleminded. Christians with acoustic guitars or wives who've agreed to be harmless in exchange for their keep. Still, this indiscriminate love of hers feels entirely serious to her, as if everything in the world is part of a vast, inscrutable intention and everything in the world has its own secret name, a name that cannot be conveyed in language but is simply the sight and feel of the thing itself. (1.6)
Is it really so silly and simple-minded to love as broadly and "indiscriminately" as Clarissa Vaughan does? All things considered, The Hours doesn't seem to think so. Even in its darkest moments, the book is a celebration of human life.
Quote #6
Leonard looks up at her, still wearing, for a moment, the scowl he has brought to the proofs. It is an expression she trusts and fears, his eyes blazing and impenetrably dark under his heavy brows, the corners of his mouth turned down in an expression of judgment that is severe but not in any way petulant or trivial […]. As he looks at her, though, the expression fades almost immediately and is replaced by the milder, kinder face of the husband who has nursed her through her worst periods, who does not demand what she can't provide and who urges on her, sometimes successfully, a glass of milk every morning at eleven. (2.8)
The love between Virginia and Leonard Woolf is reflected in the kindness they show each other. Although there doesn't seem to be much romantic or sexual passion in their marriage, that doesn't seem to be a problem: the two have other bonds that tie them together.