How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Sorry. I seem to keep thinking things have already happened. When you asked if I remembered about the party and the ceremony, I thought you meant, did I remember having gone to them. And I did remember. I seem to have fallen out of time."
"The party and ceremony are tonight. In the future."
"I understand. In a way, I understand. But, you see, I seem to have gone into the future, too. I have a distinct recollection of the party that hasn't happened yet. I remember the award ceremony perfectly." (4.71-73)
Unlike Clarissa Vaughan, who spends a fair bit of time indulging in memories of the past, Richard Brown is swept up in the future. Richard's inability to distinguish between what was, what is, and what is yet to be is one of the most striking signs of his mental deterioration—and yet, more poetically, it is also a stunning reflection of the novel's interest in human perceptions of time.
Quote #8
Richard may (although one hesitates to think in quite these terms) be entering the canon; he may at these last moments in his earthly career be receiving the first hints of a recognition that will travel far into the future […]. While there are no guarantees, it does seem possible, and perhaps even better than possible, that Clarissa and the small body of others have been right all along. […] Richard who observed so minutely and exhaustively, who tried to split the atom with words, will survive after other, more fashionable names have faded. (4.112)
Clarissa Vaughan is well aware that her friend is dying, but she can still imagine a bright future for his poetry—and for his memory. What Clarissa wants is for Richard to be recognized, here and now, in the present tense, as the sort of writer that people will be reading for years and years to come.
Quote #9
She decides, with misgivings, that she is finished for today. Always, there are these doubts. Should she try another hour? Is she being judicious, or slothful? Judicious, she tells herself, and almost believes it. She has her two hundred and fifty words, more or less. Let it be enough. Have faith that you will be here, recognizable to yourself, again tomorrow. (5.5)
Because Virginia Woolf lives in fear of relapsing into illness, it takes a lot of willpower and determination to accept that she can only work on her book little by little, day by day. Virginia doesn't have the luxury of assuming that she has all the time in the world: she has no way of knowing if and when her hours will suddenly be cut short.