Vanessa Bell Quotes

“Leonard Woolf’s endurance of Virginia’s famous frigidity is, we must suppose after the fact, altogether to his credit. Their honeymoon did not bring the amelioration they had hoped for and it is incredibly innocent and moving to think of them discussing it with Vanessa. They wanted to know when she had first had an orgasm. She said she couldn’t remember but she knew she had been “sympathetic” from the age of two. Vita Sackville-West said about Virginia, “She dislikes the possessiveness and love of domination in men. In fact she dislikes the quality of masculinity.”
― Elizabeth Hardwick, Seduction and Betrayal

“I wait for his regret, his guilt, but it does not come. He is a man who always sees the good in things. And in his mind, love is always good.”
― Priya Parmar, Vanessa and Her Sister

“Roger was not flattered, because he did not recognize what was happening. Things that do not matter to him are invisible.”
― Priya Parmar, Vanessa and Her Sister

“[..] And here, suddenly, was Woolf's own talented sister. The one who survived. The sister who painted.

My first thought was: how sad. What fate could be worse than to be in close proximity to genius, capable of recognizing it, but, alas, something less-than? And Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell must have been less-than, because I'd barely heard of her. How terrible, and sadly typical, that in my long pursuit of women artists I'd apparently learned nothing. Least of all, that they are all too easily lost to time, a condition rarely any reflection on their talent.”
― Bridget Quinn, Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History