Memorable Quotes from The Hours (2002)
Vanessa Bell: Virginia.
Virginia Woolf: Leonard thinks it's the end of civilization: People who are invited at 4 and arrive at 2:30.
Vanessa Bell: Oh God.
Virginia Woolf: Barbarians.
Leonard Woolf: If I didn't know you better I'd call this ingratitude.
Virginia Woolf: I am ungrateful? You call ME ungrateful? My life has been stolen from me. I'm living in a town I have no wish to live in... I'm living a life I have no wish to live... How did this happen?
Virginia Woolf: I'm dying in this town.
Leonard Woolf: If you were thinking clearly, Virginia, you would recall it was London that brought you low.
Virginia Woolf: If I were thinking clearly? If I were thinking clearly?
Leonard Woolf: We brought you to Richmond to give you peace.
Virginia Woolf: If I were thinking clearly, Leonard, I would tell you that I wrestle alone in the dark, in the deep dark, and that only I can know. Only I can understand my condition. You live with the threat, you tell me you live with the threat of my extinction. Leonard, I live with it too.
Virginia Woolf: This is my right; it is the right of every human being. I choose not the suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs, but the violent jolt of the Capital, that is my choice. The meanest patient, yes, even the very lowest is allowed some say in the matter of her own prescription. Thereby she defines her humanity. I wish, for your sake, Leonard, I could be happy in this quietness. [pause]
Virginia Woolf: But if it is a choice between Richmond and death, I choose death.


Clarissa Vaughn: Alright Richard, do me one, simple favor: Come. Come sit...
Richard Brown: I don't think I can make it to the party, Clarissa.
Clarissa Vaughn: Uh... You don't have to go to the party, you don't have to go to the ceremony, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You can do as you like.
Richard Brown: But I still have to face the hours, don't I? I mean, the hours after the party, and the hours after that...
Clarissa Vaughn: You do have good days still... You know you do.
Richard Brown: Not really... I mean, it's kind of you to say so, but it's not really true.


Virginia Woolf: You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard.
Clarissa Vaughn: That is what we do. That is what people do. They stay alive for each other.
Virginia Woolf: Dear Leonard, To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it, for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years, always the love, always... the hours...
Clarissa Vaughn: I don't know what's happening to me. I seemed to be unraveling.
Richard Brown: I don't think two people could have been happier than we've been.
Virginia Woolf: [Talking to her husband] Leonard, I believe I may have a first sentence.
Dan Brown: This life is what I always wanted. I had a vision of our happiness.

Julia: MOM. What's wrong?
Clarissa Vaughn: He gives me that look, as if to say your life is so trivial.
Julia: It only matters if you think its true.
[In 1921]
Virginia Woolf: [writing in her book] Mrs. Dallaway said "She would buy the flowers herself.
Dan Brown: Come to bed, LAURA BROWN.
Virginia Woolf: I've been attended by doctors, who inform me OF MY OWN INTERESTS.
Richard Brown: WHAT ABOUT YOUR OWN LIFE? Just wait until I die, then you will have to think of yourself.
Laura Brown: We're baking the cake for daddy, to show him that we love him.
Richie Brown: Otherwise he won't know? [pause]
Laura Brown: That's right.
Richie Brown: MOMMY. I love you.
Laura Brown: Don't worry honey, everything is fine. You are still my guy.
Vanessa Bell: Your aunt is a very lucky woman, Angelica. She is because she has two lives. She has the life, she is leading and also the books, she is writing.
Laura Brown: Don't worry, honey. Everything's fine. We're going to have a wonderful party. We've made Daddy such a nice cake.
Virginia Woolf: I can't think of anything more exhilarating than a trip to London.
Laura Brown: Baby. Baby, you have to be brave now.
Richard Brown: Who is this party for?
Clarissa Vaughan: What are you asking, what are you trying to say?
Richard Brown: I'm not trying to say anything. I think I'm staying alive just to satisfy you.
Virginia Woolf: A woman's whole life, in a single day, just one day, and then that day, her whole life.
Kitty: Oh, you're reading a book?
Laura Brown: Yeah.
Kitty: What's this one about?
Laura Brown: Oh, it's about this woman who's incredibly - well, she's a hostess and she's incredibly confident and she's going to give a party. And, maybe because she's confident, everyone thinks she's fine... but she isn't.
Laura Brown: What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. And there it is... It was death. I chose life.
Sally: [to Clarrissa] Why do I always have to sit next to the exes? Is this some kind of a hint, sweetheart? Anyway, shouldn't the exes have a table of their own, where they can all ex together in ex-quisite agony?
Richard Brown: Ah, Mrs. Dalloway... always giving parties to cover the silence.
Laura Brown: Obviously, you... feel unworthy. Gives you feelings of unworthiness. You survive and they don't.
Clarissa Vaughn: Why is everything wrong?
Virginia Woolf: Someone has to die Leonard, in order that the rest of us should value life more.
Laura Brown: It's a terrible thing, to outlive your entire family.