“It is permissible even for a dying hero to think before he dies how men will speak of him hereafter. His fame lasts perhaps two thousand years. And what are two thousand years? (asked Mr Ramsay ironically, staring at the hedge). What, indeed, if you look from a mountain top down the long wastes of the ages? The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare.”

English writer, 20th-century modernist author

Virginia Woolf was an English writer and a major modernist author of the 20th century. She is especially known for helping to pioneer stream of consciousness narration in fiction. Her work helped shape modern literature through its formal experimentation and attention to inner thought. She is remembered above all for the narrative technique she helped develop, which became influential in later writing.