The Hours

The Hours (book: 1998; movie: 2002)

Table of contents

1 Virginia Woolf
2 Laura Brown
3 Clarissa Vaughn
4 Richard Brown
5 Multiple People
6 Miscellaneous

Virginia Woolf

"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."
"Obviously, you...feel unworthy. Gives you feelings of unworthiness. You survive and they don't."

"So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And, of course, there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment - right then."
"That is what we do. That is what people do. They stay alive for each other."
"Why is everything wrong?"

"Ah, Mrs. Dalloway... always giving parties to cover the silence."
"What about your own life? Just wait until I die, then you will have to think of yourself."
"I don't think two people could have been happier than we've been."

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."

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."

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.

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."

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."

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."

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."
Dan Brown: "This life is what I always wanted. I had a vision of our happiness."
Sally: [to Clarissa] 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?
"We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds & expectations, to burst open & give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning, we hope, more than anything for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so...There she is with another hour before her."