“She spoke somewhat of the ‘voices that fly ahead’, and she followed them. She had also, and this is an important thing to remember, an insane period in her life. Then when she was at her worst and her mind was completely breaking down again the voices flew ahead of her thoughts: and she actually heard voices which was not her voice. When that happened to her, she became incoherent because what she was hearing and the thoughts flying ahead of her became completely disconnected. Ofcource, people have said, from the time of the Greeks, that insanity and genius are closely allied. In my wife’s case, I think one could see clearly that the two things were not disconnected.” - Leonard Woolf on Virginia Woolf, from an essay/tribute published on “The Listener” dated March 1965.

You can view the essay in bigger size here.

(Source: violentwavesofemotion)