[Vwoolf] misquote

[Sarah M. Hall]

 People keep emailing me about this and I haven't found time to add a note to the Misquotations page of the VWSGB website: sorry! Like Vara I searched an electronic version of her works for several of the phrases and found none of them.
Did anything sound more unlike Woolf? The language patterning is wrong, there's no development from the initial words, and there's SO much repetition. Woolf would have made her point much more succinctly, and it would have been a more interesting point. 

It's what Stuart would have called madey-uppy.

Sarah
Sarah M. Hall
Executive Council
Virginia Woolf Society of GB
Web: virginiawoolfsociety.org.uk
Facebook: @VWSGB
Twitter/X: @VirginiaWoolfGB
Instagram: @virginiawoolfsociety






    On Sunday, 23 February 2025 at 20:49:56 GMT, Neverow, Vara S. via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:  
 
 Hi Jeremy, That's total fiction. I just did a search on the Kindle version of Virginia Woolf: The Complete Works. . There are 37 variations of "Whatever happens" (but not the phrase in the quotation you provided) and there isn't a singleHi Jeremy,
That's total fiction. I just did a search on the Kindle version of Virginia Woolf: The Complete Works.. There are 37 variations of "Whatever happens" (but not the phrase in the quotation you provided) and there isn't a single phrase "stay alive" in any work by Woolf. It's not Woolf's writing style. 
This webpage does have some of the wording (written by "Joy"): https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://medium.com/@imma.corvino25/whatever-happens-stay-alive-616cd93e5fdc__;!!KGKeukY!zFUSNXurYjTcfjO-3qkJG8HdAV6saqn5SLNDJxdWzArDrWwHG1buonD8s-UyEOKN_nkgxzC2b0VRok4fPhQiWwpZDab4ZktI$ 
|  | Whatever happens, stay alive. | by Joy | MediumWhatever happens, stay alive. Don't die before you're really dead. Don't lose yourself, don't lose hope, don't lose direction. Stay alive, with all of yourself, with every cell in your body, with…medium.com |

Best,Vara
Vara Neverow(she/her/hers)
Professor, English DepartmentEditor, Virginia Woolf Miscellany
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven, CT 06515
203-392-6717
neverowv1 at southernct.edu

I acknowledge that Southern Connecticut State University was built on traditional territory of the indigenous peoples and nations of the Paugussett and Quinnipiac peoples.  




Recent Publications:

Lead editor,Virginia Woolf: Critical and Primary Sources (Bloomsbury, 2020; with Jeanne Dubino, Kathryn Simpson, and Gill Lowe); Editor, Volume One, 1975-1984,Virginia Woolf: Critical and Primary Sources (Bloomsbury, 2020); Co-editor,The Edinburgh Companion to Virginia Woolf and Contemporary Global Literature (Edinburgh, 2020; with Jeanne Dubino, PaulinaPająk, Catherine Hollis, and Celiese Lypka)


From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces+neverowv1=southernct.edu at lists.osu.edu> on behalf of Jeremy Hawthorn via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2025 3:38 PM
To: VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu <VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: [Vwoolf] misquote This text is all over the internet and attributed to Woolf. Does anyone have an actual source for it?

“Whatever happens, stay alive.Don't die before you're dead.Don't lose yourself, don't lose hope,don't loose direction.Stay alive, with yourself, with every cell of your body, with every fiber of your skin.Stay alive, learn, study, think, read, build,invent, create, speak, write, dream, design.Stay alive, stay alive inside you, stay alive also outside, fill yourself with colors of the world,fill yourself with peace, fill yourself with hope.Stay alive with joy.There is only one thing you should not waste in life, and that's life itself...| Virginia Woolf
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