[Vwoolf] misquote

Sun Feb 23 18:42:16 EST 2025

It has to be “madey-uppy” (and yes, that exactly what Stuart would have said! Thank you so much, Sarah ).

I just noticed that, below the passage on that webpage, someone asked who wrote it...and then someone else said Woolf did it. Ugh. Very unfortunate.

A slight relief: on "formerly Twitter," part of the passage is quoted and identified as "writer unknown" (https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://x.com/BonnieGThompson/status/1868378019443753467?mx=2__;!!KGKeukY!0bzhFiYSDOyV0t41KHvyC6HsfIf9W8s3pl2Z7KJzZ5QpLRxj0vi3weslqd_4VP9SVGIZmRigpRbqAy7vixdoPqG88adAG2fJR0eZvA$ )

But another person's post, with the title Joy, attributes the passage to Woolf (https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.instagram.com/gracekillelea/p/DD2PjbRzj0a/__;!!KGKeukY!0bzhFiYSDOyV0t41KHvyC6HsfIf9W8s3pl2Z7KJzZ5QpLRxj0vi3weslqd_4VP9SVGIZmRigpRbqAy7vixdoPqG88adAG2fffIS2Ig$ )

On Facebook, in Reels, someone also quotes the passage with Woolf as the perpetrator (https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.facebook.com/reel/1299957517700687__;!!KGKeukY!0bzhFiYSDOyV0t41KHvyC6HsfIf9W8s3pl2Z7KJzZ5QpLRxj0vi3weslqd_4VP9SVGIZmRigpRbqAy7vixdoPqG88adAG2dO3sEu3A$ )

The passage also popped up on Reddit about a month ago. I am now wondering whether this misattributed work is a recent effort intended to indoctrinate readers with a faux passage by Woolf (or Wolfe, as the person on Reddit spells the name).

Someone even formatted the passage visually as a poem (https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.instagram.com/selfcareissacred/reel/DD3TGwgJOCi/__;!!KGKeukY!0bzhFiYSDOyV0t41KHvyC6HsfIf9W8s3pl2Z7KJzZ5QpLRxj0vi3weslqd_4VP9SVGIZmRigpRbqAy7vixdoPqG88adAG2fKlVfxCg$ ) and associated it with Winter Solstice.

And someone else thinks it really IS a poem and said so (https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.threads.net/@drake_lad/post/DD4yV_ZtRUg__;!!KGKeukY!0bzhFiYSDOyV0t41KHvyC6HsfIf9W8s3pl2Z7KJzZ5QpLRxj0vi3weslqd_4VP9SVGIZmRigpRbqAy7vixdoPqG88adAG2eaoRlKqQ$ )

A person named "Lulu" on Substack illustrates the "poem" with colorful resilient flowers that resist the cruel stomp of a heavy military boot and invites you to get a paid subscription (https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lulutrevena.substack.com/p/whatever-happens-stay-alive__;!!KGKeukY!0bzhFiYSDOyV0t41KHvyC6HsfIf9W8s3pl2Z7KJzZ5QpLRxj0vi3weslqd_4VP9SVGIZmRigpRbqAy7vixdoPqG88adAG2cdxf2TbQ$ ).

It's infectious apparently and is spreading rapidly.

Vara

Vara Neverow
(she/her/hers)
Professor, English Department and Women’s and Gender Studies Program
Managing Editor, 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 Paugusett and Quinnepiac peoples.
________________________________
From: Sarah M. Hall <smhall123 at yahoo.co.uk>
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2025 6:02 PM
To: VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu <vwoolf at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>; Jeremy Hawthorn <jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no>; Neverow, Vara S. <neverowv1 at southernct.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] misquote

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 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!0bzhFiYSDOyV0t41KHvyC6HsfIf9W8s3pl2Z7KJzZ5QpLRxj0vi3weslqd_4VP9SVGIZmRigpRbqAy7vixdoPqG88adAG2fYbAqk3g$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://medium.com/@imma.corvino25/whatever-happens-stay-alive-616cd93e5fdc__;!!KGKeukY!2Qu37M_gjKMnqKJlGDBUcwD8WhM22xPmL5rvaqkzxY0-rA_VU0ETws0AkTJ1pQ-Rjj8UtUCxaKOyL88PbMxCLo2oKmfBANLAueTbTw$>
[https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/1*1X5litMB481J-fove67qfw.jpeg__;Kg!!KGKeukY!0bzhFiYSDOyV0t41KHvyC6HsfIf9W8s3pl2Z7KJzZ5QpLRxj0vi3weslqd_4VP9SVGIZmRigpRbqAy7vixdoPqG88adAG2ct_dv6Bg$ ]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://medium.com/@imma.corvino25/whatever-happens-stay-alive-616cd93e5fdc__;!!KGKeukY!2Qu37M_gjKMnqKJlGDBUcwD8WhM22xPmL5rvaqkzxY0-rA_VU0ETws0AkTJ1pQ-Rjj8UtUCxaKOyL88PbMxCLo2oKmfBANLAueTbTw$>
Whatever happens, stay alive. | by Joy | Medium<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://medium.com/@imma.corvino25/whatever-happens-stay-alive-616cd93e5fdc__;!!KGKeukY!2Qu37M_gjKMnqKJlGDBUcwD8WhM22xPmL5rvaqkzxY0-rA_VU0ETws0AkTJ1pQ-Rjj8UtUCxaKOyL88PbMxCLo2oKmfBANLAueTbTw$>
Whatever 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 Department
Editor, 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, Paulina Pająk, 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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