The line is usually credited to Woolf’s 1919 novel Night and Day, but the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain ↗ says it is “not in Night and Day, nor anywhere else in Woolf’s works.” The earliest online appearance the Society found is dated 15 November 2012. No one has identified who first wrote it.
“What if I told you I'm incapable of tolerating my own heart?” often credited to Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day, but it appears in none of her works. The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain traces it online to 2012; its author is unknown. (Quotle.info)
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Virginia Woolf. Use the credit shown above instead.
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? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
Evoking the themes of love and doubt. Theme: "What if I told you I'm incapable of tolerating my own heart?". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Provenance
Where the line actually comes from
Usually credited to
Night and Day (1919)
Found in Woolf’s works?
No. The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain finds it in none of her works
Earliest online sighting
15 November 2012 (the earliest the Society came across)
Early appearances in print
Epigraph to The Hearts We Sold (2017); a 2018 Welsh-language memoir
What if I told you I’m incapable of tolerating my own heart?
No Woolf original
No fuller original passage exists. The Society says the line is not in Night and Day or anywhere else in Woolf’s writing. In a keyword search of the Project Gutenberg text of the novel, the word “tolerating” never appears.
The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain ↗ lists the line as a misattribution: “Source: None. This not in Night and Day, nor anywhere else in Woolf’s works.” It says the earliest online occurrence it found is dated 15 November 2012.
A Penguin Books UK article ↗ on Woolf quotations prints the line and credits it to Night and Day. The Society names this page as one place it found the line.
The full text of Night and Day is free at Project Gutenberg ↗. A keyword search of that text finds no “tolerating” and no sentence like this one.
Woolf’s Wikiquote page ↗ does not list the line. Its Misattributed section points readers to the Society’s misquotations page.
Woolf did not write this line, and its true author is unknown, so we make no copyright claim about it. The novel it is wrongly credited to, Night and Day (1919), is in the US public domain, but that has no bearing on a sentence the book does not contain.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
How a modern line became “Woolf”
The line is usually given with a specific-sounding source, “Night and Day,” and that has helped it pass as genuine. It has been repeated in places readers tend to trust: a publisher’s website and printed books.
✕
Publisher websitePenguin Books UK Credited to Night and Day
Novel epigraph (2017)Emily Lloyd-Jones, The Hearts We SoldIn print
According to the Virginia Woolf Society ↗, the line is the book’s epigraph, attributed to “Virginia Woolf, Night and Day” (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2017).
The Virginia Woolf Society ↗ reports that this Welsh-language memoir (Y Lolfa, 2018) quotes the line in English as if it came from Night and Day.
✕
Quote aggregatorsQuote sites such as Quotewise
Quotewise ↗ credits the line to Virginia Woolf and names no work or date on the page. The Society says the line “has spread across blogs like a rash.”
✓Woolf did not write this. The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain ↗ finds it in none of her works, and the earliest online appearance it found dates from 2012. Its true author is unknown.
Context
Why it caught on
The line has the confessional, inward tone many readers associate with Woolf, and it is usually given a precise-sounding citation, “Night and Day.” A named novel makes a quotation look checked, even when no one has looked. In this case, anyone who searches the novel’s text will not find the sentence.
Once a publisher's website and printed books repeated the line, later readers had what looked like solid sources to copy from. The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain ↗ keeps its misquotations page so that lines like this one can be traced and corrected.
“This not in Night and Day, nor anywhere else in Woolf’s works.” — Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Virginia Woolf wrote Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and A Room of One’s Own, and is one of the most quoted modernist writers. Night and Day, the novel this line is usually credited to, was her second novel, first published in 1919. Woolf did not write this line: it is one of many internet “Woolf quotes” that the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain has found in none of her works.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Best available source
Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain, “Misquotations and Misattributions,” accessed November 1, 2026, https://www.virginiawoolfsociety.org.uk/resources/misquotations/ (lists the line as having no source in Woolf’s works; earliest online occurrence found, 15 November 2012).
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘What if I told you I'm incapable of tolerating my own heart?’?” Last verified 2 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/what-if-i-told-you-im-incapable-of-tolerating-my-own-heart/