Woolf, in a letter: "All writing is nothing but putting words on the backs of rhythm. If they fall off the rhythm one's done."
qt'd in Allegorical Moments, 46
in a different letter:
"Style is a very simple matter, it is all rhythm [...] A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it, and in writing (such is my present belief) one has to recapture this, and set this working (which apparently has nothing to do with words) and then as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it"
qt'd in Allgeorical Moments, 52