A cultural divide?

[damigella]

"here encountering the first knot in the smooth skein of her argument." (V. Woolf, Orlando: A Biography)
"the smooth skein of his imagination had encountered the first knot:" (my fic A Member Of The Wedding)

How come quotations from Gone With The Wind, The Muppet Show or The Little Mermaid (Disney, not Andersen) are immediately recognized while a sentence lifted almost verbatim from Virginia Woolf goes unnoticed? 
Maybe I should use precise quotations. Maybe it's a US/UK issue. Feedback appreciated.

Comments

[damigella-314.livejournal.com]

I can't remember any quote from any movie, ever. I also rarely see movies again, and anyway not many times. I have a bad memory for stuff I hear as opposed to read, unless it's repeated very often, like slogans or some sentences in tv series (and of course I don't recognize American commercials).
Or unless it's songs (I have no ear for music, but I usually easily learn the words in a song - if I can understand them, which in English I usually cannot).