Quotes from Jean Rhys

The woman had a humble, cringing manner. Of course, she had discovered that, having neither money nor virtue, she had better be humble if she knew what was good for her.

There is no doubt that running away on a fresh, blue morning can be exhilarating.

I sit at my window and the words fly past me like birds — with God's help I catch some.

before I could read, almost a baby, I imagined that God, this strange thing or person I heard about, was a book.

Today I must be very careful, today I have left my armor at home.

I often want to cry. That is the only advantage women have over men—at least they can cry.

Age seldom arrives smoothly or quickly. It's more often a succession of jerks.

The feeling of Sunday is the same everywhere, heavy, melancholy, standing still.

I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.

You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone. We are alone in the most beautiful place in the world...

Today I must be very careful, today I have left my armor at home.

There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.

I would never be part of anything. I would never really belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong, and failing. Always something would go wrong. I am a stranger and I always will be, and after all I didn't really care.

I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets of whatever colour, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty which was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness. She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.

If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic. You hate me and I hate you. We'll see who hates best. But first, first I will destroy your hatred. Now. My hate is colder, stronger, and you'll have no hate to warm yourself. You will have nothing.

A room is, after all, a place where you hide from the wolves. That's all any room is.

Blot out the moon, Pull down the stars. Love in the dark, for we're for the dark So soon, so soon.

My life, which seems so simple and monotonous, is really a complicated affair of cafés where they like me and cafés where they don't, streets that are friendly, streets that aren't, rooms where I might be happy, rooms where I shall never be, looking-glasses I look nice in, looking-glasses I don't, dresses that will be lucky, dresses that won't, and so on.

Something came out from my heart into my throat and then into my eyes.

And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?

All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And then there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.

Justice," she said. " I've heard that word. It's a cold world. I tried it out," she said, still speaking in that low voice. "I wrote it down. I wrote it down several times and always it looked like a damn cold lie to me. There is no justice.

Only the magic and the dream are true — all the rest's a lie.

We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky - and it would be so much less fun if we were... There must be the dark background to show up the bright colours.