Quotes from Jean Rhys

I have been too unhappy, I thought, it cannot last, being so unhappy, it would kill you

I am empty of everything. I am empty of everything but the thin, frail ghosts in my room.

It is strange how sad it can be - sunlight in the afternoon, don't you think?

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

It's funny when you feel as if you don't want anything more in your life except to sleep, or else to lie without moving. That's when you can hear time sliding past you, like water running.

I thought if I told no one it might not be true.

They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.

Life if curious when reduced to its essentials

Even the one moment that you thought was your eternity fades out and is forgotten and dies.

It was the darkness that got you. It was heavy darkness, greasy and compelling. It made walls round you, and shut you in so that you felt like you could not breathe.

If she says goodbye perhaps adieu. Adieu - like those old time songs she sang. Always adieu (and all songs say it). If she too says it, or weeps, I'll take her in my arms, my lunatic. She's mad but mine, mine. What will I care for gods or devils or for Fate itself. If she smiles or weeps or both. For me.

It was like letting go and falling back into water and seeing yourself grinning up through the water, your face like a mask, and seeing the bubbles coming up as if you were trying to speak from under the water. And how do you know what it's like to try to speak from under water when you're drowned?

Some must cry so that others may be able to laugh the more heartily. Sacrifices are necessary...

Quite like old times,' the room says.

She'll have no lover, for I don't want her and she'll see no other.

Every word I say has chains round its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with heavy weights. Since I was born, hasn't every word I've said, every thought I've thought, everything I've done, been tied up, weighted, chained? And mind you, I know that with all this I don't succeed. Or I succeed in flashes only too damned well. ...But think how hard I try and how seldom I dare. Think - and have a bit of pity. That is, if you ever think, you apes, which I doubt.

The last time you were happy about nothing; the first time you were afraid about nothing. Which came first?

I have tried, I said, but he does not believe me. It is too late for that now (it is always too late for truth, I thought).

Stephan was secretive and a liar, but he was a very gentle and expert lover. She was the petted, cherished child, the desired mistress, the worshipped, perfumed goddess. She was all these things to Stephan - or so he made her believe.

I didn't know, I didn't know, I didn't know.

What I see is nothing - I want what it hides - that is not nothing.

A room? A nice room? A beautiful room? A beautiful room with bath? Swing high, swing low, swing to and fro...This happened and that happened... And then the days came and I was alone.

I have been here five days. I have decided on a place to eat in at midday, a place to eat in at night, a place to have my drink in after dinner. I have arranged my little life.

I must write. If I stop writing my life will have been an abject failure. It is that already to other people. But it could be an abject failure to myself. I will not have earned death.