Quotes from Jean Rhys

Just you touch me once. You'll soon see if I'm a damn coward like you are.

Well, there you are. It's not that these things happen or even that one survives them, but what makes life strange is that they are forgotten. Even the one moment that you thought was your eternity fades out and is forgotten and dies. This is what makes life so droll - the way you forget and every day is a new day, and there's hope for everybody, hooray...

They touch life with gloves on. They're pretending about something all the time. Pretending quite nice and decent things, of course. But still...' 'Everybody pretends,' Marya was thinking. 'French people pretend every bit as much, only about different things and not so obviously. She'll know that when she's been here as long as I have.

her waist goes in , her hips come out, her long black hair is coiled into a smooth bun on the top of her round head. She is very restful to the tired eye.

THe room was large and low-ceilinged, the striped wallpaper faded to inoffensiveness. A huge dark wardrobe faced a huge dark bed. The rest of the furniture shrank away into corners, battered and apologetic.

Anything you like; anything I like... No past to make us sentimental, no future to embarrass us

Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds home for us everywhere.

I went up to him but he was not sick, he was dead and his eyes were black with flies. I ran away and did not speak of it for I thought if I told no one it might not be true.

I prayed, but the words fell to the ground meaning nothing.

When we are in a corner with a coffee and a fine each he says: 'Do you know what I feel about you? I think you are very lonely. I know, because for a long time I was lonely myself. I hated people, I didn't want to see anyone. And one day I thought: No, this isn't the way. And now I go about a lot. I force myself to. I have a lot of friends; I'm never alone. Now I'm much happier.' That sounds pretty simple. I must try it when I get back to London. ...

Better not I tell you. You want to know what I do? I say doudou , if you have trouble you are right to come to me. And I kiss her. It's when I kiss her she cry - not before.

The devil prince of this world, but this world don't last so long for mortal man.

There was a vase of flame-coloured tulips in the hall - surely the most graceful of flowers. Some thrust their heads forward like snakes, and some were very erect, stiff, virginal, rather prim. Some were dying, with curved grace in their death.

The prayer ended, 'May Almighty God defend us.' And God who is indeed mysterious, who had made no sign when they burned Pierre as he slept - not a clap of thunder, not a flash of lighting - mysterious God heard Mr Mason at once and answered him. The yells stopped.

Feelers grow when feelers are needed and claws when claws are needed and cunning when cunning is needed. . . .

Shall I tell her that in spite of everything they did I died then? Shall I tell her what it feels like to be dead? It's not being sad, it's quite different. It's being nothing, feeling nothing. (...) it's like walking along a road in a fog, knowing that you have left everything behind you. But you don't want to go back; you've got to go on.

I don't say I don't believe, I say I don't know, I know what I see with my eyes and I never see it.

I hope that gay gentleman will be safe.

I had had the job for three weeks. It was dreary. You couldn't read; they didn't like it. I would feel as if I were drugged, sitting there, watching those damned dolls, thinking what a success they would have made of their lives if they had been women. Satin skin, silk hair, velvet eyes, sawdust heart - all complete.

Last night and today - it makes a pretty good sentence. ....Qu'est-ce qu'elle fout ici, la vieille? What the devil (translating it politely) is she doing here, that old woman? What is she doing here, the stranger, the alien, the old one?....I quite agree too, quite. I have seen that in people's eyes all my life. I am asking myself all the time what the devil I am doing here. All the time.

She found pleasure in memories, as an old woman might have done.

The house was burning, the yellow-red sky was like sunset and I knew that I would never see Coulibri again. Nothing would be left, the golden ferns and the silver ferns, the orchids, the ginger lilies and the roses, the rocking-chairs and the blue sofa, the jasmine and the honeysuckle, and the picture of the Miller's Daughter. When they had finished, there would be nothing left but blackened walls and the mounting stone. That was always left. That could not be stolen or burned.

I said I was always happy in the morning, not always in the afternoon and never after sunset, for after sunset the house was haunted, some places are.

I have a lot of writing to do and not as much time as you'd think. I do it at night now and look a bit haggard afterwards.