Jean Rhys Quotes

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.

Yes, I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and that one broken, sad as a woman who is growing old. Sad, sad, sad.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness.

I am the only real truth I know.

Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone.

I've been so ridiculous all my life that a little bit more or a little bit less hardly matters now.

Love was a terrible thing. You poisoned it and stabbed at it and knocked it down into the mud - well down - and it got up and staggered on, bleeding and muddy and awful. Like - like Rasputin.

I think that the desire to be cruel and to hurt (with words because any other way might be dangerous to ourself) is part of human nature. Parties are battles (most parties), a conversation is a duel (often). Everybody's trying to hurt first, to get in the dig that will make him or her feel superior, feel triumph.

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.

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

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.

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

I long to be ... Like Other People! The extraordinary, ungetatable, oddly cruel Other People, with their way of wantonly hurting and then accusing you of being thin-skinned, sulky, vindictive or ridiculous.

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.

No past to make us sentimental, no future to embarrass us...a difficult moment when you are out of practice - a moment that makes you go cold, cold and wary.

He had discovered that people who allow themselves to be blown about by the winds of emotion and impulse are always unhappy people.

Every word I say has chains round its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with heavy weights.

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

When you are a child you are yourself and you know and see everything prophetically. And then suddenly something happens and you stop being yourself; you become what others force you to be. You lose your wisdom and your soul.

Have all beautiful things sad destinies?

Of course she had some pathetic illusions about herself or she would not be able to go on living.

After all this, what happened? What happened was that, as soon as I had the slightest chance of a place to hide in, I crept into it and hid. Well, sometimes it's a fine day isn't it? Sometimes the skies are blue. Sometimes the air is light, easy to breathe. And there is always tomorrow.

...I know all about myself now, I know. You've told me so often. You haven't left me one rag of illusion to clothe myself in.

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.

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

I'm no use to anybody,' I say. 'I'm a cérébrale, can't you see that?' Thinking how funny a book would be, called 'Just a Cérébrale or You Can't Stop Me From Dreaming'. Only, of course, to be accepted as authentic, to carry any conviction, it would have to be written by a man. What a pity, what a pity!

Everything tender and melancholy - as life is sometimes, just for one moment.

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

When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write.

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

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.

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

There is always the other side, always.

The perpetual hunger to be beautiful and that thirst to be loved which is the real curse of Eve.

Cold - cold as truth, cold as life. No, nothing can be as cold as life.

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.

And then the days came when I was alone.

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

Something in her brain that still remained calm told her that she was doing a very foolish thing indeed.

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

For the first time she had dimly realized that only the hopeless are starkly sincere and that only the unhappy can either give or take sympathy--even some of the bitter and dangerous voluptuousness of misery.

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

Sometimes the Earth trembles; sometimes you can feel it breathe.

You imagine the carefully pruned, shaped thing that is presented to you is truth. That is just what it isn't. The truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic; it's in what you think is a distorting mirror that you see the truth.

I want more of this feeling - fire and wings.