Jean Rhys Quotes

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. ~ Jean Rhys

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

I had two longings and one was fighting the other. I wanted to be loved and I wanted to be always alone. ~ Jean Rhys

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

Quite alone. No voice, no touch, no hand ... How long must I lie here? For ever? No, only for a couple of hundred years this time, miss ... ~ Jean Rhys

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. ~ Jean Rhys

How can I discover truth I thought and that thought led me nowhere. No one would tell me the truth. ~ Jean Rhys

May you tear each other to bits, you damned hyenas, and the quicker the better. Let it be destroyed. Let it happen. Let it end, this cold insanity. ~ Jean Rhys

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

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

This was the affair which had ended quietly and decently, without fuss or scenes or hysteria. When you were nineteen, and it was the first time you had been let down, you did not make scenes. You felt as if your back was broken, as if you would never move again. But you did not make a scene. That started later on, when the same thing had happened five or six times over, and you were supposed to be getting used to it. ~ Jean Rhys

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? ~ Jean Rhys

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

Why did you make me want to live? Why did you do that to me? ~ Jean Rhys

That's all you're waiting for, isn't it? But no, you must have the slow death, the bloodless killing that leaves no stain on your conscience ... ~ Jean Rhys

Nothing left but hopelessness.' Say die and I will die. Say die and watch me die. ~ Jean Rhys

When I saw him looking up like that I knew that I loved him, and that it was for always. It was as if my heart turned over, and I knew that it was for always. It's a strange feeling - when you know quite certainly in yourself that something is for always . It's like what death must be. ~ Jean Rhys

I try, but they always see through me. The passages will never lead anywhere, the doors will always be shut. ~ Jean Rhys

Why did you love her?'
'Well,' I say, 'what a question, anyway!'
How on earth can you say why you love people? You might as well say you know where the lightning is going to strike. ~ Jean Rhys

Now at last I know why I was brought here and what I have to do. ~ Jean Rhys

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

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! ~ Jean Rhys

I hope that gay gentleman will be safe. ~ Jean Rhys

There is no looking-glass here and I don't know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us - hard, cold and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I? ~ Jean Rhys

Lots of talk lately about the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL that seems to be exclusively masculine. And how many of the characters in the GENIUS BOOKS are likable? Is Holden Caulfield likable? Is Meursault in The Stranger? Is Henry Miller? Is any character in any of these system novels particularly likable? Aren't they usually loathsome but human, etc., loathsome and neurotic and obsessed? In my memory, all the characters in Jonathan Franzen are total douchebags (I know, I know, I'm not supposed to use that, feminine imagery, whatever, but it is SO satisfying to say and think). How about female characters in the genius books? Was Madame Bovary likable? Was Anna Karenina? Is Daisy Buchanan likable? Is Daisy Miller? Is it the specific way in which supposed readers HATE unlikable female characters (who are too depressed, too crazy, too vain, too self-involved, too bored, too boring), that mirrors the specific way in which people HATE unlikable girls and women for the same qualities? We do not allow, really, the notion of the antiheroine, as penned by women, because we confuse the autobiographical, and we pass judgment on the female author for her terrible self-involved and indulgent life. We do not hate Scott Fitzgerald in "The Crack-Up" or Georges Bataille in Guilty for being drunken and totally wading in their own pathos, but Jean Rhys is too much of a victim. ~ Kate Zambreno

We sat under the mango tree and I was holding his hand when he began to cry. Drops fell on my hand like the water from the dripstone in the filter in our yard. Then I began to cry too and when I felt my own tears on my hand I thought, 'Now perhaps we're married.
'Yes, certainly, now we're married,' I thought. ~ Jean Rhys

Do not be sad. Or think Adieu. Never Adieu. We will watch the sun set again - many times, and perhaps we'll see the Emerald Drop, the green flash that brings good fortune. And you must laugh and chatter as you used to do - telling me about the battle off the Saints or the picnic at Marie Galante - that famous picnic that turned into a fight. Or the pirates and what they did between voyages. For every voage might be their last. Sun and sangoree's a heady mixture. Then - the earthquake. Oh yes, people say that god was angry at the things they did, woke from his sleep, one breath and they were gone. ~ Jean Rhys

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

But in the daytime it was all right. And when you'd had a drink you knew it was the best way to live in the world because anything might happen. I don't know how people live when they know exactly what's going to happen to them each day. ~ Jean Rhys

I took the red dress down and put it against myself. 'Does it make me look intemperate and unchaste?' I said. ~ Jean Rhys

Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible – the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. ~ Jean Rhys

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 ... ~ Jean Rhys

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

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. ~ Jean Rhys

Very few people change after well say seven or seventeen. Not really. They get more this or more that and of course look a bit different. But inside they are the same. ~ Jean Rhys

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. ~ Jean Rhys

All that is left in the world is an enormous machine, made of white steel. It has innumerable flexible arms, made of steel. Long, thin arms. At the end of each arm is an eye, the eyelashes stiff with mascara. When I look more closely I see that only some of the arms have these eyes–others have lights. The arms that carry the eyes and the arms that carry the lights are all extraordinarily flexible and very beautiful. But they grey sky, which is the background, terrifies me. . . . And the arms wave to an accompaniment of music and of song. Like this: 'Hotcha–hotcha–hotcha. . . .' And I know the music; I can sing the song. . . . ~ Jean Rhys

Well, that was the end of me, the real end. Two pound ten every Tuesday and a room of the Gray's Inn Road. Saved, rescued and with my place to hide in - what more did I want? I crept in and hid. The lid of the coffin shut down with a bang. Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone. No more pawings, no more pryings - leave me alone. ~ Jean Rhys

She watched through a slight mist a party of people who had just come into the restaurant, the movements of arms taking off overcoats, of legs in light-coloured stockings and fee in low-heeled shoes walking over the wooden floor to hide themselves under the tablecloths. ~ Jean Rhys

There is always the other side, always. ~ Jean Rhys

With you, I don't want to do bad things.'
'There's always the one that you don't want to do bad things with, isn't there?'
'Yes, there's always the one,' he says. 'I want to lie close to you and feel your arms around me.'
- And tell me everything, everything ... He has said that bit before. ~ Jean Rhys

Very soon she'll join all the others who know the secret and will not tell it. Or cannot. Or try and fail because they do not know enough. They can be recognized. White faces, dazed eyes, aimless gestures, high-pitched laughter. The way they walk and talk and scream or try to kill (themselves or you) if you laugh back at them. Yes, they've got to be watched. For the time comes when they try to kill, then disappear. But others are waiting to take their places, it's a long, long line. She's one of them. I too can wait - for the day when she is only a memory to be avoided, locked away, and like all memories a legend. Or a lie ... ~ Jean Rhys

She said she loved this place. This is the last she'll see of it. I'll watch for one tear, one human tear. Not that blank hating moonstruck face. I'll listen ... If she says good-bye perhaps adieu. Adieu
like those old-time songs she sang. Always adieu (and all the 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.
Antoinetta
I can be gentle too. Hide your face. Hide yourself but in my arms. You'll soon see how gentle. My lunatic. My mad girl. ~ Jean Rhys

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. ~ Jean Rhys

I hadn't bargained for this. I didn't think it would be like this - shabby clothes, worn-out shoes, circles under your eyes, your hair getting straight and lanky, the way people look at you ... I didn't think it would be like this ~ Jean Rhys

What you take to be hyprocrisy is sometimes a certain caution, sometimes genuine, though ponderous, childish, sometimes a mixture of both. ~ Jean Rhys

When I was excited about life, I didn't want to write at all. I've never written when I was happy. I didn't want to. But I've never had a long period of being happy, Do you think anyone has? I think you can be peaceful for a long time, When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write. You see, there's very little invention in my books. What came first with most of them was the wish to get rid of this awful sadness that weighed me down . I found when I was a child that if I could put the hurt into words, it would go. It leaves a sort of melancholy behind and then it goes. ~ Jean Rhys

If all good, respectable people had one face, I'd spit in it. ~ Jean Rhys

Is it true,' she said, 'that England is like a dream? Because one of my friends who married an Englishman wrote and told me so. She said this place London is like a cold dark dream sometimes. I want to wake up.'
'Well', I answered annoyed, 'that is precisely how your beautiful island seems to me, quite unreal and like a dream.'
'But how can rivers and mountains and the sea be unreal?'
'And how can millions of people, their houses and their streets be unreal?'
'More easily,' she said, 'much more easily. Yes a big city must be like a dream. ~ Jean Rhys

Nobody's hidden your dress", she said. "It's hanging in the press".
She lookked at me and said, "I don't believe you know how long you've been here, you poor creature".
"On the contrary", I said, "only I know how long Ihave been here. Nights and days, and days and nights, hundreds of them slipping through my fingers. But that does not matter. Time has no meaning. But something you can touch and hold like my red dress, that has meaning. Where is it? ~ Jean Rhys

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

When you insult or injure the unfortunate or the unhappy, you insult Christ Himself and He will not forget, for they are His chosen ones. ~ Jean Rhys

These people all fling themselves at me. Because I am uneasy and sad they all fling themselves at me larger than life. But I can put my arm up to avoid the impact and they slide gently to the ground. Individualists, completely wrapped up in themselves, thank God. It's the extrovert, prancing around, dying for a bit of fun - that's the person you've got to be wary of. ~ Jean Rhys

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 ... ~ Jean Rhys

I can't sleep,' he said. 'Let me lie with my head on your silver breast. ~ Jean Rhys

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

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

The house was burning, the yellow-red sky was like the sunset ... Nothing would be left, the golden ferns and the silver ferns, the orchids, the ginger lilies and the roses ... 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. ~ Jean Rhys

....one of those long, romantic novels, six hundred and fifty pages of small print, translated from French or German or Hungarian or something -- because few of the English ones have the exact feeling I mean. And you read one page of it or even one phrase of it, and then you gobble up all the rest and go about in a dream for weeks afterwards, for months afterwards -- perhaps all your life, who knows? -- surrounded by those six hundred and fifty pages, the houses, the streets, the snow, the river, the roses, the girls, the sun, the ladies' dresses and the gentlemen's voices, the old, wicked, hard-hearted women and the old, sad women, the waltz music -- everything. What is not there you put in afterwards, for it is alive, this book, and it grows in your head. 'The house I was living in when I read that book,' you think, or 'This colour reminds me of that book. ~ Jean Rhys

I've had enough of these streets that sweat a cold, yellow slime, of hostile people, of crying myself to sleep every night. I've had enough of thinking, enough of remembering. ~ Jean Rhys

Have spunks and do battle for yourself ~ Jean Rhys

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. ~ Jean Rhys

But you don't know the world,' I teased her.
'No, only here, and Jamaica of course, Coulibri, Spanish Town. I don't know the other islands at all. Is the world more beautiful, then?'
And how to answer that? 'It's different,' I said. ~ Jean Rhys

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

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. ~ Jean Rhys

He says: 'it doesn't matter. What I know is that I could do this with you' - he makes a movement with his hands like a baker, kneading a loaf of bread - 'and afterwards you'd be different. ~ Jean Rhys

The car stopped. Everybody walked in a short procession up to the chapel of the Crematorium, where a clergyman with very bright blue yes was waiting. That was a dream, too, but a painful dream, because she was obsessed with the feeling that she was so close to seeing the thing that was behind all this talking and posturing, and that the talking and posturing were there to prevent her from seeing it. Now it's time to get up; now it's time to kneel down; now it's time to stand up.
But all the time she stood, knelt, and listened she was tortured because her brain was making a huge effort to grapple with nothingness. And the effort hurt; yet it was almost successful. In another minute she would know. And then a dam inside her head burst, and she leant her head on her arms and sobbed. ~ Jean Rhys

They think in terms of a sentimental ballad. And that's what terrifies you about them. It isn't their cruelty, it isn't even their shrewdness - it's their extraordinary naivete. Everything in their whole bloody world is a cliche. Everything is born out of a cliche, rests on a cliche, survives by a cliche. And they believe in the cliches - there's no hope ~ Jean Rhys

Soon he'll come in again and kiss me, but differently. He'll be different and so I'll be different. It'll be different. I thought, 'It'll be different, different. It must be different. ~ Jean Rhys

The feeling of Sunday is the same everywhere, heavy, melancholy, standing still. Like when they say, As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. ~ Jean Rhys

I wanted it-like iron. ~ Jean Rhys

There is no control over memory. ~ Jean Rhys

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 ... ~ Jean Rhys

Rain, forever raining. Drown me in sleep. And soon. ~ Jean Rhys

It was as if a curtain had fallen, hiding everything I had ever known. It was almost like being born again. The colours were different, the smells different, the feeling things gave you right down inside yourself was different. Not just the difference between heat, cold; light, darkness; purple, grey. But a difference in the way I was frightened and the way I was happy. ~ Jean Rhys

There is always another side, always. ~ Jean Rhys

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

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

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. ~ Jean Rhys

I'd planned to die at thirty, and then I'd push it on ten years, forty, and then fifty, You always push it on. And then you go on and on and on. It's difficult. Too much trouble. I've thought about death a great deal. One day in the snow I felt so tired. I thought, 'Damn it, I'll sit down. I can't go on. I'm tired of living here in the snow and ice.' So I sat down on the ground. But it was so cold I got up. Oh yes, I used to try to imagine death, but I always come up against a wall. ~ Jean Rhys

I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness ... ~ Jean Rhys

An anxious expression spread over his face as he thought to himself that the time was coming when he would have to give up this comfort, and then that comfort, until God knew what would be the end of it all. In this way he was an imaginative man, and when these fits of foreboding overcame him he genuinely forgot that only a succession of highly improbable catastrophes could reduce him to the penury he so feared. ~ Jean Rhys

Now, money, for the night is coming. Money for my hair, money for my teeth, money for shoes that won't deform my feet (it's not so easy now to walk around in cheap shoes with very high heels), money for good clothes, money, money. The night is coming. ~ Jean Rhys

Satin skin, silk hair, velvet eyes, sawdust heart - all complete. ~ Jean Rhys

Your red dress,' she said, and laughed.
But I looked at the dress on the floor and it was as if the fire had spread across the room. It was beautiful and it reminded me of something I must do. I will remember I thought. I will remember quite soon now. ~ Jean Rhys

She haunted him, as an ungenerous action haunts one. ~ Jean Rhys

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. ~ Jean Rhys

As soon as you have reached this heaven of indifference, you are pulled out of it. From your heaven you have to go back to hell. When you are dead to the world, the world often rescues you, if only to make a figure of fun out of you. ~ Jean Rhys

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 ... ~ Jean Rhys

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

You surpise me, because people nearly always force you to ask, don't they? ~ Jean Rhys

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. ~ Jean Rhys

I must remember about chandeliers and dancing, about swans and roses and snow. ~ Jean Rhys

I want more of this feeling - fire and wings. ~ Jean Rhys

But they left their treasure, gold and more gold. Some of it is found- but the finders never tell, because you see they'd only get one-third then: that's the law of treasure. They want it all, so never speak of it. ~ Jean Rhys

As soon as I turned the key I saw it hanging, the color of fire and sunset. the colour of flamboyant flowers. 'If you are buried under a flamboyant tree, ' I said, 'your soul is lifted up when it flowers. Everyone wants that.'

She shook her head but she did not move or touch me. ~ Jean Rhys

Only the magic and the dream are true - all the rest's a lie. ~ Jean Rhys

Everything is too much, I felt as I rode wearily after her. Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too near. ~ Jean Rhys

He says: 'For me, you see, I look at life like this: someone had come to me and asked me if I wished to be born I think I should have answered No. I'm sure I should have answered No. But no one asked me. I am here not through my will. Most things that happen to me – they are not my will either. And so that's what I say to myself all the time: "You didn't ask to be born, you didn't make the world as it is, you didn't make yourself as you are. Why torment yourself? Why not take life just as it comes? You have the right to; you are not one of the guilty ones. ~ Jean Rhys

Let's say that you have this mystical right to cut my legs off. But the right to ridicule me afterwards because I am a cripple - no, that I think you haven't got. And that's the right you hold most dearly, isn't it? You must be able to despise the people you exploit. ~ Jean Rhys