Jean Rhys Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• Next week, or next month, or next year I will kill myself. But I might as well last out my month's rent, which has been paid up.

  Jean Rhys

  Suicidal, Next Week, Years

  7 Copy quote

• But they never last, the golden days. And it can be sad, the sun in the afternoon, can't it? Yes, it can be sad, the afternoon sun, sad and frightening.

  Jean Rhys

  Golden Days, Afternoon, Lasts

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Eye, Thinking, Hair

  7 Copy quote

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

  Jean Rhys

  Brain, Calm, Foolish

  8 Copy quote

• The rumble of the life outside was like the sound of the sea which was rising gradually around her.

  Jean Rhys

  Sea, Sound, Rising

  4 Copy quote

• that expression you get in your eyes when you are very tired and everything is like a dream and you are starting to know what things are like underneath what people say they are.

  Jean Rhys

  Dream, Tired, Eye

  5 Copy quote

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

  Jean Rhys

  Mixtures, Sometimes, Genuine

  5 Copy quote

• 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).

  Jean Rhys

  Believe, Doe, Too Late

  Jean Rhys (1966). “Wide Sargasso Sea”

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Flower, Moving, Sunset

  5 Copy quote

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

  Jean Rhys

  Men, Want, Cry

  9 Copy quote

• The musty smell, the bugs, the lonliness, this room, which is part of the street outside-this is all I want from life.

  Jean Rhys

  Smell, Want, Rooms

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Letting Go, Fall, Water

  7 Copy quote

• Would you like a whiskey?' I say. 'I've got some.' (That's original. I bet nobody's ever thought of that way of bridging the gap before.)

  Jean Rhys

  Gaps, Way, Whiskey

  4 Copy quote

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

  Jean Rhys

  Weather, Cold

  1934 Voyage in the Dark, ch.3.

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Kissing, Different, Kiss Me

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jean Rhys

  Night, Littles, Dinner

  5 Copy quote

• But why do you want to talk to me?' He is going to say: 'Because you look so kind,' or 'Because you look so beautiful and kind,' or, subtly, 'Because you look as if you'll understand....' He says: 'Because I think you won't betray me.' I had meant to get this mean to talk to me and tell me all about it, and then be so devastatingly English that perhaps I should manage to hurt him a little in return for all the many times I've been hurt.... 'Because I think you won't betray me, because I think you won't betray me....' Now it won't be so easy.

  Jean Rhys

  Beautiful, Hurt, Mean

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Goodbye, Song, Fate

  Jean Rhys (1966). “Wide Sargasso Sea”

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Children, Liars, Believe

  Jean Rhys (1981). “Quartet”

  8 Copy quote

• She haunted him, as an ungenerous action haunts one.

  Jean Rhys

  Action

  5 Copy quote

• Quite like old times,' the room says.

  Jean Rhys

  Rooms, Old Time

  4 Copy quote

• When he talked his eyes went away from mine and then he forced himself to look straight at me and he began to explain and I knew that he felt very strange with me and that he hated me, and it was funny sitting there and talking like that, knowing he hated me.

  Jean Rhys

  Eye, Talking, Knowing

  4 Copy quote

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

  Jean Rhys

  Baby, Book, Strange

  Jean Rhys (2016). “Smile Please”, p.21, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

• Human beings are struggling, and so they are egoists. But it's wrong to say that they are wholy cruel - it's a deformed view.

  Jean Rhys

  Struggle, Views, Humans

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Beautiful, Fire, Dresses

  Jean Rhys (1966). “Wide Sargasso Sea”

  6 Copy quote

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