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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

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Jean Rhys
Age: 88 †
Born: 1890
Born: August 24
Died: 1979
Died: May 14
Novelist
Writer
Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams
Ella Rees Williams
Life
Bugs
Smell
Street
Outside
Streets
Room
Rooms
Part
Musty

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Age seldom arrives smoothly or quickly. It's more often a succession of jerks.
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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?
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Life if curious when reduced to its essentials
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There is no doubt that running away on a fresh, blue morning can be exhilarating.
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I am the only real truth I know.
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I want more of this feeling - fire and wings.
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And then the days came when I was alone.
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I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness.
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If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heaven. No more damned magic.
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She haunted him, as an ungenerous action haunts one.
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I watched her die many times. In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty. Only the sun was there to keep us company. We shut him out. And why not? Very soon she was as eager for what's called loving as I was - more lost and drowned afterwards.
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When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write.
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Cold - cold as truth, cold as life. No, nothing can be as cold as life.
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He had discovered that people who allow themselves to be blown about by the winds of emotion and impulse are always unhappy people.
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She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimmer to water. The only difficulty was that after finishing the last sentence she was left with a feeling at once hollow and uncomfortably full. Exactly like indigestion.
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Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone.
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I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.
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And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?
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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.
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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.
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