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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.

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
People
Failure
Already
Stop
Write
Death
Must
Writing
Abject
Life
Earned

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I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness.
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There is no doubt that running away on a fresh, blue morning can be exhilarating.
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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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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.
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It is strange how sad it can be - sunlight in the afternoon, don't you think?
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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.
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Of course she had some pathetic illusions about herself or she would not be able to go on living.
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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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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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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.
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I have arranged my little life.
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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.
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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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I sit at my window and the words fly past me like birds — with God's help I catch some.
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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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