Quote

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

Jean Rhys

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jean Rhys
Age: 88 †
Born: 1890
Born: August 24
Died: 1979
Died: May 14
Novelist
Writer
Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams
Ella Rees Williams
Two
Real
Always
People
Deaths

More quotes by Jean Rhys

Image
She’ll have no lover, for I don’t want her and she’ll see no other.
Jean Rhys
Image
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
Image
I sit at my window and the words fly past me like birds — with God's help I catch some.
Jean Rhys
Image
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
Image
Cold - cold as truth, cold as life. No, nothing can be as cold as life.
Jean Rhys
Image
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
Image
One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.
Jean Rhys
Image
The rumble of the life outside was like the sound of the sea which was rising gradually around her.
Jean Rhys
Image
And then the days came when I was alone.
Jean Rhys
Image
...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.
Jean Rhys
Image
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
Image
The feeling of Sunday is the same everywhere, heavy, melancholy, standing still.
Jean Rhys
Image
There is no doubt that running away on a fresh, blue morning can be exhilarating.
Jean Rhys
Image
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
Image
Age seldom arrives smoothly or quickly. It's more often a succession of jerks.
Jean Rhys
Image
Of course she had some pathetic illusions about herself or she would not be able to go on living.
Jean Rhys
Image
The woman had a humble, cringing manner. Of course, she had discovered that, having neither money nor virtue, she had better be humble if she knew what was good for her.
Jean Rhys
Image
I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.
Jean Rhys
Image
I have arranged my little life.
Jean Rhys
Image
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