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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.

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
Left
Beautiful
Thing
Longer
Loved
Successful
Alone
Happy
Wish

More quotes by Jean Rhys

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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.
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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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She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.
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I didn't know, I didn't know, I didn't know.
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The rumble of the life outside was like the sound of the sea which was rising gradually around her.
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And then the days came when I was alone.
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Only the magic and the dream are true — all the rest's a lie.
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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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Age seldom arrives smoothly or quickly. It's more often a succession of jerks.
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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.
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It was the darkness that got you. It was heavy darkness, greasy and compelling. It made walls round you, and shut you in so that you felt like you could not breathe.
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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
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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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No past to make us sentimental, no future to embarrass us...a difficult moment when you are out of practice - a moment that makes you go cold, cold and wary.
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I want more of this feeling - fire and wings.
Jean Rhys
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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.
Jean Rhys
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I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.
Jean Rhys
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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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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
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before I could read, almost a baby, I imagined that God, this strange thing or person I heard about, was a book.
Jean Rhys