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I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness.

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
Lioness
Circus

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She haunted him, as an ungenerous action haunts one.
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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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before I could read, almost a baby, I imagined that God, this strange thing or person I heard about, was a book.
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There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.
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I've been so ridiculous all my life that a little bit more or a little bit less hardly matters now.
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I am the only real truth I know.
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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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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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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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She’ll have no lover, for I don’t want her and she’ll see no other.
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And then the days came when I was alone.
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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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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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