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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

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
Look
Straight
Looks
Shoes
Way
Clothes
Lanky
Would
Hair
Bargained
Think
Eyes
Shabby
Thinking
Getting
Worn
Like
Eye
Hadn
People
Didn
Circles

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Even the one moment that you thought was your eternity fades out and is forgotten and dies.
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As it was in the beginning, ... is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
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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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Quite like old times,' the room says.
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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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After all this, what happened? What happened was that, as soon as I had the slightest chance of a place to hide in, I crept into it and hid. Well, sometimes it's a fine day isn't it? Sometimes the skies are blue. Sometimes the air is light, easy to breathe. And there is always tomorrow.
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It is strange how sad it can be - sunlight in the afternoon, don't you think?
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Age seldom arrives smoothly or quickly. It's more often a succession of jerks.
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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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I want more of this feeling - fire and wings.
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Cold - cold as truth, cold as life. No, nothing can be as cold as life.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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When you are a child you are yourself and you know and see everything prophetically. And then suddenly something happens and you stop being yourself you become what others force you to be. You lose your wisdom and your soul.
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The feeling of Sunday is the same everywhere, heavy, melancholy, standing still.
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Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.
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