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

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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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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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Next week, or next month, or next year I will kill myself. But I might as well last out my month's rent, which has been paid up.
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I want more of this feeling - fire and wings.
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Quite like old times,' the room says.
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And then the days came when I was 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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When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write.
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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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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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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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