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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.

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
Course
Manner
Woman
Discovered
Money
Humble
Better
Humility
Good
Neither
Virtue
Knew
Courses
Cringing

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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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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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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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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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There is no doubt that running away on a fresh, blue morning can be exhilarating.
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I am the only real truth I know.
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I watched her die many times. In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty. Only the sun was there to keep us company. We shut him out. And why not? Very soon she was as eager for what's called loving as I was - more lost and drowned afterwards.
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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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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 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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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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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.
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Quite like old times,' the room says.
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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 found when I was a child that if I put the hurt into words, it would go.
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You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone. We are alone in the most beautiful place in the world.
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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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The rumble of the life outside was like the sound of the sea which was rising gradually around her.
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I sit at my window and the words fly past me like birds — with God's help I catch some.
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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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