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What you take to be hyprocrisy is sometimes a certain caution, sometimes genuine, though ponderous, childish, sometimes a mixture of both.

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
Mixture
Mixtures
Caution
Genuine
Though
Certain
Take
Ponderous
Sometimes
Childish

More quotes by Jean Rhys

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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.
Jean Rhys
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Of course she had some pathetic illusions about herself or she would not be able to go on living.
Jean Rhys
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I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness.
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It is strange how sad it can be - sunlight in the afternoon, don't you think?
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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.
Jean Rhys
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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.
Jean Rhys
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But they never last, the golden days. And it can be sad, the sun in the afternoon, can't it? Yes, it can be sad, the afternoon sun, sad and frightening.
Jean Rhys
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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.
Jean Rhys
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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.
Jean Rhys
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And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?
Jean Rhys
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Only the magic and the dream are true — all the rest's a lie.
Jean Rhys
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I found when I was a child that if I put the hurt into words, it would go.
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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When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write.
Jean Rhys
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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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I want more of this feeling - fire and wings.
Jean Rhys
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And then the days came when I was alone.
Jean Rhys
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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.
Jean Rhys
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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.
Jean Rhys
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Age seldom arrives smoothly or quickly. It's more often a succession of jerks.
Jean Rhys