Quotes by Jean Rhys

And I’ll look back at him because I shan’t be able to help it, remembering about being young, and about being made love to and making love, about pain and dancing and not being afraid of death, about all music I’ve ever loved, and every time I’ve been happy.

Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone.

Quite alone. No voice, no touch, no hand....How long must I lie here? For ever? No, only for a couple of hundred years this time, miss....

And then the days came when I was alone.

Now, money, for the night is coming. Money for my hair, money for my teeth, money for shoes that wont deform my feet (its not so easy now to walk around in cheap shoes with very high heels), money for good clothes, money, money. The night is coming.

What I see is nothing - I want what it hides - that is not nothing.

When trouble comes, close ranks

Do you think that too, she said, that I have slept too long in the moonlight?

I want more of this feeling - fire and wings.

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.

As soon as I turned the key I saw it hanging, the color of fire and sunset. the colour of flamboyant flowers. ‘If you are buried under a flamboyant tree, ‘ I said, ‘your soul is lifted up when it flowers. Everyone wants that.’She shook her head but she did not move or touch me.

When I was out on the battlements it was cool and I could hardly hear them. I sat there quietly. I dont know how long I sat. Then I turned round and saw the sky. It was red and all my life was in it.

The house was burning, the yellow-red sky was like the sunset...Nothing would be left, the golden ferns and the silver ferns, the orchids, the ginger lilies and the roses...When they had finished, there would be nothing left but blackened walls and the mounting stone. That was always left. That could not be stolen or burned.

And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?

May you tear each other to bits, you damned hyenas, and the quicker the better. Let it be destroyed. Let it happen. Let it end, this cold insanity.

Something came out from my heart into my throat and then into my eyes.

Even the one moment that you thought was your eternity fades out and is forgotten and dies.

I am empty of everything. I am empty of everything but the thin, frail ghosts in my room.

Left alone, Miss Verney felt so old, lonely and helpless that she began to cry. No builder would tackle that shed, not for any price she could afford. But crying relieved her and she soon felt quite cheerful again. It was ridiculous to brood, she told herself.

But in the daytime it was all right. And when youd had a drink you knew it was the best way to live in the world because anything might happen. I dont know how people live when they know exactly whats going to happen to them each day.