229 Quotes by Jean Rhys

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.

Of course she had some pathetic illusions about herself or she would not be able to go on living.

...I know all about myself now, I know. You've told me so often. You haven't left me one rag of illusion to clothe myself in.

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...

I think that the desire to be cruel and to hurt (with words because any other way might be dangerous to ourself) is part of human nature. Parties are battles (most parties), a conversation is a duel (often). Everybody's trying to hurt first, to get in the dig that will make him or her feel superior, feel triumph.

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.

I long to be ... Like Other People! The extraordinary, ungetatable, oddly cruel Other People, with their way of wantonly hurting and then accusing you of being thin-skinned, sulky, vindictive or ridiculous.

A room is, after all, a place where you hide from the wolves. That's all any room is.

I am the only real truth I know.