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 am sad, sad as a circus-lioness...
Something in her brain that still remained calm told her that she was doing a very foolish thing indeed.
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.
Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only – to be left alone.
Today I must be very careful, today I have left my armor at home.
Everything tender and melancholy – as life is sometimes, just for one moment.
The rumble of the life outside was like the sound of the sea which was rising gradually around her.
He had discovered that people who allow themselves to be blown about by the winds of emotion and impulse are always unhappy people.
Only the magic and the dream are true – all the rest’s a lie.
She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.
Life if curious when reduced to its essentials.
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.
Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.
It’s funny, he said, have you ever thought that a girl’s clothes cost more than the girl inside them?
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.
There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.
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.
There is no doubt that running away on a fresh, blue morning can be exhilarating.
London is like a cold dark dream sometimes.