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e223460
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I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.
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novels
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Jean Rhys |
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f7a8e38
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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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Jean Rhys |
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6dbab63
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Today I must be very careful, today I have left my armor at home.
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Jean Rhys |
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165348e
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I would never be part of anything. I would never really belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong, and failing. Always something would go wrong. I am a stranger and I always will be, and after all I didn't really care.
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Jean Rhys |
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d038661
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I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets of whatever colour, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty which was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness. 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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inspirational
symbolic
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Jean Rhys |
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6e1fde5
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There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.
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real
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Jean Rhys |
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55148b9
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A room is, after all, a place where you hide from the wolves. That's all any room is.
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Jean Rhys |
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07cb3b6
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Blot out the moon, Pull down the stars. Love in the dark, for we're for the dark So soon, so soon.
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Jean Rhys |
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c6a3629
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And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?
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Jean Rhys |
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0230860
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Something came out from my heart into my throat and then into my eyes.
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tears
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Jean Rhys |
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cedc89d
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If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic. You hate me and I hate you. We'll see who hates best. But first, first I will destroy your hatred. Now. My hate is colder, stronger, and you'll have no hate to warm yourself. You will have nothing.
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Jean Rhys |
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d5046ff
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My life, which seems so simple and monotonous, is really a complicated affair of cafes where they like me and cafes where they don't, streets that are friendly, streets that aren't, rooms where I might be happy, rooms where I shall never be, looking-glasses I look nice in, looking-glasses I don't, dresses that will be lucky, dresses that won't, and so on.
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Jean Rhys |
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ddd862d
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Justice. I've heard that word. I tried it out. I wrote it down. I wrote it down several times and always it looked like a damn cold lie to me. There is no justice.
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Jean Rhys |
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0fbf6c4
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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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Jean Rhys |
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bce103a
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Only the magic and the dream are true -- all the rest's a lie.
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Jean Rhys |
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463f0f3
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And I saw that all my life I had known that this was going to happen, and that I'd been afraid for a long time, I'd been afraid for a long time. There's fear, of course, with everybody. But now it had grown, it had grown gigantic; it filled me and it filled the whole world.
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lost-love
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Jean Rhys |
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825e87e
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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.
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Jean Rhys |
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a309790
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Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.
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solitude
heaven
reading
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Jean Rhys |
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80c8422
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Have all beautiful things sad destinies?
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beauty
destiny
question
sad
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Jean Rhys |
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9b0c01a
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Yes, I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and that one broken, sad as a woman who is growing old. Sad, sad, sad...
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Jean Rhys |
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f5d18da
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Every word I say has chains round its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with heavy weights.
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Jean Rhys |
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6515738
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There is always another side, always.
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Jean Rhys |
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e92ebef
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You imagine the carefully pruned, shaped thing that is presented to you is truth. That is just what it isn't. The truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic; it's in what you think is a distorting mirror that you see the truth.
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Jean Rhys |
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709a7dd
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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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Jean Rhys |
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133428b
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Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone.
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solitude
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Jean Rhys |
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ab72eb4
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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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Jean Rhys |
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b245cee
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that expression you get in your eyes when you are very tired and everything is like a dream and you are starting to know what things are like underneath what people say they are.
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Jean Rhys |
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4386a1c
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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.
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Jean Rhys |
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427f481
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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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Jean Rhys |
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da22d28
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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.
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red
flowers
touch
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Jean Rhys |
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40029b8
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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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Jean Rhys |
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d9bfc3e
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one of those long, romantic novels, six hundred and fifty pages of small print, translated from French or German or Hungarian or something -- because few of the English ones have the exact feeling I mean. And you read one page of it or even one phrase of it, and then you gobble up all the rest and go about in a dream for weeks afterwards, for months afterwards -- perhaps all your life, who knows? -- surrounded by those six hundred and fifty..
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Jean Rhys |
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4ccda2c
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One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.
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substance
importance
value
shadow
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Jean Rhys |
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d72ed00
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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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red
dress
fire
remember
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Jean Rhys |
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9e2fe9c
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If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic.
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Jean Rhys |
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bd5289d
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It's so easy to make a person who hasn't got anything seem wrong.
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Jean Rhys |
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1aaf903
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I have been too unhappy, I thought, it cannot last, being so unhappy, it would kill you
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Jean Rhys |
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530ffec
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I want more of this feeling - fire and wings.
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wings
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Jean Rhys |
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b889bef
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Everything tender and melancholy - as life is sometimes, just for one moment.
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melancholy
tenderness
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Jean Rhys |
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ce41ca3
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They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.
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Jean Rhys |
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0923257
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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.
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Jean Rhys |
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5f24754
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Even the one moment that you thought was your eternity fades out and is forgotten and dies.
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fades
forgotten
eternity
moment
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Jean Rhys |
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1c6d134
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Some must cry so that others may be able to laugh the more heartily. Sacrifices are necessary...
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Jean Rhys |
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206aaf0
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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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Jean Rhys |