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d6e7a70
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When you insult or injure the unfortunate or the unhappy, you insult Christ Himself and He will not forget, for they are His chosen ones.
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Jean Rhys |
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06a0fac
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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.
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destruction
end
hyenas
insanity
tear
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Jean Rhys |
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cdfc697
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Only seven or eight, and yet she knew so exactly how to be cruel and who it was safe to be cruel to. One must admire Nature..
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Jean Rhys |
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e2869d4
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If this is a sad story, don't tell it to me tonight.''It is not sad,' she said. 'Only some things happen and are there for always even though you forget why or when.
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Jean Rhys |
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9b31775
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When I saw him looking up like that I knew that I loved him, and that it was for always. It was as if my heart turned over, and I knew that it was for always. It's a strange feeling - when you know quite certainly in yourself that something is for always . It's like what death must be.
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love
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Jean Rhys |
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b2326b9
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Everything in their whole bloody world is a cliche. Everything is born out of a cliche, rests on a cliche, survives by a cliche. And they believe in the cliches - there's no hope.
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Jean Rhys |
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f15c885
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She was a shadow, kept alive by a flame of hatred for somebody who had long ago forgotten all about her.
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Jean Rhys |
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0194526
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You surpise me, because people nearly always force you to ask, don't they?
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Jean Rhys |
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9bb0721
|
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.
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love
music
nostalgia
youth
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Jean Rhys |
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5de8985
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There is no looking-glass here and I don't know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us - hard, cold and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?
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Jean Rhys |
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8fba460
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She haunted him, as an ungenerous action haunts one.
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Jean Rhys |
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5628d3a
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Lies are never forgotten, they go on and they grow
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Jean Rhys |
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98831d8
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Saved, rescued, but not quite so good as new...
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saved
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Jean Rhys |
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e9bd55a
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No past to make us sentimental, no future to embarrass us...a difficult moment when you are out of practice - a moment that makes you go cold, cold and wary.
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future
past
sentimental
wary
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Jean Rhys |
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44655b9
|
I must remember about chandeliers and dancing, about swans and roses and snow.
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english-prose
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Jean Rhys |
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81b9544
|
What you take to be hyprocrisy is sometimes a certain caution, sometimes genuine, though ponderous, childish, sometimes a mixture of both.
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Jean Rhys |
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81bd501
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When man don't love you, more you try, more he hate you, man like that. If you love them they treat you bad, if you don't love them they after you night and day bothering your soul case out. I hear about you and your husband,' she said. 'But I cannot go. He is my husband after all.' She spat over her shoulder. 'All women, all colours, nothing but fools. Three children I have. One living in this world, each one a different father, but no hu..
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Jean Rhys |
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881b1c8
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As for her, I'd forgotten her for the moment. So I shall never understand why, suddenly, bewilderingly, I was certain that everything I had imagined to be truth was false. False. Only the magic and the dream are true--all the rest's a lie. Let it go. Here is the secret. Here.
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lies
magic
secrets
truth
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Jean Rhys |
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ab1c093
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I hadn't bargained for this. I didn't think it would be like this - shabby clothes, worn-out shoes, circles under your eyes, your hair getting straight and lanky, the way people look at you. ... I didn't think it would be like this
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Jean Rhys |
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466a276
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Can I help it if my heart beats, if my hands go cold?
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Jean Rhys |
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57d9230
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As soon as you have reached this heaven of indifference, you are pulled out of it. From your heaven you have to go back to hell. When you are dead to the world, the world often rescues you, if only to make a figure of fun out of you.
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Jean Rhys |
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b26fe16
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But they left their treasure, gold and more gold. Some of it is found- but the finders never tell, because you see they'd only get one-third then: that's the law of treasure. They want it all, so never speak of it.
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Jean Rhys |
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299c614
|
The feeling of Sunday is the same everywhere, heavy, melancholy, standing still. Like when they say, As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
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Jean Rhys |
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97c5d80
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I try, but they always see through me. The passages will never lead anywhere, the doors will always be shut.
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nowhere
passages
see-through
shut
try
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Jean Rhys |
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ec9a884
|
Vain, silly creature. Made for loving? Yes, but she'll have no lover, for I don't want her and she'll see no other.
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patriarchy
revisionist-history
romance
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Jean Rhys |
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9759aea
|
Saved, rescued, fished-up, half-drowned, out of the deep, dark river, dry clothes, hair shampooed and set. Nobody would know I had ever been in it.
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Jean Rhys |
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98438d6
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Why did you make me want to live? Why did you do that to me?
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Jean Rhys |
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b0a59e6
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Rain, forever raining. Drown me in sleep. And soon.
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Jean Rhys |
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7b99d9f
|
Well, that was the end of me, the real end. Two pound ten every Tuesday and a room of the Gray's Inn Road. Saved, rescued and with my place to hide in - what more did I want? I crept in and hid. The lid of the coffin shut down with a bang. Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone. No more pawings, no more pryings - leave me alone.
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beautiful
coffin
end
happy
hide
left-alone
love
rescued
room
saved
successful
wish
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Jean Rhys |
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8fcf453
|
These people all fling themselves at me. Because I am uneasy and sad they all fling themselves at me larger than life. But I can put my arm up to avoid the impact and they slide gently to the ground. Individualists, completely wrapped up in themselves, thank God. It's the extrovert, prancing around, dying for a bit of fun - that's the person you've got to be wary of.
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extrovert
fun
individualist
life
people
sad
uneasy
wary
|
Jean Rhys |
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e536b6e
|
And then the days came when I was alone.
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solitude
|
Jean Rhys |
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3244dba
|
Let's say that you have this mystical right to cut my legs off. But the right to ridicule me afterwards because I am a cripple -- no, that I think you haven't got. And that's the right you hold most dearly, isn't it? You must be able to despise the people you exploit.
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Jean Rhys |
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1d8a56b
|
poverty is the cause of many compromises.
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Jean Rhys |
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b71f11c
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He says: 'it doesn't matter. What I know is that I could do this with you' -- he makes a movement with his hands like a baker, kneading a loaf of bread -- 'and afterwards you'd be different.
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Jean Rhys |
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530877d
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I can remember every second of that morning, if I shut my eyes I can see the deep blue colour of the sky and the mango leaves, the pink and red hibiscus, the yellow handkerchief she wore around her head, tied in the Martinique fashion with the sharp points in front, but now I see everything still, fixed for ever like the colours in a stained-glass window. Only the clouds move. It was wrapped in a leaf, what she had given me, and I felt it c..
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Jean Rhys |
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a767223
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People talk about the happy life, but that's the happy life when you don't care any longer if you live or die. You only get there after a long time and many misfortunes. And do you think you are left there? Never. As soon as you have reached this heaven of indifference, you are pulled out of it. From your heaven you have to go back to hell. When you are dead to the world, the world often rescues you, if only to make a figure of fun out of y..
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Jean Rhys |
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55998a7
|
The maid came in to light up and soon it would be time to go upstairs and change for dinner. I thought this woman one of the most fascinating I had ever seen. She had a long thin face, dead white, or powdered dead white. Her hair was black and lively under her cap, her eyes so small that the first time I saw her I thought she was blind. But wide open, they were the most astonishing blue, cornflower blue, no, more like sparks of blue fire. T..
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blue-eyes
maid
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Jean Rhys |
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3351c48
|
But in the daytime it was all right. And when you'd had a drink you knew it was the best way to live in the world because anything might happen. I don't know how people live when they know exactly what's going to happen to them each day.
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life
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Jean Rhys |
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593c83d
|
I wanted it-like iron.
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Jean Rhys |
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6e2f12f
|
I had started out in life trusting everyone and now I trusted no one. So I had a few acquaintances and no close friends. It was perhaps in reaction against the inevitable loneliness of my life that I'd find myself doing bold, risky, even outrageous things without hesitation or surprise. I was usually disappointed in these adventures and they didn't have much effect on me, good or bad, but I never quite lost the hope of something better or d..
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hope
loneliness
trust
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Jean Rhys |
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fe5b0e8
|
All that is left in the world is an enormous machine, made of white steel. It has innumerable flexible arms, made of steel. Long, thin arms. At the end of each arm is an eye, the eyelashes stiff with mascara. When I look more closely I see that only some of the arms have these eyes-others have lights. The arms that carry the eyes and the arms that carry the lights are all extraordinarily flexible and very beautiful. But they grey sky, which..
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Jean Rhys |
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216f09d
|
Now, money, for the night is coming. Money for my hair, money for my teeth, money for shoes that won't deform my feet (it's not so easy now to walk around in cheap shoes with very high heels), money for good clothes, money, money. The night is coming.
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night
|
Jean Rhys |
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7a4a13e
|
I can't sleep,' he said. 'Let me lie with my head on your silver breast.
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Jean Rhys |
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698b213
|
But you don't know the world,' I teased her. 'No, only here, and Jamaica of course, Coulibri, Spanish Town. I don't know the other islands at all. Is the world more beautiful, then?' And how to answer that? 'It's different,' I said.
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Jean Rhys |