Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys, CBE, born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams, was a mid-20th-century novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica, though she was mainly resident in England from the age of 16. She is best known for her novel Wide Sargasso Sea, written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 August 1894
beautiful nice swings
A room? A nice room? A beautiful room? A beautiful room with bath? Swing high, swing low, swing to and fro...This happened and that happened... And then the days came and I was alone.
beautiful fire red
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.
writing people has-beens
I must write. If I stop writing my life will have been an abject failure. It is that already to other people. But it could be an abject failure to myself. I will not have earned death.
action
She haunted him, as an ungenerous action haunts one.
stars dark moon
Blot out the moon, Pull down the stars. Love in the dark, for we're for the dark So soon, so soon.
eagles wings broken
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...
gaps way whiskey
Would you like a whiskey?' I say. 'I've got some.' (That's original. I bet nobody's ever thought of that way of bridging the gap before.)
humble humility virtue
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.
change people different
very few people change after well say seven or seventeen. Not really. They get more this or more that and of course look a bit different. But inside they are the same.
mixtures sometimes genuine
What you take to be hyprocrisy is sometimes a certain caution, sometimes genuine, though ponderous, childish, sometimes a mixture of both.
book reading giving
She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimmer to water. The only difficulty was that after finishing the last sentence she was left with a feeling at once hollow and uncomfortably full. Exactly like indigestion.
struggle views humans
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.
running morning adventure
There is no doubt that running away on a fresh, blue morning can be exhilarating.
dream dark london
London is like a cold dark dream sometimes.