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101 " ...morbidly, attracted him to strangeness, to recklessnesss, even unhappiness. "
― Jean Rhys , After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie
102 " It was as if a curtain had fallen, hiding everything I had ever known. It was almost like being born again. The colours were different, the smells different, the feeling things gave you right down inside yourself was different. Not just the difference between heat, cold; light, darkness; purple, grey. But a difference in the way I was frightened and the way I was happy. "
― Jean Rhys , Voyage in the Dark
103 " The rumble of the life outside was like the sound of the sea which was rising gradually around her. "
104 " Unhappily children do hurt flies "
― Jean Rhys , Wide Sargasso Sea
105 " 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. "
106 " 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.. "
― Jean Rhys , Good Morning, Midnight
107 " 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. "
108 " 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. "
109 " Everything in their whole bloody world is a cliché. Everything is born out of a cliché, rests on a cliché, survives by a cliché. And they believe in the clichés - there's no hope. "
110 " She was a shadow, kept alive by a flame of hatred for somebody who had long ago forgotten all about her. "
111 " You surpise me, because people nearly always force you to ask, don't they? "
112 " 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? "
113 " She haunted him, as an ungenerous action haunts one. "
114 " Saved, rescued, but not quite so good as new... "
115 " I must remember about chandeliers and dancing, about swans and roses and snow. "
116 " What you take to be hyprocrisy is sometimes a certain caution, sometimes genuine, though ponderous, childish, sometimes a mixture of both. "
117 " 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 "
118 " Can I help it if my heart beats, if my hands go cold? "
119 " 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. "
120 " 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. "