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.

All of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is idiotic to be curious about the person.

Sometimes the Earth trembles; sometimes you can feel it breathe.

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.

Cold - cold as truth, cold as life. No, nothing can be as cold as life.

She haunted him, as an ungenerous action haunts one.

I've been so ridiculous all my life that a little bit more or a little bit less hardly matters now.