Everything tender and melancholy - as life is sometimes, just for one moment.

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.

Only the magic and the dream are true — all the rest's a lie.

The rumble of the life outside was like the sound of the sea which was rising gradually around her.

Age seldom arrives smoothly or quickly. It's more often a succession of jerks.

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.

Stephan was secretive and a liar, but he was a very gentle and expert lover. She was the petted, cherished child, the desired mistress, the worshipped, perfumed goddess. She was all these things to Stephan - or so he made her believe.