Quotes from Wide Sargasso Sea

“You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone. We are alone in the most beautiful place in the world...”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets of whatever colour, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty which was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness. She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“Blot out the moon,
Pull down the stars.
Love in the dark, for we're for the dark
So soon, so soon.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic. You hate me and I hate you. We’ll see who hates best. But first, first I will destroy your hatred. Now. My hate is colder, stronger, and you’ll have no hate to warm yourself. You will have nothing.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“Justice. I've heard that word. I tried it out. I wrote it down. I wrote it down several times and always it looked like a damn cold lie to me. There is no justice.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“Only the magic and the dream are true — all the rest's a lie.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“Have all beautiful things sad destinies?”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“I watched her die many times. In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty. Only the sun was there to keep us company. We shut him out. And why not? Very soon she was as eager for what's called loving as I was - more lost and drowned afterwards.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“There is always another side, always.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“As soon as I turned the key I saw it hanging, the color of fire and sunset. the colour of flamboyant flowers. ‘If you are buried under a flamboyant tree, ‘ I said, ‘your soul is lifted up when it flowers. Everyone wants that.’

She shook her head but she did not move or touch me.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“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.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“I have been too unhappy, I thought, it cannot last, being so unhappy, it would kill you”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“If she says goodbye perhaps adieu. Adieu - like those old time songs she sang. Always adieu (and all songs say it). If she too says it, or weeps, I'll take her in my arms, my lunatic. She's mad but mine, mine. What will I care for gods or devils or for Fate itself. If she smiles or weeps or both. For me.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“She’ll have no lover, for I don’t want her and she’ll see no other.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“I have tried," I said, "but he does not believe me. It is too late for that now" (it is always too late for truth, I thought).”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“I sit at my window and the words fly past me like birds — with God's help I catch some.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“Now at last I know why I was brought here and what I have to do.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“What I see is nothing - I want what it hides - that is not nothing.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“It is the tragedy of a distinguished mind and a generous nature that have gone unappreciated in a conventional, unimaginative world. A victim of men's incomprehension of women, a symptom of women's mistrust of men.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“I took the red dress down and put it against myself. 'Does it make me look intemperate and unchaste?' I said.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“I thought if I told no one it might not be true.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“When I was out on the battlements it was cool and I could hardly hear them. I sat there quietly. I don't know how long I sat. Then I turned round and saw the sky. It was red and all my life was in it.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“The house was burning, the yellow-red sky was like the sunset...Nothing would be left, the golden ferns and the silver ferns, the orchids, the ginger lilies and the roses...When they had finished, there would be nothing left but blackened walls and the mounting stone. That was always left. That could not be stolen or burned.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“Very soon she'll join all the others who know the secret and will not tell it. Or cannot. Or try and fail because they do not know enough. They can be recognized. White faces, dazed eyes, aimless gestures, high-pitched laughter. The way they walk and talk and scream or try to kill (themselves or you) if you laugh back at them. Yes, they've got to be watched. For the time comes when they try to kill, then disappear. But others are waiting to take their places, it's a long, long line. She's one of them. I too can wait—for the day when she is only a memory to be avoided, locked away, and like all memories a legend. Or a lie ...”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“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.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

“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.”
― Jean Rhys, quote from Wide Sargasso Sea

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