Jean Rhys Quotes

There was a time when I had nothing. I lost everything.

People don't understand: I've had 37 fights, three to five fights every year, for 17 years. That does something to somebody. These suspensions are the only vacations I've ever had.

I know what it is to have nothing.

Some days, I didn't know how I was going to make it to the next morning.

When I was around 25 years old, I lost everything and was a complete dirtbag.

I started with nothing. Less than nothing.

I know what it feels like to be broke and alone, and I don't ever want my loved ones to see that or know what it's like.

I had a very rough upbringing.

I've lost a lot. I'm tired of it. It's not fun.

How like a railway tunnel is the poor man's life, with the light of childhood at one end, the intermediate gloom, and only the glimmer of a future life at the other extremity!

Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more! Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore! And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me, I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly That I might eat again, and met thy sneers With deprecations, and thy blows with tears.

Who has gone hungry learns to think of the future and of the children.

And one thing to be remembered: it is not that the people who are poor, starving, become frustrated with life - no. They cannot become frustrated. They have not lived yet - how can they be frustrated? They have hopes. A poor man always has hopes that something is going to happen - if not today then tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow; if not in this life then in the next life.

Devoutly the teachers point out huge fumigated domes; but beneath the statues there's no love, no love beneath the eyes set in crystal. Love is there, in flesh ripped by thirst, in the tiny hut struggling against the flood; love is there, in ditches where snakes of hunger wrestle, in the sad sea that rocks dead gulls, and in the darkest stinging kiss under pillows.

Ultimately, I think people are so hopeful for having some joy in life that is really hard to find. You can't make a living, and the idea of doing one small bank robbery or something, just trying to find your way in a life, finding your footing and ending up behind bars.

A man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune would get tired but then time is your misfortune

Go ye, who rest so placidly upon the sacred Bard who had been young, and when he strung his harp was old, and had never seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging their bread; go, Teachers of content and honest pride, into the mine, the mill, the forge, the squalid depths of deepest ignorance, and uttermost abyss of man's neglect, and say can any hopeful plant spring up in air so foul that it extinguishes the soul's bright torch as fast as it is kindled!

I just know that there are plenty of people who are in terrible trouble and can't get out. And so I'm impatient with those who think that it's easy for people to get out of trouble.

I have made no money. I am as poor now as ever I was in my life - except in hope, which is by no means bankable.

After all, a homeless man has reason to cry, everything in the world is pointed against him.

You have played, (I think) And broke the toys you were fondest of, And are a little tired now; Tired of things that break, and— Just tired. So am I.

We probably looked like starving orphan children. Hey! We were starving orphan children.

I still have the mentality of someone who doesn't know where he's going to sleep and doesn't know if he has enough money for gas to get to the next job interview. I don't think that mentality ever leaves, you know?

When you’ve been poor all your life, you never really think it could be any other way. And sometimes you’re even happy, because at least you’ve got your family and your health and your arms and legs and a roof over your head.