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The things you remember have no form. When you write about them, you have to give them a beginning, a middle, and an end. To give life shape—that is what a writer does. That is what is so difficult.

— Jean Rhys Interview with The Paris Review (1979)

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Writing

More quotes by Jean Rhys

It's a lovely feeling to know you can do exactly as you like.

Lies are never forgotten, they go on and they grow.

Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

"...Money have pretty face for everybody, but for that man money pretty like pretty self, he can't see nothing else.

Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

I woke the next morning knowing that nothing would be the same. It would change and go on changing.

Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

I sit at my window and the words fly past me like birds — with God's help I catch some.

Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

All Jean Rhys quotes →

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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.”

Suman Pokhrel

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

Robert Benchley

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.

William Wordsworth Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jean Rhys (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.