"When I was excited about life, I
didn’t want to write at all. I’ve never written when I was happy. I
didn’t want to. But I’ve never had a long period of being happy, Do you
think anyone has? I think you can be peaceful for a long time, When I
think about it, if I had to choose, I’d rather be happy than write. You
see, there’s very little invention in my books. What came first with
most of them was the wish to get rid of this awful sadness that weighed
me down. I found when I was a child that if I could put the hurt into
words, it would go. It leaves a sort of melancholy behind and then it
goes."
— Jean Rhys
