the search for illusion a craving, almost a vice, the stolen waters and the bread eaten in secret of [her] life. ("Illusion") - Wide Sargasso Sea

When you are a child you are yourself and you know and see everything prophetically. And then suddenly something happens and you stop being yourself; you become what others force you to be. You lose your wisdom and your soul. (chapter 12)

They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks. The Jamaican ladies had never approved of my mother, ‘because she pretty like pretty self’ Christophine said. (first lines)

I am always being told that until my work ceases being "sordid and depressing" I haven't much chance of selling. (1931)