Daphne du Maurier Quotes

Because I believe there is nothing so self-destroying, and no emotion quite so despicable, as jealou...

Truth was something intangible, unseen, which sometimes we stumbled upon and did not recognize, but ...

A woman of feeling does not easily give way. You may call it pride, or tenacity, call it what you wi...

She has done for me at last, Rachel my torment.

But a lonely man is an unnatural man, and soon comes to perplexity. From perplexity to fantasy. From...

They jogged along in silence, Jem playing with the thong of the whip, and Mary aware of his hands be...

No, Mary had no illusions about romance. Falling in love was a pretty name for it, that was all. Jem...

...she thought with pity of all the men and women who were not light-hearted when they loved, who we...

how lacking in intuition men could be in persuading themselves that mending some stranger's socks, a...

And oh, heaven - the crowded playhouse, the stench of perfume upon heated bodies, the silly laughter...

...are you happy?""I am content.""What is the difference?""Between happiness and contentment? Ah, th...

The warm night claimed her. In a moment it was part of her. She walked on the grass, and her shoes w...

Roger left the cricket stumps and they went into the drawing room. Grandpapa, at the first suggestio...

As soon as he had disappeared Deborah made for the trees fringing the lawn, and once in the shrouded...

The children had had an argument once about whether there was more grass in the world or more sand, ...

When Stephen talked about stalking chamois his whole expression changed. The features became more aq...

I wondered straightaway how he could sit at peace there, of an evening, with the row of heads starin...

For love, as she knew it now, was something without shame and without reserve, the possession of two...

Then Deborah stood at the wicket gate, the boundary, and there was a woman with outstretched hand, d...

- because just by hating it’s possible to be purified from love, just with the sword, with the fire....

It embarrassed her, as a child, to think that her father had fallen in love, or, if men must love, t...

Writers should be read - but neither seen nor heard.

She could not separate success from peace of mind. The two must go together.

...The fact that it's black transforms it. Has the same effect on women that black stockings have on...

Women want love to be a novel, men a short story.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized it is a quality of thought a state of mind.

We know one another. This is the present. There is no past and no future. Here I am washing my hands...

I feel it's all wrong to be nervous," said Maria. "I feel it's lack of confidence. One ought to go r...

Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.

I love the stillness of a room, after a party. The chairs are moved, the cushions disarranged, every...

We can never go back again that much is certain. The past is still too close to us. The things we h...

Women want love to be a novel. Men, a short story.

I have no talent for making new friends, but oh such genius for fidelity to old ones.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

The sea, like a crinkled chart, spread to the horizon, and lapped the sharp outline of the coast, wh...

We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still close to us. The things we have ...

You have blotted out the past for me, you know, far more effectively than all the bright lights of M...

Either you go to America with Mrs. Van Hopper or you come home to Manderley with me.""Do you mean yo...

He looked down at me without recognition, and I realized with a little stab of anxiety that he must ...

The peace of Manderley. The quietude and the grace. Whoever lived within its walls, whatever trouble...

I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, wha...

I held out my arms to him and he came to me like a child.

Boredom is a pleasing antidote for fear

Why did dogs make one want to cry? There was something so quiet and hopeless about their sympathy. J...

I know that age, it's a particularly obstinate one, and a thousand bogies won't make you fear the fu...

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

The moment of crisis had come, and I must face it. My old fears, my diffidence, my shyness, my hopel...

The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the ...

Those dripping crumpets, I can see them now. Tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, flaky scone...

Every moment was a precious thing, having in it the essence of finality.

We've got a bond in common, you and I. We are both alone in the world.

They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fear...

She had to live in this bright, red gabled house with the nurse until it was time for her to die... ...

I thought of all those heroines of fiction who looked pretty when they cried, and what a contrast I ...

He had the face of one who walks in his sleep, and for a wild moment the idea came to me that perhap...

This house sheltered us, we spoke, we loved within those walls. That was yesterday. To-day we pass o...

Maxim's voice, clear and strong, "Will someone take my wife outside?She is going to faint.

If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it...

I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our par...

There was never an accident.Rebecca was not drowned at all. I killed her.I shot Rebecca in the cotta...

I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because th...

I dragged myself to my feet, and with my hellhound in tow started off once more through the fastness...

He could see her planting violets on his grave, a solitary figure in a grey cloak. What a ghastly tr...

...as the slow sea sucked at the shore and then withdrew, leaving the strip of seaweed bare and the ...

Looking from the window at the fantastic light and colour of my glittering fairy-world of fact that ...

There was something rather blousy about roses in full bloom, something shallow and raucous, like wom...

I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone. How commonplace and stupid...

A familiar name on its own, however, does not carry its bearer far unless the talent is there, and t...

Living as we do in an age of noise and bluster, success is now measured accordingly. We must all be ...

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to t...

I wanted to go on sitting there, not talking, not listening to the others, keeping the moment precio...

I would have gone too but I wanted to come straight back to you.I kept thinking of you, waiting here...

They were all fitting into place, the jig-saw pieces. The odd strained shapes that I had tried to pi...

Who can ever affirm, or deny that the houses which have sheltered us as children, or as adults, and ...