Explore Quotes by Daphne Du Maurier

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

Look on each day that comes as a challenge, as a test of courage. The pain will come in waves, some days worse than others, for no apparent reason. Accept the pain. Little by little, you will find new strength, new vision, born of the very pain and loneliness which seem, at first, impossible to master.

If you think I'm one of the people who try to be funny at breakfast you're wrong. I'm invariably illtempered in the early morning.

A dreamer, I walked enchanted, and nothing held me back.

The moment of crisis had come, and I must face it. My old fears, my diffidence, my shyness, my hopeless sense of inferiority, must be conquered now and thrust aside. If I failed now I should fail forever.

When she smiled it was as though she embraced the world.

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

But luxury has never appealed to me, I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.

I thought of all those heroines of fiction who looked pretty when they cried, and what a contrast I must make with a blotched and swollen face, and red rims to my eyes.

I felt rather exhausted, and wondered, rather shocked at my callous thought, why old people were sometimes such a strain. Worse than young children or puppies because one had to be polite.

Life was a series of greetings and farewells, one was always saying good-bye to something, to someone.

From the very first, I knew that it would be so...I smiled to myself, and said, "That -- and none other.

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

When the leaves rustle, they sound very much like the stealthy movement of a woman in evening dress, and when they shiver suddenly, and fall, and scatter away along the ground, they might be the patter of a woman’s hurrying footsteps, and the mark in the gravel the imprint of a high-heeled shoe.

But I have had enough melodrama in this life, and would willingly give my five senses if they could ensure us our present peace and security. Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind. Of course we have our moments of depression; but there are other moments too, when time, unmeasured by the clock, runs on into eternity and, catching his smile, I know we are together, we march in unison, no flash of thought or opinion makes a barrier between us.

Those dripping crumpets, I can see them now. Tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, flaky scones. Sandwiches of unknown nature, mysteriously flavoured and quite delectable, and that very special gingerbread. Angel cake, that melted in the mouth, and his rather stodgier companion, bursting with peel and raisins. There was enough food there to keep a starving family for a week.

...as the slow sea sucked at the shore and then withdrew, leaving the strip of seaweed bare and the shingle churned, the sea birds raced and ran upon the beaches. Then that same impulse to flight seized upon them too. Crying, whistling, calling, they skimmed the placid sea and left the shore. Make haste, make speed, hurry and begone; yet where, and to what purpose? The restless urge of autumn, unsatisfying, sad, had put a spell upon them and they must flock, and wheel, and cry; they must spill themselves of motion before winter came.

I could fight with the living but I could not fight the dead. If there was some woman in London that Maxim loved, someone he wrote to, visited, dined with, slept with, I could fight her. We would stand on common ground. I should not be afraid. Anger and jealousy were things that could be conquered. One day the woman would grow old or tired or different, and Maxim would not love her anymore. But Rebecca would never grow old. Rebecca would always be the same. And she and I could not fight. She was to strong for me.

I could not ask forgiveness for something I had not done. As scapegoat, I could only bear the fault.

I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin with a string of pearls.

I would not be young again, if you offered me the world. But then I'm prejudiced.' 'You talk,' I said, 'as if you were ninety-nine.' 'For a woman I very nearly am,' she said. 'I'm thirty five.