Daphne du Maurier Quotes

67 Sourced Quotes

No person will ever get into my blood as a place can... People and things pass away, but not places.

Daphne du Maurier
If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.

Daphne du Maurier
The trouble is, walking in Venice becomes compulsive once you start. Just over the next bridge, you say, and then the next one beckons.

Daphne du Maurier
How simple life becomes when things like mirrors are forgotten.

Daphne du Maurier
There is no going back in life. There is no return. No second chance.

Daphne du Maurier
We are all ghosts of yesterday, and the phantom of tomorrow awaits us alike in sunshine or in shadow, dimly perceived at times, never entirely lost.

Daphne du Maurier
The peace of Manderley. The quietude and the grace. Whoever lived within its walls, whatever trouble there was and strife, however much uneasiness and pain, no matter what tears were shed, what sorrows borne, the peace of Manderley could not be broken or the loveliness destroyed.

Daphne du Maurier
I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world we must endure ordeal by fire.

Daphne du Maurier
Ideas for stories began to crowd thick and fast, like people waiting for a train.

Daphne du Maurier
This house sheltered us, we spoke, we loved within those walls. That was yesterday. To-day we pass on, we see it no more, and we are different, changed in some infinitesimal way. We can never be quite the same again.

Daphne du Maurier
A character or an idea has to grow like a seed and take possession…it's something to do with one's own development and passage through life.

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

Daphne du Maurier
Once a person gave his talent to the world, the world put a stamp upon it. The talent was not a personal possession any more. It was something to be traded, bought and sold. It fetched a high price, or a low one. It was kicked in the common market.

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

Daphne du Maurier
It wouldn't make for sanity would it, living with the devil.

Daphne du Maurier
There's something about Paris that gives you a mental slap all the time, and you can't just sit still and do nothing. You've got to work, to keep up with the pace, the sting in the atmosphere.

Daphne du Maurier
Either you go to America with Mrs. Van Hopper or you come home to Manderley with me." "Do you mean you want a secretary or something?" "No, I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool.

Daphne du Maurier
I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end.

Daphne du Maurier
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.

Daphne du Maurier
I would have gone too but I wanted to come straight back to you.I kept thinking of you, waiting here, all by yourself, not knowing what was going to happen.

Daphne du Maurier
Jem was safe from her, and he would ride away with a song on his lips and a laugh at her expense, forgetful of her, and of his brother, and of God; while she dragged through the years, sullen and bitter, the stain of silence marking her, coming in the end to ridicule as a soured spinster who had been kissed once in her life and could not forget it.

Daphne du Maurier
Why did dogs make one want to cry? There was something so quiet and hopeless about their sympathy. Jasper, knowing something was wrong, as dogs always do. Trunks being packed. Cars being brought to the door. Dogs standing with drooping tails, dejected eyes. Wandering back to their baskets in the hall when the sound of the car dies away.

Daphne du Maurier
She had to live in this bright, red gabled house with the nurse until it was time for her to die... I thought how little we know about the feelings of old people. Children we understand, their fears and hopes and make-believe.

Daphne du Maurier
Sometimes it's a sort of indulgence to think the worst of ourselves. We say, 'Now I have reached the bottom of the pit, now I can fall no further,' and it is almost a pleasure to wallow in the darkness. The trouble is, it's not true. There is no end to the evil in ourselves, just as there is no end to the good. It's a matter of choice. We struggle to climb, or we struggle to fall. The thing is to discover which way we're going.

Daphne du Maurier
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.

Daphne du Maurier
She knew that this was happiness, this was living as she had always wished to live.

Daphne du Maurier
It doesn't do to be curious at Jamaica Inn, and I'll have you remember that.

Daphne du Maurier
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.

Daphne du Maurier
I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.

Daphne du Maurier
We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic — now mercifully stilled, thank God — might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion as it had before.

Daphne du Maurier