Daphne Du Maurier Quotes

“If you think I'm one of those people who try to be funny at breakfast you're wrong. I'm invariably ill-tempered in the early morning.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“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 too strong for me.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“We were like two performers in a play, but we were divided, we were not acting with one another. We had to endure it alone, we had to put up this show, this miserable, sham performance for the sake of all these people I did not know and did not want to see again.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“All this, is only momentary, is only a fragment in time that will never come again, for yesterday already belongs to the past and is ours no longer, and tomorrow is an unknown thing that may be hostile. This is our day, our moment, the sun belongs to us, and the wind, and the sea, and the men forward there singing on the deck. This day is forever a day to be held and cherished, because in it we shall have lived and loved, and nothing else matters but that in this world of our own making to which we have escaped.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“The world of today asleep, and my world not awakened, or not as yet, until the drug possessed me.”
― Daphne du Maurier, The House on the Strand

“A ce moment-là, Maxim me regarda enfin. Il me regarda pour la première fois de la soirée et, dans ses yeux, je lus un message d'adieu. C'était comme s'il se penchait au bastingage d'un navire, et que je me tenais en contrebas sur le quai. Il y avait d'autres gens qui touchaient son épaule et qui touchaient la mienne, mais nous ne les remarquions pas. Nous ne nous parlions pas et ne nous hélions pas, car le vent et la distance emportaient le son de nos voix. Mais je vis ses yeux, tout comme lui vit les miens, avant que le navire se détache du quai. Favell, Mme Danvers, le colonel Julyan, Frank avec son bout de papier à la main, tous furent oubliés à cet instant-là. Cet instant-là était le nôtre, inviolé, communion éphémère entre nos deux êtres.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“I had an uneasy feeling we might be asked to spend the approaching Christmas with Beatrice. Perhaps I could have influenza.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“We don't need vows, you and I', he said, 'nor gold nor metal. What we are to each other lasts to the grave and beyond.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Castle Dor

“No lives have been lost as yet, and none of our women have been taken," said Godolphin stiffly, "but as the fellow is a Frenchman we all realize that it is only a question of time before something dastardly occurs.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“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 Marier, Rebecca”
― Meg Donohue, The Memory Gardener