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Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier Quotes

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Famous Daphne du Maurier Quotes

“I wanted to go on sitting there, not talking, not listening to the others, keeping the moment precious for all time, because we were peaceful all of us, we were content and drowsy even as the bee who droned above our heads. In a little while it would be different, there would come tomorrow, and the next day and another year. And we would be changed perhaps, never sitting quite like this again. Some of us would go away, or suffer, or die, the future stretched away in front of us, unknown, unseen, not perhaps what we wanted, not what we planned. This moment was safe though, this could not be touched. Here we sat together, Maxim and I, hand-in-hand, and the past and the future mattered not at all. This was secure, this funny little fragment of time he would never remember, never think about again…For them it was just after lunch, quarter-past-three on a haphazard afternoon, like any hour, like any day. They did not want to hold it close, imprisoned and secure, as I did. They were not afraid.”

Time
Book:Rebecca
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“We know one another. This is the present. There is no past and no future. Here I am washing my hands, and the cracked mirror shows me to myself, suspended as it were, in time; this is me, this moment will not pass. And then I open the door and go to the dining-room, where he is sitting waiting for me at a table, and I think how in that moment I have aged, and passed on, how I have advanced one step towards an unknown destiny. We smile, we choose our lunch, we speak of this and that, but - I say to myself-I am not she who left him five minutes ago. She has stayed behind. I am another woman, older, more mature…”

Time
Author:Daphne du Maurier
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“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.”

RebeccaDaphne Du Maurier
Book:Rebecca
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“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 MaurierFrenchman S Creek
Book:Frenchman's creek
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“It seemed to me that I had no feeling left, either for what had happened or for what was yet to come. Mac had destroyed, with his own hands, the single thread of evidence that had brought us, through the whole of yesterday, to this morning’s dawn. The ultimate dream of every scientist, to give the first answer to the meaning of death, had belonged to us for a brief few hours. We had captured the energy, the energy had ignited the spark, and from that point on there had appeared to loom world after world of discovery.”

Sci FiDaphne Du Maurier
Book:The Breakthrough
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“«Questo è quel che sognavo» pensai. «Così speravo che fosse, la vita a Manderley.» Avrei voluto restare lì seduta, senza parlare, senza dover ascoltare gli altri, riponendo nel cassetto dell'eternità questo momento in cui tutti eravamo in pace, soddisfatti e un po' assopiti, perfino l'ape che ci volava attorno. Tra poco non sarebbe più stato lo stesso, sarebbero arrivati un altro giorno, un altro anno. E noi forse saremmo cambiati, non ci saremmo mai più seduti così. Qualcuno di noi sarebbe partito, o si sarebbe ammalto, o sarebbe morto: il futuro si estendeva davanti a noi, sconosciuto, imprevedibile, forse non sarebbe stato quel che volevamo, quel che avevamo disposto. Ma il momento presente era salvo, era intoccabile. Maxim e io eravamo seduti qui, mano nella mano, il passato e il futuro non avevano alcuna importanza. La sicurezza stava in questo insignificante frammento di tempo, che lui non avrebbe mai ricordato. ... Per loro era solo un dopo pranzo, le tre e un quarto di un pomeriggio qualsiasi, un'ora e un giorno come tutti gli altri. Loro - a differenza di me - non avevano il desiderio di trattenere questo momento, di salvarlo. Non avevano paura, loro.”

TimeFearMemoryHappy Times
Book:Rebecca
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“Suddenly I saw a clearing in the dark drive ahead, and a patch of sky, and in a moment the dark trees had thinned, the nameless shrubs had disappeared, and on either side of us was a wall of colour, blood-red, reaching far above our heads. We were amongst the rhododendrons. There was something bewildering, even shocking, about the suddenness of their discovery. The woods had not prepared me for them. They startled me with their crimson faces, massed one upon the other in incredible profusion, showing no leaf, no twig, nothing but the slaughterous red, luscious and fantastic, unlike any rhododendron plant I had seen before. I glanced at Maxim. He was smiling. 'Like them?' he said. I told him 'Yes,' a little breathlessly, uncertain whether I was speaking the truth or not, for to me a rhododendron was a homely, domestic thing, strictly conventional, mauve or pink in colour, standing one beside the other in a neat round bed. And these were monsters, rearing to the sky, massed like a battalion, too beautiful I thought, too powerful; they were not plants at all.”

Rhododendrons
Book:Rebecca
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“The quality it had now, in fresh untempered sunlight, was neither faerie nor austere; the changing shadows of dusk and midnight had vanished with the darkness and the rain, and walls and roof and towers were bathed in the radiance that comes only in the first hours of the day, soft, new-washed, the delicate aftermath of dawn. The people who slept within must surely bear some imprint of this radiance in themselves, must turn instinctively to the light seeping through the shutters, while the ghostly dreams and sorrows of the night slipped away, finding sanctuary in the unwakened forest trees the sun had not yet touched.”

NightSleepMorningDreamsDawnWakingSunlightDayTreesRadiance
Book:The Scapegoat
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“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. The flowers that died would bloom again another year, the same birds build their nests, the same trees blossom. That old quiet moss smell would linger in the air, and the bees would come, and crickets, the herons build their nests in the deep dark woods. The butterflies would dance their merry jug across the lawns, and spiders spin foggy webs, and small startled rabbits who had no business to come trespassing poke their faces through the crowded shrubs. There would be lilac, and honeysuckle still, and the white magnolia buds unfolding slow and tight beneath the dining-room window. No one would ever hurt Manderley. It would lie always in its hollow like an enchanted thing, guarded by the woods, safe, secure, while the sea broke and ran and came again in the little shingle bays below.”

PeaceBeautyEternalManderley
Book:Rebecca
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“When Stephen talked about stalking chamois his whole expression changed. The features became more aquiline, the nose sharpened, the chin narrowed, and his eyes-steel blue - somehow took on the cold brilliance of a northern sky. I am being very frank about my husband. He attracted me at those times, and he repelled me too. This man, I told myself when I first met him, is a perfectionist. And he has no compassion. Gratified like all women who find themselves sought after and desired - a mutual love for Sibelius had been our common ground at our first encounter - after a few weeks in his company I shut my eyes to further judgment, because being with him gave me pleasure. It flattered my self-esteem. The perfectionist, admired by other women, now sought me. Marriage was in every sense a coup. It was only afterwards that I knew myself deceived. ("The Chamois")”

MarriagePerfectionist
Book:Echoes from the Macabre: Selected Stories
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“The urge to climb will never be explained. In olden days, perhaps it was a wish to reach the stars. Today, anyone so minded can buy a seat on a plane and feel himself master of the skies. Even so, he will not have rock under his feet, or air upon his face; nor will he know the silence that comes only on the hills.”

KnowsFeelsTodayFacesWishStarsSilenceAirFeetSkyRocksMastersHillsPlanesSeatsClimbsUrgesOlden Days
Book:Daphne du Maurier Omnibus 1: Frenchman's Creek; The Birds & Other Stories; Hungry Hill
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“[Referring to the birds:] Nat listened to the tearing sound of splintering wood, and wondered how many million years of memory were stored in those little brains, behind the stabbing beaks, the piercing eyes, now giving them this instinct to destroy mankind with all the deft precision of machines.”

GivingYearsLittlesEyeSoundMemoriesAnimalBehindsBrainMillionsMankindBirdMachinesInstinctWoodsPrecisionReferringPiercingsStabbingBeaks
Book:THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI, THE STORY OF AVIATION, THE SWIMMING POOL, KISS ME AGAIn, STRANGER, RIVETS, ADVENTURES IN TWO WORLDS, THE SILENT WORLD, SHORT STORIES OF DE MAUPASSANT
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“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.”

StillsMightPastCertainForgetBehindsStruggleBlindLengthCompanionThank GodPanicBack AgainUnrestUnforeseen
Author:Daphne du Maurier
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