93+ Daphne Du Maurier Quotes On Writing, Rebecca And Mysterious

Daphne Du Maurier was an English novelist and playwright. She is best known for her novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, both of which were made into films. Her other works include The Birds, Don't Look Now and My Cousin Rachel. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Daphne Du Maurier on writing, rebecca, mysterious.

Top 10 Daphne Du Maurier Quotes

1. Happiness is not a possession to be prized. It is a quality of thought, a state of mind.
2. But luxury has never appealed to me, I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.
3. Men are simpler than you imagine my sweet child. But what goes on in the twisted, tortuous minds of women would baffle anyone.
4. I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin with a string of pearls.
5. 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.
6. A dreamer, I walked enchanted, and nothing held me back.
7. There is no going back in life. There is no return. No second chance.
8. Nothing like a cup of tea to make a person feel better, man or woman.
9. Every moment was a precious thing, having in it the essence of finality.
10. A bad workman blames his tools.

Daphne Du Maurier Short Quotes

• All autobiography is self-indulgent.
• I have no talent for making new friends, but oh such genius for fidelity to old ones.
• And I don't like books which are full of name dropping.
• When she smiled it was as though she embraced the world.
• Boredom is a pleasing antidote for fear
• It wouldn't make for sanity would it, living with the devil.
• Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
• I held out my arms to him and he came to me like a child.
• I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone.
• You had to endure something yourself before it touched you.

Daphne Du Maurier Quotes About Writing

Here was the freedom I desired, long sought-for, not yet known Freedom to write, to walk, to wander, freedom to climb hills, to pull a boat, to be alone. — Daphne Du Maurier

When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person. — Daphne Du Maurier

Writing every book is like a purge; at the end of it one is empty ... like a dry shell on the beach, waiting for the tide to come in again. — Daphne Du Maurier

Daphne Du Maurier Quotes About Happiness

Happiness happens when you fit with your life, when you fit so harmoniously that whatsoever you are doing is your joy. Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind. — Daphne Du Maurier

We're not meant for happiness, you and I. — Daphne Du Maurier

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

Daphne Du Maurier Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — 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 road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea. — Daphne Du Maurier

There was never an accident.Rebecca was not drowned at all. I killed her.I shot Rebecca in the cottage in the cove.I carried her body to the cabin, and took the boat out that night and sunk it there, where they found it today.It's Rebecca who's lying dead there on the cabin floor.Will you look into my eyes and tell me that you love me now? — 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

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. — Daphne Du Maurier

People who mattered could not take the humdrum world. But this was not the world, it was enchantment; and all of it was mine. — 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

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. — Daphne Du Maurier

How lacking in intuition men could be in persuading themselves that mending some stranger's socks, and attending to his comfort, could content a woman. — 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

Why, he wondered, should he remember her suddenly, on such a day, watching the rain falling on the apple trees? — Daphne Du Maurier

...but I should say that kindliness, and sincerity, and if I may say so--modesty--are worth far more to a man, to a husband, than all the wit and beauty in the world. — 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

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

I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth. — 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

He stole horses' you'll say to yourself, 'and he didn't care for women; and but for my pride I'd have been with him now. — Daphne Du Maurier

…you guessed that somewhere, in heaven knew what country and what guise, there was someone who was part of your body and your brain, and that without him you were lost, a straw blown by the wind. — Daphne Du Maurier

Life and death do not wait for legal action. — 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

So you see, when war comes to one’s village, one’s doorstep, it isn’t tragic and impersonal any longer. It is just an excuse to vomit private hatred. That is why I am not a great patriot. — Daphne Du Maurier

...the routine of life goes on, whatever happens, we do the same things, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing. No crisis can break through the crust of habit. — Daphne Du Maurier

He was like someone sleeping who woke suddenly and found the world...all the beauty of it, and the sadness too. The hunger and the thirst. Everything he had never thought about or known was there before him, and magnified into one person who by chance, or fate--call it what you will--happened to be me. — Daphne Du Maurier

All whispers and echoes from a past that is gone teem into the sleeper's brain, and he is with them, and part of them. — Daphne Du Maurier

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

Come and see us if you feel like it,' she said. 'I always expect people to ask themselves. Life is too short to send out invitations. — Daphne Du Maurier

A familiar name on its own, however, does not carry its bearer far unless the talent is there, and the will to work. — Daphne Du Maurier

He had the face of one who walks in his sleep, and for a wild moment the idea came to me that perhaps he was not normal, not altogether sane. There were people who had trances, I had surely heard of them, and they followed strange laws of which we could know nothing, they obeyed the tangled orders of their own sub-conscious minds. Perhaps he was one of them, and here we were within six feet of death. — Daphne Du Maurier

no person will ever get into my blood as a place can ... People and things pass away, but not places. — Daphne Du Maurier

Looking from the window at the fantastic light and colour of my glittering fairy-world of fact that holds no tenderness, no quietude, I long suddenly for peace, for understanding. — Daphne Du Maurier

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

How pleasant,' Dona said, peeling her fruit; 'the rest of us can only run away from time to time, and however much we pretend to be free, we know it is only for a little while - our hands and our feet are tied. — 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

We can see the film stars of yesterday in yesterday’s films, hear the voices of poest and singers on a record, keep the plays of dead dramatists upon our bookshelves, but the actor who holds his audience captive for one brief moment upon a lighted stage vanishes forever when the curtain falls. — 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

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

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

Dead men tell no tales, Mary. — Daphne Du Maurier

Time will mellow it, make it a moment for laughter. But now it was not funny, now I did not laugh. It was not the future, it was the present. It was too vivid and too real. — Daphne Du Maurier

Living as we do in an age of noise and bluster, success is now measured accordingly. We must all be seen, and heard, and on the air. — 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

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

Will you look into my eyes and tell me that you love me now? — Daphne Du Maurier

If there’s one thing that makes a man sick, it’s to have his ale poured out of an ugly hand. — Daphne Du Maurier

... and through it all and afterwards they would be together, making their own world where nothing mattered but the things they could give to one another, the loveliness, the silence, and the peace. — Daphne Du Maurier

here was a silence between them for a moment, and she wondered if all women, when in love, were torn between two impulses, a longing to throw modesty and reserve to the winds and confess everything, and an equal determination to conceal the love forever, to be cool, aloof, utterly detached, to die rather than admit a thing so personal, so intimate. — Daphne Du Maurier

Watch that boy. He's going to startle somebody someday. — Daphne Du Maurier

I had build up false pictures in my mind and sat before them. I had never had the courage to demand the truth. — Daphne Du Maurier

People who travel are always fugitives. — Daphne Du Maurier

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. — 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

What about the hero of The House on the Strand? What did it mean when he dropped the telephone at the end of the book? I don't really know, but I rather think he was going to be paralysed for life. Don't you? — Daphne Du Maurier

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. — Daphne Du Maurier

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. — 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 point is, life has to be endured, and lived. But how to live it is the problem. — 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

[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. — 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 could not ask forgiveness for something I had not done. As scapegoat, I could only bear the fault. — Daphne Du Maurier

Because I want to; because I must; because now and forever more this is where I belong to be. — Daphne Du Maurier

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. — Daphne Du Maurier

He lacked tenderness; he was rude; and he had more than a streak of cruelty in him; he was a thief and a liar. He stood for everything she feared and hated and despised; but she knew she could love him... This was no choice made with the mind. — 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

I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, an that to advance in this or any world we must endure ordeal by fire." (From Rebecca) — Daphne Du Maurier

Life Lessons by Daphne Du Maurier

1. Daphne Du Maurier taught us to never give up on our dreams, no matter how hard the journey may be. She was determined to pursue her passion for writing, even when it seemed impossible.
2. She also showed us the importance of staying true to ourselves and our values, even when faced with criticism or opposition.
3. Finally, she demonstrated the power of resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity, always finding a way to overcome her struggles and achieve success.