Daphne Du Maurier Quotes

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

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.

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.

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.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

I dragged myself to my feet, and with my hellhound in tow started off once more through the fastness of the wood, feeling, as the poet did before me, that my companion would be with me through the nights and through the days and down the arches of the years, and I should never be rid of him.

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.

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.

Boredom is a pleasing antidote for fear

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.

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...

But the point is this Monsieur...the reason why Madame complains of you is not because of the immorality in itself; but because, so she tells me, you make immorality delicious.