Top 500 Daphne du Maurier Quotes (2026 Update)
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451. “I love you so much’ he whispered. ‘So much.”

— Daphne du Maurier

452. “I kept thinking of the first time, nearly ten months before, on that Sunday in September. I had been irritated by Louise that morning, sitting so stiff and proud, and had neglected her from that day forward. She had not wavered, but had stayed my friend.”

— Daphne du Maurier

453. “This, dear God, was his contribution to the universe. Take it or leave it. Not for Niall the joys of Paradise, perhaps; but at least not the pangs of Purgatory. A small place, possibly, outside the Golden Gates.”

— Daphne du Maurier

454. “If loving a man meant this pain and anguish and sickness, she wanted none of it. It did away with sanity and composure and made havoc of courage. She was a babbling child now when once she had been indifferent and strong.”

— Daphne du Maurier

455. “I thought how little we know about the feelings of old people. Children we understand, their fears and hopes and make-believe. I was a child yesterday. I had not forgotten.”

— Daphne du Maurier

456. “And looking north, inland from the Gribben, I could just make out the grey roof of a house there, set in its own grounds amongst trees. Yes, Angela and I were told. That would be Menabilly. Belongs to Dr Rashleigh, but he seldom lives there.”

— Daphne du Maurier

457. “Impossible that they should live while I was no more a part of existence.”

— Daphne du Maurier

458. “I thought at first somebody was dead, but after a while I saw it was just England.”

— Daphne du Maurier

459. “Where do they go, Sophie, those younger selves of ours? How do they vanish and dissolve?’ ‘They don’t,’ I said. ‘They’re with us always, like little shadows, ghosting us through life.”

— Daphne du Maurier

460. “How right she was, I thought. What brings all of us through the years, from the first cry at birth to the sinking pulse at the end, and whom have we left behind us on the way, what ghosts, what crouching figures by what window?”

— Daphne du Maurier

461. “Trust you? Good God, of course I trust you. It’s you who won’t trust me, you damned little fool.‘” He laughed silently, and bent down to her, putting his arms round her, and he kissed her then as he had kissed her in Launceston, but deliberately now, with anger and exasperation. “Play your own game by yourself, then, and leave me to play mine,” he told her. ‘If you must be a boy, I can’t stop you, but for the sake of your face, which I have kissed, and shall kiss again, keep away from danger.”

— Daphne du Maurier

462. “So much for women’s value in other days. Goods reared for purchase, then bought and sold in the market-place, or rather manor. Small wonder that, their duty done, they looked round for consolation, either by taking a lover or by playing an active part in the bargaining over their own daughters and sons.”

— Daphne du Maurier

463. “The other Dona was dead too, and this woman who had taken her place was someone who lived with greater intensity, with greater depth, bringing to every thought and every action a new richness of feeling, and an appreciation, half sensuous in its quality, of all the little things that came to make her day.”

— Daphne du Maurier

464. “The man would not commit himself. “I don’t want to make trouble,” he repeated, “and I don’t know anything. It’s only what people say. Respectable folk don’t go to Jamaica anymore. That’s all I know. In the old days we used to water the horses there, and feed them, and go in for a bit of a bite and drink. But we don’t stop there anymore. We whip the horses past and wait for nothing, not till we get to Five Lanes, and then we don’t bide long.”

— Daphne du Maurier

465. “Tom Jeckell, Kicky’s friend of Pentonville days, was now a budding architect, and resumed his former friendship, and Kicky began to consider himself one of the luckiest fellows in the world to possess so many affectionate friends.”

— Daphne du Maurier

466. “Ellen turned away from them impatiently, and went to the rail once again. Her mother’s friends were all the same – affected and insincere, their conversation a continual mockery of people and things. The poor family on the lower deck had no claim upon their sympathy.”

— Daphne du Maurier

467. “The feel of her own pillow, and of her own blankets reassured her. Both were familiar. And being tired was familiar too, it was a solid bodily ache, like the tiredness after too much jumping or cricket.”

— Daphne du Maurier

468. “My brother Jem, damn him, he was the baby. Hanging onto mother’s skirts when Matt and I were grown men. I never did see eye to eye with Jem. Too smart he is, too sharp with his tongue. Oh, they’ll catch him in time and hang him, same as they did my father.”

— Daphne du Maurier

469. “Then I was glad of the presence of Jake near to me at all times, for a horror would come upon me because of the vast solitude of space and the solitary splendor of the regions where we were drifting; even the white stars seemed cold and terribly remote, and we, poor human beings on our little ship, were wretched and pathetic in our attempts to equal their wisdom, nor had we any right to venture upon the imperturbability of these waters.”

— Daphne du Maurier

470. “She put the steaming mutton down in front and he smacked his lips ‘they taught you something where you came from, anyway,’ he said. ‘I always say there’s two things women ought to do by instinct, and cookin’s one of ’em.”

— Daphne du Maurier

471. “Supposing you are caught in Launceston with Mr. Bassat’s pony? You would look a fool then, wouldn’t you? And so would I, if they clapped me into prison alongside of you.” “No one’s going to catch me; not yet awhile, anyway. Take a risk, Mary; don’t you like excitement, that you’re so careful of your own skin? They must breed you soft down Helford way.” She rose like a fish to his bait.”

— Daphne du Maurier

472. “Think of the unkind things we have forgotten,” said Niall. “Those are the ones that will be totted up against us. I sometimes wake up in the early morning and go quite cold thinking of all the things I must have done and can’t remember.” “Pappy must have taught you that,” said Celia. “Pappy had a fearful theory that when we die we go to a theater, and we sit down and see the whole of our lives re-acted before us. And nothing is omitted. Not one single, sordid detail. We have to watch it all.”

— Daphne du Maurier

473. “When I lie I like to base the lie on a foundation of fact, for it appeases not only conscience but a sense of justice.”

— Daphne du Maurier

474. “Kicky put the ten pounds back in the envelope. It was really very good of mamma. All she had in the world was that rather inadequate but so eagerly expected little dividend every quarter. He was not even sure where it came from – something to do with his grandmother who had died at Boulogne.”

— Daphne du Maurier

475. “His best friends were Tom Armstrong, who was two years older than himself and had been painting now for several years, and a Scotsman, Lamont, with a dry sense of humour and a twinkling eye. There was Rowley, too, a giant of wonderful physique and the tender heart of a child, moved to tremendous rage if anyone insulted his friends; Poynter, and Aleco Ionides, and the sinister, slightly crazy Jimmy Whistler, who wore his dark curls long and was a great poseur, even in those days.”

— Daphne du Maurier

476. “So dawned family interest, family pride, which was something quite other than clapping from a box in Wyndham’s Theatre when the curtain went up and D was standing there, smiling, bowing his head, looking from right to left and then up to the gallery, which happened at the end of the play. This was just part of something I had always known; it had nothing to do with us children but belonged to the audience, the people down there and all around, whom we should never know, who were not ‘us’.”

— Daphne du Maurier

477. “Some inner sense warned them that in their ignorance dwelt security, a happiness that was never wild, never triumphant, but peaceful and silent.”

— Daphne du Maurier

478. “Years of study, years of training, the fluency with which I spoke their language, taught their history, described their culture, had never brought me closer to the people themselves.”

— Daphne du Maurier

479. “Does forty-two seem very old to you?” he said.”

— Daphne du Maurier

480. “I know I must seem unsympathetic and cold, but this is the nineteenth century, you know, and men don’t murder one another without reason. I believe I have as much right to drive you on the King’s highway as your uncle himself. Having gone so far, don’t you think you had better let me hear the rest of your story? What is your name, and how long have you been living at Jamaica Inn?”

— Daphne du Maurier

481. “George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier – how noble it sounded! The child would at least have a good start in life, with such remarkable names.”

— Daphne du Maurier

482. “He wanted to lose the memory of that world; they wished to hold it.”

— Daphne du Maurier

483. “You are such a part of me that to stand alone leaves me dumb, without speech, without eyes. Life is valueless unless I can share everything with you – beauty, ugliness, pain.”

— Daphne du Maurier

484. “The wild shouting, the laughter, and the singing with which they had fortified themselves for the journey would have been a relief, however loathsome; but this deadly quietude was sinister.”

— Daphne du Maurier

485. “She thought of the laughing, carefree Jem who had driven her to Launceston, who had swung hands with her in the market square, who had kissed her and held her. Now he was grave and silent, his face in shadow. The idea of a dual personality troubled her, and frightened her as well. He was like a stranger to her tonight, obsessed by some grim purpose she could not understand.”

— Daphne du Maurier

486. “Who will ever know your heart, who will ever know your mind? You have that fatal quality of silence – of a tight repression that suggests a hidden fire – yes, a burning fire unquenchable.”

— Daphne du Maurier

487. “He was like a schoolmaster after all. It was just as she had feared. He was now going to make a fuss about her drawings, and write to Pappy, and worry Pappy, and say that time must be set aside for her to work, and everything would become a performance, and a ritual, and be difficult. Drawing would become a burden instead of an escape.”

— Daphne du Maurier

488. “When the water drains from the marshes, and little by little the yellow sands appear, rippling and hard and firm, it seems to my foolish fancy, as I lie here, that I too go seaward with the tide, and all my old hidden dreams that I thought buried for all time are bare and naked to the day, just as the shells and the stones are on the sands.”

— Daphne du Maurier

489. “How am I to know?” said Maria. “People never tell one the truth, not the real truth. It may be all right tonight, and the notices may be good, and everybody be nice – but I shan’t really know.” “You’ll know all right,” he said, “here.” And he tapped his chest. “Inside,” he said. “I feel it’s all wrong to be nervous,” said Maria. “I feel it’s lack of confidence. One ought to go right ahead, never minding.”

— Daphne du Maurier

490. “Angela and Jeanne were content with their lives. Why did I have to be different? We three got on so well, we never quarrelled, and could discuss every subject under the sun; yet they had no desire to break away, as I did.”

— Daphne du Maurier

491. “All attempts on the part of her son to dissuade her were useless. She remained firm. “If this man is an impostor I shall know it directly I set eyes on him,” she said. “If not, then I shall have done my duty.”

— Daphne du Maurier

492. “Grey put me up for his club. I dine there most evenings. Fellows there have been extraordinarily kind. I go out often, I know many people. Sometimes I remember what Jake said about me being successful one day. I suppose it will come true. It’s all very different, of course, from what I dreamed. But then dreams are apart from the business of living; they are things we shed from us gently as we grow older.”

— Daphne du Maurier

493. “Freada said nothing was worth doing without effort. Pappy used to say that too. Everyone said it. But when things happened easily, what was the sense in driving yourself, in sweating blood?”

— Daphne du Maurier

494. “Here was Pierre laying down the law about what the King should say to the Assembly, or what the Assembly should say to the King, and yet he could not order his own unruly boys to come down from off the hay-shocks. My mother would have done so and boxed the ears of the pair of them.”

— Daphne du Maurier

495. “We never knew the ordinary placid routine of child life, the settled home, the humdrum day by day. For if yesterday we were in London, tomorrow would be Paris, and the after-tomorrow, Rome.”

— Daphne du Maurier

496. “A solitary curlew stood pensively beside the stream, watching his reflection in the water; and then his long beak darted with incredible swiftness into the reeds, stabbing at the soft mud, and, turning his head, he tucked his legs under him and rose into the air, calling his plaintive note, and streaking for the south.”

— Daphne du Maurier

497. “If Michael Joseph of Curtis Brown tells me he doesn’t like it, or I must rewrite, he can go to hell. I can’t go back to it any more.”

— Daphne du Maurier

498. “I’m convinced that a chap’s best chance of doing his finest work is by sticking very much to himself, and of course working very hard, and, most important of all, by talking very little about it.”

— Daphne du Maurier

499. “In two minutes she would have forgotten all about having asked Celia for the day, and would be planning something else. If only Maria lived a little closer, Celia could have shared the responsibility of Caroline. It would only mean two children to look after instead of one. Because Pappy was a child. He needed humoring, and coaxing, and taking care of in much the same way as a child.”

— Daphne du Maurier

500. “Mander smiled: “A woman is as old as she looks, a man is as old as he feels, Sir Julius. You know the old saying?”

— Daphne du Maurier