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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

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Daphne du Maurier
Age: 81 †
Born: 1907
Born: May 13
Died: 1989
Died: April 19
Author
Biographer
Novelist
Playwright
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
London
England
Dame Daphne du Maurier
People
Thought
Hopes
Littles
Fears
Live
Bright
Little
Red
Children
Dies
Believe
Understand
Make
House
Time
Feelings
Nurse

More quotes by Daphne du Maurier

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Because I want to because I must because now and forever more this is where I belong to be.
Daphne du Maurier
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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.
Daphne du Maurier
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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
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When she smiled it was as though she embraced the world.
Daphne du Maurier
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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
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Boredom is a pleasing antidote for fear
Daphne du Maurier
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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
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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
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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
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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
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I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone.
Daphne du Maurier
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Daphne du Maurier
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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
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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
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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
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The point is, life has to be endured, and lived. But how to live it is the problem.
Daphne du Maurier
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But luxury has never appealed to me, I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.
Daphne du Maurier