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89dabdc
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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.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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d5ba086
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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.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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12f1d14
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he proceeded to cut carefully a thin slice from the loaf, which he quartered in pieces and buttered for her, the whole business very delicately done and in striking contrast to his manner in serving himself - so much so that to Mary there was something almost horrifying in the change from rough brutality to fastidious care. It was as though there was some latent power in his fingers which turned them from bludgeons into deft and cunning ser..
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Daphne du Maurier |
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d46a906
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The only time I got into trouble was when I forged M's signature on the weekly report we had to take home every Friday and take back to school again signed by one of our parents. The reason I did so was that M happened to be out at the time and I thought I could save myself trouble.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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73bd95f
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Women are not so, Philip. Their moods vary with the days and nights, sometimes even with the hours, just as a man's can do. We are human, that is our failing.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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74e47c3
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I wished he would not always treat me as a child, rather spoilt, rather irresponsible, someone to be petted from time to time when the mood came upon him, but more often forgotten, more often patted on the shoulder and told to run away and play. I wished something would happen to make me look wiser, more mature. Was it always going to be like this? He way ahead of me, with his own moods that I did not share, his secret troubles that I did n..
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Daphne du Maurier |
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63927d8
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The air was full of their scent, sweet and heady, and it seemed to me as though their very essence had mingled with the running waters of the stream, and become one with the falling rain and the dank rich moss beneath our fee
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Daphne du Maurier |
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3fcbbdc
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My afternoon had spoilt me for the hours that still remained,
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Daphne du Maurier |
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a6cd301
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Today, wrapped in the complacent armor of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one lightly and are soon forgotten, but then-- how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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9bba307
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Sentiment can turn afterlife into a fairy tale for children, and I prefer this to Edme's theory of oblivion.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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d941e65
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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.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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dbf3158
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I did so obediently, and waited for her approval.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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95f0da7
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It embarrassed her, as a child, to think that her father had fallen in love, or, if men must love, then it should have been someone else, someone dark, mysterious and profoundly clever, not an ordinary person who was impatient for no reason and cross when one was late for lunch.
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men
clever
dark
love
embarrass
impatient
late
ordinary
embarrassment
mediocrity
mother
mystery
mysterious
father
impatience
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Daphne du Maurier |
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0285bcd
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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.
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poetry
remembrance
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Daphne du Maurier |
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a252f1a
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She sat with her chin cupped in her hands, her eyes fixed on the window splashed with mud and rain, hoping with a sort of desperate interest that some ray of light would break the heavy blanket of sky, and but a momentary trace of that lost blue heaven that had mantled Helford yesterday shine for an instant as a forerunner of fortune.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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401096f
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Jamaica Inn stands today, hospitable and kindly, a temperance house on the twenty-mile road between Bodmin and Launceston. In the following story of adventure I have pictured it as it might have been over a hundred and twenty years ago; and although existing place-names figure in the pages, the characters and events described are entirely imaginary. Daphne du Maurier Bodinnick-by-Fowey October 1935
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Daphne du Maurier |
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22efa08
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I know that age, it's a particularly obstinate one, and a thousand bogies won't make you fear the future. A pity we can't change over.
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youth
naivete
innocence
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Daphne du Maurier |
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c1b920f
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Samuel had strengthened the blood-tie between them, but no more than this. They would cherish each other in sickness and in health, walk through life sharing its pleasures and its sorrows, sleep side by side at night in the little room above the porch, grow old and frail, resting at last, not parted, in Lanoc Churchyard--but from the beginning to the end they would have no knowledge of one another. Janet's feeling for Samuel ran parallel to..
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Daphne du Maurier |
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2b14190
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My complaint is universal, and has been so through the ages, an excuse for jest and hilarious laughter from earliest times, until one of us oversteps the mark and becomes a menace to society. Then we are given the boot. The passerby averts his gaze, and we are left to crawl out of the ditch alone, or stay there and die.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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796c8dc
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It is not easy to be gallant in an apple tree. Perhaps you will tell your mother.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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f331be2
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The soft humidity of the evening, so pleasant to walk about in earlier, had turned to rain. The strolling tourists had melted away. One or two people hurried by under umbrellas. This is what the inhabitants who live here see, he thought. This is the true life. Empty streets by night, the dank stillness of a stagnant canal beneath shuttered houses. The rest is a bright facade put on for show, glittering by sunlight.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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d2fcb81
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There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been, the gray stone shining in the moonlight of my dream...
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Daphne du Maurier |
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25bd00a
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You're a good girl," he said. "I'm fond of you, Mary; you've got sense, and you've got pluck; you'd make a good companion to a man. They ought to have made you a boy."
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Daphne du Maurier |
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841d4de
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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..
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Daphne du Maurier |
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b28c260
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Experience, Major Dodd, has long informed me that no man ever expresses admiration unless he wants something out of the person admired." "That's a very cynical view." "I'm a cynical woman."
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Daphne du Maurier |
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d1114bc
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Niall never really knew which; but he used to lie in bed until she returned in the middle of the day, and he read every one of the works of Maupassant, the book in one hand and a bar of chocolate in the other.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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f753009
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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?
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Daphne du Maurier |
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5a79383
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Nat thought to himself that "they" were no doubt considering the problem at that very moment, but whatever "they" decided to do in London and the big cities would not help the people here, three hundred miles away. Each householder must look after his own."
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Daphne du Maurier |
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710cd48
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Curious thing that the younger men of today were glib enough when they talked of ideals and how everyone must progress in a changing world, but when the crunch came they were very ready to let the older generation pay the piper.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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5c7378f
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the rank and melancholy smell of charred wet wood and sodden leaves coming towards me on a wisp of air.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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ff85ca0
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In those days, before the First World War, young women did not use makeup. Anna was free of lipstick, and her gold hair was rolled in great coils over her ears.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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78e6843
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You ought to take more exercise, if you're inclined to have a liver. Play golf.
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liver
golf
health
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Daphne du Maurier |
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ef6e888
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Jennifer had exactly five pounds, six shillings, and fourpence halfpenny when she left No. 7 Maple Street. She lugged her two suitcases along with her into various buses, and arrived at Paddington with three-quarters of an hour to wait before the twelve o'clock train should bear her away from London forever. Thirty-two shillings and sixpence of her capital went on her third-class ticket, and three shillings more on a cup of coffee, two rash..
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Daphne du Maurier |
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e1f5e18
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I'm being rather a brute to you, aren't I?" he said; "this isn't your idea of a proposal. We ought to be in a conservatory, you in a white frock with a rose in your hand, and a violin playing a waltz in the distance. And I should make violent love to you behind a palm tree. You would feel then you were getting your money's worth. Poor darling,"
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Daphne du Maurier |
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bbf13b3
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The unnamed narrator of Rebecca begins her story with a dream, with a first sentence that has become famous: Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again. Almost all the brief first chapter is devoted to that dream, describing her progress up the long winding drive, by moonlight, to Manderley itself. The imagery, of entwined trees and encroaching undergrowth that have "mated," is sexual; the style is slightly scented and overwritten, that..
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Daphne du Maurier |
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fd379a3
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We went back into the drawing room. The evening had passes pleasantly enough, heaven knows, but I was glad that they had gone and the house was silent once again. She must have had the same thought, for she stood a moment, looking around her in the drawing room, she said, 'I love the stillness of a room, after a party. The chairs are moved, the cushions disarranged, everything is there to show that people enjoyed themselves; and one comes b..
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Daphne du Maurier |
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90a7a70
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Les images defilaient par centaines derriere mes yeux fermes, chose vues, choses sues et choses oubliees.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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3890355
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Dozing, she thought in retrospect how her life had been building up towards this moment, year in, year out, almost from alley days. That early training, as a cockney child, sharpened her wit and made her seize her chances: the schooling at Ham put on a pseudo-polish: marriage with Joseph got the worst over young--so much so, that nothing a man could do, now or in the future, would break her heart. As to the rest... all lovers made some mark..
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Daphne du Maurier |
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e788cf5
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It's funny, I thought, how 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.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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a2ddd9b
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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.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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a30d9ad
|
Si crees que soy uno de esos que se sienten con ganas de bromas a la hora del desayuno, te equivocas. Por la manana temprano estoy casi siempre de muy mal humor.
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Daphne du Maurier |
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77e38e2
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Resignation brings its own reward
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Daphne du Maurier |
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479023e
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we only become aware of hot discomfort when others are made awkward for our sakes
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Daphne du Maurier |
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261eae8
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Richard turned and saw me. And as he looked at me it was as if my whole heart moved over in my body and was mine no longer
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Daphne du Maurier |