Frenchman's Creek Quotes

“She knew that this was happiness, this was living as she had always wished to live.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“And this then, that I am feeling now, is the hell that comes with love, the hell and the damnation and the agony beyond all enduring, because after the beauty and the loveliness comes the sorrow and the pain.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“And all this, she thought, is only momentary, is only a fragment in time that will never come again, for yesterday already belongs to the past and is ours no longer, and tomorrow is an unknown thing that may be hostile. This is our day, our moment, the sun belongs to us, and the wind, and the sea, and the men for'ard there singing on the deck. This day is forever a day to be held and cherished, because in it we shall have lived, and loved, and nothing else matters but that in this world of our own making to which we have escaped.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“You understand now... how simple life becomes when things like mirrors are forgotten.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“For love, as she knew it now, was something without shame and without reserve, the possession of two people who had no barrier between them, and no pride; whatever happened to him would happen to her too, all feeling, all movement, all sensation of body and of mind.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“... 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, Frenchman's Creek

“...she thought with pity of all the men and women who were not light-hearted when they loved, who were cold, who were reluctant, who were shy, who imagined that passion and tenderness were two things separate from one another, and not the one, gloriously intermingled, so that to be fierce was also to be gentle, so that silence was a speaking without words.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“I wonder ... when it was that the world first went amiss, and men forgot how to live and to love and to be happy.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“From the very first, I knew that it would be so...I smiled to myself, and said, "That -- and none other.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“Contentment is a state of mind and body when the two work in harmony, and there is no friction. The mind is at peace, and the body also. The two are sufficient to themselves. Happiness is elusive -- coming perhaps once in a life-time -- and approaching ectasy.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“...I will shed no more tears, like a spoilt child. For whatever happens we have had what we have had. No one can take that from us. And I have been alive, who was never alive before.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“There was silence between them for 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, Frenchman's Creek

“And perhaps one day, in after years, someone would wander there and listen to the silence, as she had done, and catch the whisper of the dreams that she had dreamt there, in midsummer, under the hot sun and the white sky.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“...are you happy?"

"I am content."

"What is the difference?"

"Between happiness and contentment? Ah, there you have me. It is not easy to put into words. Contentment is a state of mind and body when the two work in harmony, and there is no friction. The mind is at peace, and the body also. The two are sufficient to themselves. Happiness is elusive--coming perhaps once in a life-time--and approaching ecstasy."

"Not a continuous thing, like contentment?"

"No, not a continuous thing. But there are, after all, degrees of happiness.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“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, Frenchman's Creek

“…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, Frenchman's Creek

“People who travel are always fugitives.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“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, Frenchman's Creek

“All this, is only momentary, is only a fragment in time that will never come again, for yesterday already belongs to the past and is ours no longer, and tomorrow is an unknown thing that may be hostile. This is our day, our moment, the sun belongs to us, and the wind, and the sea, and the men forward there singing on the deck. This day is forever a day to be held and cherished, because in it we shall have lived and loved, and nothing else matters but that in this world of our own making to which we have escaped.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“Marriage and piracy do not go together.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“...somewhere there is a Dona of tomorrow, a Dona of the future, of ten years away, to whom all of this will be a thing to cherish, a thing to remember. Much will be forgotten then, perhaps, the sound of the tide on the mud flats, the dark sky, the dark water, the shiver of the trees behinds us and the shadows they cast before them, and the smell of the young bracken and the moss. Even the things we said will be forgotten, the touch of hands, the warmth, the loveliness, but never the peace that we have given to each other, never the stillness and the silence.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“It does happen, you know, from time to time, that a man finds a woman who is the answer to all his more searching dreams. And the two have understanding of each other, from the lightest moment to the darkest mood.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“I mean that I am bound to you, even as you are bound to me. From the very first, I knew that it would be so. When I came here, in the winter, and lay upstairs in your room, my hands behind my head, and looked at your sullen portrait on the wall, I smiled to myself, and said, ‘That—and none other.’ And I waited, and I did nothing, for I knew that our time would come.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“And oh, heaven - the crowded playhouse, the stench of perfume upon heated bodies, the silly laughter and the clatter, the party in the Royal box - the King himself present - the impatient crowd in the cheap seats stamping and shouting for the play to begin while they threw orange peel on to the stage.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“I think you had better leave the room, William, before I throw something at you.” “Very good, my lady.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“the ship drifted on the horizon like a symbol of escape”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“She had played too long a part unworthy of her. She had consented to be the Dona her world had demanded – a superficial, lovely creature, who walked, and talked, and laughed, accepting praise and admiration with a shrug of the shoulder as natural homage to her beauty, careless, insolent, deliberately indifferent, and all the while another Dona, a strange, phantom Dona, peered at her from a dark mirror and was ashamed. This other self knew that life need not be bitter, nor worthless, nor bounded by a narrow casement, but could be limitless, infinite – that it meant suffering, and love, and danger, and sweetness, and more than this even, much more.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“My poor Lucy,” he said, “if only I could have spared her this ordeal.” “You should have thought of that nine months ago, my lord,” she answered, and he stared at her, greatly embarrassed and shocked, and murmured something about having hoped for years for a son and heir. “Which I am sure she will give you,” smiled Dona, “even if you have ten daughters first.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“My poor Lucy,” he said, “if only I could have spared her this ordeal.” “You should have thought of that nine months ago, my lord,” she answered, and he stared at her, greatly embarrassed and shocked, and murmured something about having hoped for years for a son and heir.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek

“But of course, Lord Godolphin,” she smiled, and turning away, wandered into the small salon and stood thinking rapidly, while from the hall she heard voices, and murmurs, and heavy footsteps, and “He is so agitated,” she thought, “that if we seized his wig again, he could not notice it.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek