Jamaica Inn Quotes

“Because I want to; because I must; because now and forever more this is where I belong to be.”
― Daphne Du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“Dead men tell no tales, Mary.”
― Daphne duMaurier, Jamaica Inn

“He stole horses' you'll say to yourself, 'and he didn't care for women; and but for my pride I'd have been with him now.”
― Daphne Du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“No, Mary had no illusions about romance. Falling in love was a pretty name for it, that was all.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“And, though there should be a world of difference between the smile of a man and the bared fangs of a wolf, with Joss Merlyn they were one and the same.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“He took her face in his hands and kissed it, and she saw that he was laughing. "When you're an old maid in mittens down at Helford, you'll remember that," he said, "and it will have to last you to the end of your days. 'He stole horses,' you'll say to yourself, 'and he didn't care for women; and but for my pride I'd have been with him now.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“She realized for the first time that aversion and attraction ran side by side; that the boundary-line was thin between them.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“I don't want to love like a woman or feel like a woman, Mr Davey; there's pain that way, and suffering, and misery that can last a lifetime. I didn't bargain for this; I don't want it.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“If there’s one thing that makes a man sick, it’s to have his ale poured out of an ugly hand.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“Why are you sitting here beside me, then?'
'Because I want to; because I must; because now and forever more this is where I belong to be.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“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, Jamaica Inn

“Roads? Who spoke of roads? We go by the moor and the hills, and tread granite and heather as the Druids did before us.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“a silence on the tors that belonged to another age; an age that is past and vanished as though it had never been, an age when man did not exist, but pagan footsteps trod upon the hills. And there was a stillness in the air, and a stranger, older peace, that was not the peace of God.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“She laughed because she must, and because he made her;”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said carelessly. “Put you in a fine gown and a pair of high-heeled shoes, and stick a comb in your hair, I daresay you’d pass for a lady even in a big place like Exeter.” “I’m meant to be flattered by that, I suppose,” said Mary, “but, thanking you very much, I’d rather wear my old clothes and look like myself.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“No, Mary had no illusions about romance. Falling in love was a pretty name for it, that was all. Jem Merlyn was a man, and she was a woman, and whether it was his hands or his skin or his smile she did not know, but something inside her responded to him, and the very thought of him was an irritant and a stimulant at the same time. It nagged at her and would not let her be.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“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, Jamaica Inn

“They jogged along in silence, Jem playing with the thong of the whip, and Mary aware of his hands beside her. She glanced down at them out of the tail of her eye, and she saw they were long and slim; they had the same strength, the same grace, as his brother's. These attracted her; the others repelled her. She realised for the first time that aversion and attraction ran side by side; that the boundary line was thin between them. The thought was an unpleasant one, and she shrank from it. Supposing this had been Joss beside her ten, twenty years ago? She shuttered the comparison at the back of her mind, fearing the picture it conjured. She knew now why she hated her uncle.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“If death came now, he would be an ally; existence was not a thing she welcomed anymore. Life had been crushed from her anyway, and the body lying on the bed did not belong to her. She had no wish to live”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“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”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“That's never been my life, nor ever will."

"Why not? You'll wed a farmer one day, or small tradesman, and live respectably among your neighbours. Don't tell them you lived once at Jamaica Inn, and had love made to you by a horse-thief. They'd shut their doors against you. Good-bye, and here's prosperity to you.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“There's a home for you here at North Hill, you know that, and my wife joins me in begging you to stay. Plenty to do, you know, plenty to do. There are flowers to be cut for the house, and letters to write, and the children to scold.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“existence itself is a long enough journey, without adding to the burden”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“Once more she knew the humility of being born a woman, when the breaking down of strength and spirit was taken as natural and unquestioned. Were she a man, now, she would receive rough treatment, or indifference at the best, and be requested to ride at once perhaps to Bodmin or to Launceston to bear witness, with an understanding that she should find her own lodging and betake herself to the world’s end if she wished when all questions had been asked. And she would depart, when they had finished with her, and go on a ship somewhere, working her passage before the mast; or tramp the road with one silver penny in her pocket and her heart and soul at liberty.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“He stood for everything she feared and hated and despised; but she knew she could love him. Nature cared nothing for prejudice. Men and women were like the animals on the farm at Helford, she supposed; there was a common law of attraction for all living things, some similarity of skin or touch, and they would go to one another. This was no choice made with the mind. Animals did not reason, neither did the birds in the air. Mary was no hypocrite; she was bred to the soil, and she had lived too long with birds and beasts, had watched them mate. and bear their young, and die. There was precious little romance in nature, and she would not look for it in her own life.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“I like the look of you and the feel of you, and that's enough for any man. It ought to be enough for a woman too.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“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.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“I thought to find it in the Christian Church, but the dogma sickened me, and the whole foundation is built upon a fairy-tale. Christ Himself is a figurehead, a puppet thing created by man himself.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“I will tell you how I sought refuge from myself in Christianity and found it to be built upon hatred and jealousy, and greed—all the man-made attributes of civilization, while the old pagan barbarism was naked and clean.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn

“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.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn