Rebecca Quotes

The 7 most famous lines from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938), each with its speaker and the scene it belongs to. These are the quotes readers underline, copy into essays and put on walls - gathered in one place, explained in a line.

• “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

  - The second Mrs de Winter. The famous opening line.

• “I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For this is a fine and beautiful thing the first time it happens.”

  - The second Mrs de Winter. On love that arrives once, and then never that way again.

• “Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.”

  - The second Mrs de Winter. Her philosophy of contentment against comparison.

• “I could fight the living but I could not fight the dead.”

  - The second Mrs de Winter. Understanding what she is actually competing with.

• “You would have thought she was a reigning queen, the way they treated her.”

  - The second Mrs de Winter. On how the household still orbits its dead first mistress.

• “We can never go back again, that much is certain.”

  - The narrator. On how the past becomes a country you cannot re-enter.

• “Men are simpler than you imagine, my sweet child. But what goes on in the twisted minds of women would baffle anyone.”

  - Mrs Van Hopper. The heroine's employer, dispensing worldliness by the lift.

Why these lines survive

Daphne du Maurier’s sentences earn their fame by compression: each line carries the whole book’s argument in a form you can carry in your pocket. Read in order, the 7 quotes above also sketch the novel’s shape - the world it opens, the pressure it applies, the note it ends on. If you meet them before the book, nothing is spoiled beyond mood; if you meet them after, each one lands like a place you have been.

Quote collectors: pair this page with the Rebecca quiz to see which lines actually stuck, the book club questions when you want to argue about them, or how long the reread takes - about 9 hours and 15 minutes at an average pace. If the lines did their job and you want more of the same nerve, the books like Rebecca list is next.

Want the whole shelf’s lines? Our Daphne du Maurier books in order guide lists every book.

How to use a quotes page

Three honest uses. Before reading: skim the first two quotes to taste the prose - if the voice does not pull you, the book will not either. During: mark which quote you actually reach in the text, because the distance between famous line and lived scene is where a book keeps its secrets. After: pick the one quote you would defend at dinner and check it against the discussion questions - a quote you can argue about is a quote you understood. What a quotes page is not for is replacing the book; five lines of Daphne du Maurier are an invitation, not a summary.

More quote collections

Frankenstein quotes, Dracula quotes, The Picture of Dorian Gray quotes, Wuthering Heights quotes - or browse quotes from all 133 classics. Then see which of them stuck on the original book quiz.

Frequently asked questions