Rebecca quotes

View Quote There's no need to be frightened, you now. Just be yourself and they'll all adore you. You don't have to worry about the house at all. Mrs. Danvers is the housekeeper - just leave it to her.

View Quote You know I didn't want you to go there, but you deliberately went...Don't go there again, you hear!...Because I hate the place and if you had my memories, you wouldn't go there or talk about it or even think about it...We should have stayed away. We should never have come back to Manderley. Oh, what a fool I was.

View Quote [to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter, who is wearing a dress similar to Rebecca's] What the devil do you think you're doing?...Go and take it off. It doesn't matter what you put on. Anything will do. What are you standing there for? Didn't you hear what I said?

View Quote 2nd Mrs. de Winter: [to man looking out over a cliff, thinking he means to jump] No! Stop!
de Winter: What the devil are you shouting about? Who are you? What are you staring at?
2nd Mrs. de Winter: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare, but I, I only thought...
de Winter: Oh, you did, did you? Well, what are you doing here?
2nd Mrs. de Winter: I was only walking.
de Winter: Well, get on with your walking and don't hang about here screaming.

View Quote Mrs. de Winter: Maxim, can't we start all over again? I don't ask that you should love me. I won't ask impossible things. I'll be your friend, your companion, I'll be happy with that.
de Winter: You love me very much, don't you? But it's too late, my darling. We've lost our little chance at happiness.
2nd Mrs. de Winter: No, Maxim, no.
de Winter: Yes. It's all over now. The thing has happened, the thing I've dreaded, day after day, night after night.
2nd Mrs. de Winter: Maxim, what are you trying to tell me?
de Winter: Rebecca has won. Her shadow has been between us all the time, keeping us from one another. She knew that this would happen.
2nd Mrs. de Winter: What are you saying?

View Quote 2nd Mrs. de Winter: How could we be close when I knew you were always thinking of Rebecca? How could I even ask you to love me when I knew you loved Rebecca still?
de Winter: What are you talking about? What do you mean?
2nd Mrs. de Winter: Whenever you touched me, I knew you were comparing me with Rebecca. Whenever you looked at me or spoke to me, walked with me in the garden, I knew you were thinking, 'This I did with Rebecca. And this and this.' It's true, isn't it?
de Winter: You thought I loved Rebecca? You thought that? I hated her! Oh, I was carried away by her - enchanted by her, as everyone was. And when I was married, I was told that I was the luckiest man in the world. She was so lovely - so accomplished - so amusing. 'She's got the three things that really matter in a wife,' everyone said: 'breeding, brains, and beauty.' And I believed them - completely. But I never had a moment's happiness with her. She was incapable of love, or tenderness, or decency.
2nd Mrs. de Winter: You didn't love her? You didn't love her?

View Quote Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter for the way was barred to me. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done. But as I advanced, I was aware that a change had come upon it. Nature had come into her own again, and little by little had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers, on and on while the poor thread that had once been our drive. And finally, there was Manderley - Manderley - secretive and silent. Time could not mar the perfect symmetry of those walls. Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, and suddenly it seemed to me that light came from the windows. And then a cloud came upon the moon and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face. The illusion went with it. I looked upon a desolate shell, with no whisper of a past about its staring walls. We can never go back to Manderley again. That much is certain. But sometimes, in my dreams, I do go back to the strange days of my life which began for me in the south of France...

View Quote I am Mrs. de Winter now.

View Quote [to Maxim de Winter] We ought to do something to make people feel that Manderley is just the same as it always was...Oh yes, but I want to, oh please! I've never been to a large party, but I could learn what to do, and I promise you, you wouldn't be ashamed of me...I'll design a costume all by myself and give you the surprise of your life.

View Quote It's Mrs. Danvers. She's gone mad. She said she'd rather destroy Manderley than see us happy here.

View Quote By the way, my dear, don't think that I mean to be unkind, but you were just a teeny, weeny bit forward with Mr. de Winter. Your effort to enter the conversation quite embarrassed me and I'm sure it did him. Men loathe that sort of thing. Oh come, don't sulk. After all, I am responsible for your behavior here. Perhaps he didn't notice it. Poor thing. I suppose he just can't get over his wife's death. They say he simply adored her.

View Quote Oh yes, I know Mr. de Winter well. I knew his wife too. Before she married him, she was the beautiful Rebecca Hindreth, you know. She was drowned, poor dear, when she was sailing near Manderley. He never talks about it, of course, but he's a broken man.

View Quote So this is what's been happening during my illness! Tennis lessons my foot! I suppose I have to hand it to you for a fast worker. How did you manage it? Still waters certainly run deep. Tell me, have you been doing anything you shouldn't?...But you certainly have your work cut out as Mrs. Sir Manderley. To be perfectly frank with you, my dear, I can't see you doing it. You haven't the experience, you haven't the faintest idea of what it means to be a great lady. Of course, you know why he's marrying you, don't you? You haven't flattered yourself that he's in love with you. The fact is - that empty house got on his nerves to such an extent, he nearly went off his head. He just couldn't go on living alone...Hmmph, Mrs. de Winter! Goodbye, my dear and Good Luck.

View Quote [to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter, regarding Mrs. Danvers] Oh, there's no need for you to be frightened of her. But you shouldn't have any more to do with her than you can help...You see, she's bound to be insanely jealous at first, and she must resent you bitterly...Don't you know? Why I should have thought Maxim would have told you. She simply adored Rebecca.

View Quote [to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter] Oh well, don't go by me. I can see by the way you dress you don't care a hoot how you look.