Rebecca quotes

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 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 [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.

View Quote 2nd Mrs. de Winter: Maxim, does anyone else know this?
de Winter: No, no one except you and me.
2nd Mrs. de Winter: We must explain it. It's got to be the body of someone you've never seen before.
de Winter: No, they're bound to know her. Her rings, bracelets she always wore. They'll identify her body. Then, they'll remember the other woman - the other woman buried in the crypt.
2nd Mrs. de Winter: If they found out it was Rebecca, you will simply say you made a mistake about the other body, that the day you went to Edgecoombe, you were ill, you didn't know what you were doing. Rebecca's dead. That's what we've got to remember. Rebecca's dead. She can't speak. She can't bear witness. She can't harm you anymore. We're the only two people in the world that know Maxim, you and I.
de Winter: I told you once that I'd done a very selfish thing in marrying you. I can understand now what I meant. I've loved you, my darling. I shall always love you. But I've known all along that Rebecca would win in the end.
2nd Mrs. de Winter: No, no. She hasn't won. No matter what happens now, she hasn't won.

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 de Winter: [referring to Manderlay] To me, it's just the place where I was born and I've lived in all my life. But now, I don't suppose I shall ever see it again.
2nd Mrs. de Winter: Well, we're lucky not to, uh, be home during the bad weather, aren't we? I-I can't ever remember enjoying swimming in England till June, can you? The water's so warm here that I could stay in all day. There's a dangerous undertow and there's a man who drowned here last year. I never have any fear of drowning. Have you?
de Winter: Come, I'll take you home.

View Quote She was lying on the divan, a large tray of cigarette stubs beside her. She looked ill, ****. Suddenly she got up, started to walk toward me. 'When I have a child,' she said, 'neither you nor anyone else could ever prove it wasn't yours. You'd like to have an heir, wouldn't you, Max, for your precious Manderley?' Then she started to laugh. 'How funny! How supremely, wonderfully funny! I've been a perfect mother just as I've been the perfect wife! No one will ever know. Now, it ought to give you the thrill of your life, Max, to watch my son grow bigger day by day and to know that when you die, Manderley will be his.' She was face to face with me. One hand in her pocket, the other holding a cigarette. She was smiling: 'Well Max. What are you going to do about it? Aren't you going to kill me?' I suppose I went mad for a moment. I must have struck her. She stood staring at me. She looked almost triumphant. Then she started toward me again, smiling. Suddenly she stumbled and fell. When I looked down, ages afterwards it seemed, she was lying on the floor. She'd struck her head on a heavy piece of ship's tackle. I remember wondering why she was still smiling. Then I realized she was dead.

View Quote [to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter] I can't forget what it's done to you. I've been thinking of nothing else since it happened. It's gone forever, that funny young, lost look I loved won't ever come back. I killed that when I told you about Rebecca. It's gone. In a few hours, you've grown so much older.

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 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 [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 Yes, and we must be careful not to shock Cinderella, mustn't we?

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 I am Mrs. de Winter now.

View Quote Favell used to visit her here in this cottage. I found out about it and I warned her that if he came here again I'd shoot them both. One night, when I'd found that she'd come quietly back from London, I thought that Favell was with her. And I knew then, that I couldn't stand this life of filth and deceit any longer. I decided to come down here and have it out with both of them. But she was alone. She was expecting Favell but he hadn't come.