It must be confessed that the Pilgrims possessed but few of the qualities of the modern pioneer. They were not the ancestors of th...e American backwoodsmen. They did not go at once into the woods with their axes. They were a family and church, and were more anxious to keep together, though it were on the sand, than to colonize a New World.... It is true they were busy at first about their building, and were hindered in that by much foul weather; but a party of emigrants to California or Oregon, with no less work on their hands,--and more hostile Indians,--would do as much exploring the first afternoon, and the Sieur de Champlain would have sought an interview with the savages, and examined the country as far as the Connecticut, and made a map of it, before Billington had climbed his tree.... Nevertheless, the Pilgrims were pioneers, and the ancestors of pioneers, in a far grander enterprise.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Giles Lacey: I say, old boy, I'm trying to find exactly what your wife does do. Maxim de Winter: She sketches a little.... Giles Lacey: Sketches. Oh not this modern stuff, I hope. You know, portrait of a lamp shade upside down to represent a soul in torment.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Maxim de Winter: Tell me, is Mrs. Van Hopper a friend of yours or just a relation? Mrs. de Winter: No, she's my employer. I'm... what's known as a paid companion. Maxim de Winter: I didn't know that companionship could be bought.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You thought you could be Mrs. de Winter. Live in her house. Walk in her steps. Take the things that were hers. But she's too stron...g for you. You can't fight her. No one ever got the better of her. Never. Never. She was beaten in the end. But it wasn't a man. It wasn't a woman. It was the sea!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mrs. de Winter: Whenever you touched me I knew you were comparing me with Rebecca. Whenever you looked at me or spoke to me, or wa...lked with me in the garden, I knew you were thinking, "This I did with Rebecca, and this, and this." Oh, it's true isn't it? Maxim de Winter: You thought I loved Rebecca? You thought that? I hated her.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mrs. de Winter: Mrs. Danvers must be furious with me. Maxim de Winter: Oh, hang Mrs. Danvers! Why on earth should you be frig...htened of her? You behave more like an upstairs maid or something, not like the mistress of the house at all. Mrs. de Winter: Yes, I know I do. But I feel so uncomfortable. I try my best every day, but it's very difficult with people looking you up and down as if you were a prize cow.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mrs. Van Hopper: Most girls would give their eyes for a chance to see Monte. Maxim de Winter: Wouldn't that rather defeat the... purpose?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In France, and at the most important period of our history, Catherine de' Medici has suffered more from popular error than any oth...er woman, unless it be Brunehaut or Frédégonde; while Marie de' Medici, whose every action was prejudicial to France, has escaped the disgrace that should cover her name.... Catherine de' Medici ... saved the throne of France, she maintained [the] Royal authority under circumstances to which more than one great prince would have succumbed. Face to face with such leaders of the factions and ambitions of the houses of Guise and of Bourbon as the two Cardinals de Lorraine and the two "Balafrès," the two Princes de Condé, Queen Jeanne d'Albret, Henri IV, the Connétable de Montmorency, Calvin, the Colignys and Théodore de Bèze, she was forced to put forth the rarest fine qualities, the most essential gifts of statesmanship, under the fire of the Calvinist press.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When I am writing a novel I must actually live the lives of my characters. If, for instance, my hero is a gambler on the French Ri...viera, I must make myself pack up and go to Cannes or Nice, willy-nilly, and there throw myself into the gay life of the gambling set until I really feel that I am Paul De Lacroix, or Ed Whelen, or whatever my hero's name is. Of course this runs into money, and I am quite likely to have to change my ideas about my hero entirely and make him a bum on a tramp steamer working his way back to America, or a young college boy out of funds who lives by his wits until his friends at home send him a hundred and ten dollars.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »