George Du Maurier Quotes & Sayings

Language is a poor thing. You fill your lungs with wind and shake a little slit in your throat, and make mouths, and that shakes the air; and the air shakes a pair of little drums in my head - a very complicated arrangement, with lots of bones behind - and my brain seizes your meaning in the rough. What a roundabout way, and what a waste of time. — George Du Maurier

A little work, a little play, To keep us going - and so, good-day! — George Du Maurier

Sick I am of idle words, past all reconciling, Words that weary and perplex and pander and conceal, Wake the sounds that cannot lie, for all their sweet beguiling; The language one need fathom not, but only hear and feel. — George Du Maurier

Happiness is like time and space
we make and measure it ourselves; it is a fancy
as big, as little, as you please; just a thing of contrasts and comparisons, like health or strength or beauty or any other good
that wouldn't even be noticed but for sad personal experience of its opposite!
or its greater! — George Du Maurier

Life ain't all beer and skittles, and more's the pity; but what's the odds, so long as you're happy? — George Du Maurier

I doubt if Dickens did, especially his women-his pretty women-Mrs. Dombey, Florence, Dora, Agnes, Ruth Pinch, Kate Nickleby, little Emily-we know them all through Hablot Browne alone-and none of them present any very marked physical characteristics. They are sweet and graceful, neither tall nor short; they have a pretty droop in their shoulders, and are very ladylike; sometimes they wear ringlets, sometimes not, and each would do very easily for the other. — George Du Maurier

The wretcheder one is, the more one smokes; and the more one smokes, the wretcheder one gets - a vicious circle. — George Du Maurier

An apple is an excellent thing
until you have tried a peach. — George Du Maurier

The best years of a man's life are after he is forty. A man at forty has ceased to hunt the moon. — George Du Maurier

Lovely female shapes are terrible complicators of the difficulties and dangers of this earthly life, especially for their owners. — George Du Maurier