Nancy Mitford Quotes
The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life's essential unfairness.
An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.
Life itself, she thought, as she went upstairs to dress for dinner, was stranger than dreams and far, far more disordered.
A typical Irish dinner would be: cream flavored with lobster, cream with bits of veal in it, green peas and cream, cream cheese, cream flavored with strawberries.
The English lord marries for love, and is rather inclined to love where money is; he rarely marries in order to improve his coat of arms.
People in towns are always preoccupied. 'Have I missed the bus? Have I forgotten the potatoes? Can I get across the road?
Life is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them.
I do love translating; it is the pure pleasure of writing without the misery of inventing.
When the loo paper gets thicker and the writing paper thinner, it's always a bad sign, at home.
always either on a peak of happiness or drowning in black waters of despair they loved or they loathed, they lived in a world of superlatives
Americans relate all effort, all work, and all of life itself to the dollar. Their talk is of nothing but dollars.
Irish gardens beat all for horror. With 19 gardeners, Lord Talbot of Malahide has produced an affair exactly like a suburban golf course.
And Left-wing people are always sad because they mind dreadfully about their causes, and the causes are always going so badly.
Greece is not a country of happy mediums: everything there seems to be either wonderful or horrible.
I have only ever read one book in my life, and that is White Fang. It's so frightfully good I've never bothered to read another.
English doctors have killed 3/4 of my friends & the joke is the remaining 1/4 go on recommending them, so odd is human nature.
There are worse things than poverty, though I can't for the moment remember what they are.
Nothing about human beings ever had the power to move me as a child. Black Beauty now ... !
Always remember, children, that marriage is a very intimate relationship. It's not just sitting and chatting to a person; there are other things, you know.
One thing about tourists is that it is very easy to get away from them. Like ants they follow a trail and a few yards each side of that trail there are none.
Do you always laugh when you make love?' said Fabrice. I hadn't thought about it, but I suppose I do. I generally laugh when I'm happy and cry when I'm not. Do you find it odd?
But I think she would have been happy with Fabrice,' I said. 'He was the great love of her life, you know.' Oh, dulling,' said my mother, sadly. 'One always thinks that. Every, every time.
Chickens are cheerless birds, I advise you to keep geese which can be taught to follow like dogs, one needs all the companionship one can get in these days.
Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry' is a aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow.
Most people like reading about what they already know - there is even a public for yesterday's weather.
Even if I take him out for three hours every day, and go and chat to him for another hour, that leaves twenty hours for him all alone with nothing to do. Oh, why can't dogs read?
