Famous Quotes & Sayings

Nancy Mitford Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 85 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Nancy Mitford.

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Famous Quotes By Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1140005

Children should be like waffles
you should be able to throw the first one away. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1571875

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. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1222072

Spring came late, but when it came it was hand-in-hand with summer, and almost at once everything was baking and warm, and in the villages the people danced every night on concrete dancing floors under the plane trees ... — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 459242

It was furnished neither in good taste nor in bad taste, but simply with no attempt at taste at all ... — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 330790

When the loo paper gets thicker and the writing paper thinner, it's always a bad sign, at home. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1245202

Nothing about human beings ever had the power to move me as a child. Black Beauty now ... ! — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1669095

What is so nice & so unexpected about life is the way it improves as it goes along. I think you should impress this fact on your children because I think young people have an awful feeling that life is slipping past them & they must do something - catch something - they don't quite know what, whereas they've only got to wait & it all comes. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 952032

Sun, silence, and happiness. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1927136

Behind us hung a Correggio St. Sebastian with the habitual Buchmanite expression on his face. "Awful tripe," said Uncle Matthew. "Fella wouldn't be grinning, he'd be dead with all those arrows in him. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1239114

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 — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 411109

The charm of your writing," Evelyn Waugh once wrote to Mitford, "depends on your refusal to recognize a distinction between girlish chatter and literary language. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1643267

Houses are entirely different when you know them well, she thought, and on first acquaintance even more different from their real selves, more deceptive about their real character than human beings. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 2112090

To make matters worse, Linda, it appears, is madly in love with a monster of a Scotsman, who came to dinner last night in his kilt. Those hairy old knees decided us. "The Mountains I can bear," said Loudie. "Natives in the semi-nude at dinner time is another matter. I leave tomorrow. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 567644

If one can't be happy, one must be amused ... — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1092033

Madame de Pompadour excelled at an art which the majority of human beings thoroughly despise because it is unprofitable and ephemeral: the art of living. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1546674

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. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 902100

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? — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1173393

Suddenly, just in time, I realised that he was a filthy Hun, so of course I turned my back on him and refused to shake hands. I think he noticed; anyway, I hope so. I hope he felt his position - General Murgatroyd — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 746177

She was filled with a strange, wild, unfamiliar happiness, and knew that this was love. Twice in her life she had mistaken something else for it; it was like seeing somebody in the street who you think is a friend, you whistle and wave and run after him, but it is not only not the friend, but not even very like him. A few minutes later the real friend appears in view, and then you can't imagine how you ever mistook that other person for him. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1006983

The English lord marries for love, and is rather inclined to love where money is. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 572911

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. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 383120

It is quite funny really when you think that probably I would have married him if he'd been at all clever about it. But instead of putting it to me as a sensible business proposition he would drag in all this talk about love the whole time, and I simply can't bear those showerings of sentimentality. Otherwise I should most likely have married him ages ago. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 359727

Time passed, and a morning came when Grace woke up at Yeotown feeling, if not quite happy, at least without a stifling blanket of unhappiness. This blanket had hitherto weighed upon her like something physical, so that there had been days when she had hardly been able to rise from under it and get out of bed. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1202760

They could not help loving anything that made them laugh. The Lisbon earthquake was "embarrassing to the physicists and humiliating to theologians" (Barbier). It robbed Voltaire of his optimism. In the huge waves which engulfed the town, in the chasms which opened underneath it, in volcanic flames which raged for days in the outskirts, some 50,000 people perished. But to the courtiers of Louis XV it was an enormous joke. M. de Baschi, Madame de Pompadour's brother-in-law, was French Ambassador there at the time. He saw the Spanish Ambassador killed by the arms of Spain, which toppled onto his head from the portico of his embassy; Baschi then dashed into the house and rescued his colleague's little boy whom he took, with his own family, to the country. When he got back to Versailles he kept the whole Court in roars of laughter for a week with his account of it all. "Have you heard Baschi on the earthquake? — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1856843

To fall in love you have to be in the state of mind for it to take, like a disease. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1647503

They spoke as though these Princes are so remote from life as we know it that the smallest sign of humanity, the mere fact even that they communicated by means of speech was worth noting and proclaiming. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 943163

Nothing makes people crosser than being considered too old for love ... — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1161473

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. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 256134

Indeed, with the Radletts, you never could tell. Why, for instance, would Victoria bellow like a bull and half kill Jassy whenever Jassy said, in a certain tone of voice, pointing her finger with a certain look, "Fancy?" I think they hardly knew why, themselves. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1376241

You've no idea how long life goes on and how many, many changes it brings. Young people seem to imagine that it's over in a flash, that they do this thing, or that thing, and then die, but I can assure you they are quite wrong. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1143078

It only shows, said Aunt Sadie, that nothing really matters the least bit, so why make these fearful efforts to keep alive?
Oh, but it's the efforts that one enjoys so much, said Davey... — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1825181

Love indeed - whoever invented love ought to be shot. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 2158223

Surely a King who loves pleasure is less dangerous than one who loves glory? — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1352860

The people welcome a new da yas if they were certain of liking it, the shopkeepers pull up their blinds serene in the expectation of good trade, the workers go happily to their work, the people who have sat up all night in night clubs go happily to their rest, the orchestra of motor-car horns, of clanking trams, of whistling policemen tunes up for the daily symphony, and everywhere is joy. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1357193

Sisters are a shield against life's cruel adversity. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1353509

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. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1475668

The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life's essential unfairness. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1483567

Linda's presentation of the 'facts' had been so gruesome that the children left Alconleigh howling dismally, their nerves permanently impaired, their future chances of a sane and happy sex life much reduced. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 2264317

Irish gardens beat all for horror. With 19 gardeners, Lord Talbot of Malahide has produced an affair exactly like a suburban golf course. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1509356

My dear Lady Kroesig, I have only read one book in my life, and that is 'White Fang.' It's so frightfully good I've never bothered to read another. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1543646

Frenchwomen always give one to understand that arranging themselves is full-time work. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1615191

Men, in general, are so treacherous, so envious, and so cruel that it is a comfort to find one who is only weak. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1624849

Most people like reading about what they already know - there is even a public for yesterday's weather. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1678977

Talk about what you know and you won't get so angry — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1728675

I think housework is far more tiring and frightening than hunting is, no comparison, and yet after hunting we had eggs for tea and were made to rest for hours, but after housework people expect one to go on just as if nothing special had happened. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1787619

Well, now you can see for yourself that she was delicate", said Davey triumphantly. "She's dead. It killed her. Doesn't that show you? I do wish I could make you Radletts understand that there is no such thing as imaginary illness. Nobody who is quite well could possibly be bothered to do all the things that I, for instance, am obliged to, in order to keep my wretched frame on its feet. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1846167

Americans relate all effort, all work, and all of life itself to the dollar. Their talk is of nothing but dollars. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1858000

The worst of being a Communist is the parties you may go to are - well - awfully funny and touching but not very gay ... I don't see the point of sad parties, do you? And Left-wing people are always sad because they mind dreadfully about their causes, and the causes are always going so badly. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1871245

There they are, held like flies, in the amber of that moment ... — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1959256

Sonia's terribly fond of juggling with people's lives. I never shall forget when she made me go to her doctor ... I can only say he very nearly killed me. It's not her fault if I'm here today. She's entirely unscrupulous. She gets a hold over people much too easily, with her charm and her prestige, and then forces her own values on them. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 2121370

Oh! How like a woman," Davey said. "Sex, my dear Sadie, is not a sovereign cure for everything, you know. I only wish it were. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 2190361

There are worse things than poverty, though I can't for the moment remember what they are ... — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 2262915

They flourished and shone with jewels, lovely clothes, brilliant hair and dazzling complexions; when they danced they really did seem to float, except when it was the Charleston, and that, though angular, was so accomplished that it made us gasp with admiration. Their conversation was quite evidently both daring and witty, one could see it ran like a river, splashing, dashing, and glittering in the sun. Linda was entranced by them, and decided then and there that she would become one of these brilliant beings and live in their world, even if it took her a lifetime to accomplish. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 140820

Twice in her life she had mistaken something else for it; it was like seeing somebody in the street who you think is a friend, you whistle and wave and run after him, and it is not only not the friend, but not even very like him. A few minutes later the real friend appears in view, and then you can't imagine how you ever mistook that other person for him. Linda was now looking upon the authentic face of love, and she knew it, but it frightened her. That it should come so casually, so much by a series of accidents, was frightening. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 714786

Oh, the spectacles - I have to wear them when I go abroad, I have such kind eyes you see, beggars and things cluster round and annoy me. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 160265

Oh dear ... it really is rather disillusioning. When one's friends marry for money they are wretched, when they marry for love it is worse. What is the proper thing to marry for, I should like to know? — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 168105

People in towns are always preoccupied. 'Have I missed the bus? Have I forgotten the potatoes? Can I get across the road? — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 234550

Women are divided into two categories: those who can deal with the men they are in love with, and those who cannot. Sophia was one of those who can. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 272121

It's a funny thing that people are always ready to admit it if they've no talent for drawing or music, whereas everyone imagines that they themselves are capable of true love, which is a talent like any other, only far more rare. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 282474

Oh my past! It's such a long time ago now. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 325115

In France that is the one rule, never make trouble. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 325655

But I couldn't think it more hateful of them to have taken my fur tippet. Burglars never seem to realize one might feel the cold. How would they like it if I took away their wife's shawl? — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 332665

One's emotions are intensified in Paris - one can be more happy and also more unhappy here than in any other place. But it is always a positive source of joy to live here, and there is nobody so miserable as a Parisian in exile from his town. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 411568

Greece is not a country of happy mediums: everything there seems to be either wonderful or horrible ... — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 440460

It was the very worst kind of Banbury-Road house, depressing, with laurels. The front door was opened by a slut. I had never seen a slut before but recognized the genus without difficulty as soon as I set eyes on this one. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 534767

If I had a girl I should say to her, 'Marry for love if you can, it won't last, but it is a very interesting experience and makes a good beginning in life. Later on, when you marry for money, for heaven's sake let it be big money. There are no other possible reasons for marrying at all. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 576580

The kentish week-enders on their way to church were appalled by the sight of four great hounds in full cry after two little girls. My uncle seemed to them like a wicked lord of fiction, and I became more than ever surrounded with an aura of madness, badness, and dangerousness for their children to know. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 610705

I do love translating; it is the pure pleasure of writing without the misery of inventing. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 639088

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. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 642428

Life is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1345279

Just at the moment he's writing a book on famine - goodness! it's sad - and there's a dear little Chinese comrade who comes and tells him what famine is like, you never saw such a fat man in your life. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 828725

At this Linda gave up. Children might or might not enjoy air-raids actually in progress, but a child who was not thrilled by the idea of them was incomprehensible to her, and she could not imagine having conceived such a being. Useless to waste any more time and breath on this unnatural little girl. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 847213

Mother, of course, takes a lot of exercise, walks and so on. And every morning she puts on a pair of black silk drawers and a sweater and makes indelicate gestures on the lawn. That's called Building the Body Beautiful. She's mad about it. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 860717

I should love a dear little blind rat,' said Wendy, and added in a contemplative voice: 'I sometimes wish I were blind you know, so that I needn't see my tooth water after I've spat it. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 875460

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? — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 915974

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. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 931225

Oh poor Octave, no luck at all, as usual," said Madame Rocher, "he is still with his regiment, still only a captain. Of course, if it hadn't been for this wretched war, he would be at least a colonel by now. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 939620

The test of a cook is how she boils an egg. My boiled eggs are fantastic, fabulous. Sometimes as hard as a 100 carat diamond, or again soft as a feather bed, or running like a cooling stream, they can also burst like fireworks from their shells and take on the look and rubbery texture of a baby octopus. Never a dull egg, with me. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 967160

She ... ran away so often, and with so many different people, that she became known to her family and friends as the Bolter ... — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 970151

The trouble is that people seem to expect happiness in life. I can't imagine why; but they do. They are unhappy before they marry, and they imagine to themselves that the reason of their unhappiness will be removed when they are married. When it isn't they blame the other person, which is clearly absurd. I believe that is what generally starts the trouble. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1023484

I love children, especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1060756

Nobody ought to write books before they're thirty. I hate precocity. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1285493

I am sometimes bored by people, but never by life. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1323782

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. — Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford Quotes 1338157

Life itself, she thought, as she went upstairs to dress for dinner, was stranger than dreams and far, far more disordered. — Nancy Mitford