Best Dowager Countess Quotes & Sayings

And I hope you will not think me foolish when I also extend my thanks.
Thank you, Michael, for letting my son love her first.
- from Janet Stirling, dowager Countess of Kilmartin, to Michael Stirling, Earl of Kilmartin — Julia Quinn

Is my gardener's pride to be sacrificed on the altar of Mr Molesley's ambitions?
- The Dowager Countess(Maggie Smith) — Julian Fellowes

Violet, the Dowager Countess: I mean, one way or another, everyone goes down the aisle with half the story hidden. — Jessica Fellowes

She smiled serenely. "I shall put aside my feelings for the dowager countess if you care for one of her daughters ... " She looked up hopefully. "Do you care for one of her daughters?"
"I have no idea," Benedict admitted. "I never got her name. Just her glove."
Violet gave him a stern look. "I'm not even going to ask how you obtained her glove."
"It was all very innocent, I assure you."
Violet's expression was dubious in the extreme. "I have far too many sons to believe that," she muttered. — Julia Quinn

The dowager rose and slipped from her pew. There was the sound of tearing silk as she threw up her arms to embrace her son. Then:
"Oh, Rupert, darling," she exclaimed in tones of theatrical despair, "don't you see? The game's up! — Eva Ibbotson

Violet, the Dowager Countess: 'I have plenty of friends I don't like. — Jessica Fellowes

Violet pulled a face. "Of course I have great ambition that my children marry well and happily, but I am not the sort who'd marry her daughter off to a seventy-year-old man just because he was a duke!"
"Did the dowager countess do that?" Benedict couldn't recall any seventy-year-old dukes making recent trips to the altar.
"No," Violet admitted, "but she would. Whereas I - "
Benedict bit back a smile as his mother pointed to herself with great flourish.
"I would allow my children to marry paupers if it would bring them happiness."
Benedict raised a brow.
"They would be well-principled and hardworking paupers, of course," Violet explained. "No gamblers need apply."
Benedict didn't want to laugh at his mother, so instead he coughed discreetly into his handkerchief. — Julia Quinn

I love being in scenes where I get to be part of a Maggie Smith put-down. A Dowager Countess put-down is always a special moment. Especially if you're working on set and she managed to do one off set at you. — Allen Leech