Mitford Quotes & Sayings

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

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

To think of playing cricket for hard cash! Money and gentility would ruin any pastime under the sun. — Mary Russell Mitford

Things on the whole are much faster in America; people don't 'stand for election', they 'run for office.' — Jessica Mitford

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

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

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

Enemies are, to me, as important as friends in my life, and when they die I mourn their passing. — Jessica Mitford

Sun, silence, and happiness. — Nancy Mitford

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Where, indeed. Many a badly stung survivor, faced with the aftermath of some relative's funeral, has ruefully concluded that the victory has been won hands down by a funeral establishment - in disastrously unequal battle. — Jessica Mitford

One is only really inwardly comfortable, so to speak, after one's life has assumed some sort of shape. Not just a routine, like studying or a job or being a housewife, but something more complete than all those, which would include goals set by oneself and a circle of life-time type friends. I think this is one of the hardest things to achieve, in fact often just trying doesn't achieve it but rather it seems to develop almost by accident. — Jessica Mitford

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

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

Our English people are much addicted to raising idols, and then revenging themselves on their own idolatry by knocking down and demolishing the poor bits of wood and stone that they had worshipped as gods. How many literary reputations have been so treated! — Mary Russell Mitford

No fear of forgetting the good-humoured faces that meet us in our walks each day. — Mary Russell Mitford

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

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

[On the United States:] A nation which does not appreciate that the simple elocution exercise 'Merry Mary married hairy Harry' contains not one but three vowel sounds. — Jessica Mitford

A thirteen-year-old is a kaleidoscope of different personalities, if not in most ways a mere figment of her own imagination. At that age, what and who you are depends largely on what book you happen to be reading at the moment. — Jessica Mitford

It is somehow reassuring to discover that the word travel is derived from travail, denoting the pains of childbirth. — Jessica Mitford

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, great authors are great people - but I believe that they are best seen at a distance. — Mary Russell Mitford

We may admire people for being wise, but we like them best when they are foolish. — Mary Russell Mitford

Prejudices of taste, likings and dislikings, are not always vanquishable by reason ... — Mary Russell Mitford

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

When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When "Somebody Up There" - a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator - so decrees. — Jessica Mitford

Does it not appear to you versatility is the true and rare characteristic of that rare thing called genius-versatility and playfulness? In my mind they are both essential. — Mary Russell Mitford

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

In extreme old age you suddenly find you are unable to run uphill, two buckets full of hen food are heavier than they were and the cheerful scream of hearing aids, provided they are working, is a welcome sound. Other things go wrong. Paddy Leigh Fermor, aged ninety-four came to stay, got into the bath, looked down at the tap end and to his dismay saw that both feet had turned black. 'Oh God,' he thought, 'Teeth, ears and eyes are wonky and now my feet.' He need not have worried. he had got into the bath with his socks on. — Deborah Mitford

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

Mitford would simply like to be the pause that refreshes.' — Jan Karon

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

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

The prison system, inherently unjust and inhumane, is the ultimate expression of injustice and inhumanity in the society at large. — Jessica Mitford

I do not think very highly of Madame D'Arblay's books. The style is so strutting. She does so stalk about on Dr. Johnson's old stilts. — Mary Russell Mitford

Buonaparte is certainly writing, or rather dictating, his memoirs. He walks backwards and forwards with his hands behind him, and dictates so fast that two or three of his suite are obliged to be in attendance, that the one may take down one-half of a sentence, and another the rest; they then literally compare notes, and put the disjointed legs and wings and heads of periods together. This is writing a book as he fought a battle. — Mary Russell Mitford

The slightest emotion of disinterested kindness that passes through the mind improves and refreshes that mind, producing generous thought and noble feeling, as the sun and rain foster your favourite flowers. Cherish kind wishes, my children; for a time may come when you may be enabled to put them in practice. — Mary Russell Mitford

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

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

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

Enthusiasm is very catching, especially when it is very eloquent. — Mary Russell Mitford

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

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

Knowing few children of my age with whom to compare notes, I envied the children of literature to whom interesting things were always happening ... — Jessica Mitford

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

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

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

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

There is no running away from a great grief. — Mary Russell Mitford

Alas, poor Yorick! How surprised he would be to see how his counterpart of today is whisked off to a funeral parlor and is in short order sprayed, sliced, pierced, pickled, trussed, trimmed, creamed, waxed, painted, rouged and neatly dressed - transformed from a common corpse into a Beautiful Memory Picture. — Jessica Mitford

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

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

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

Prison walls are meant not only to keep convicts in, but to keep the would-be investigator out. — Jessica Mitford

I discovered that Human Nature was not, as I had always supposed, a fixed and unalterable entity, that wars are not caused by a natural urge in men to fight, that ownership of land and factories is not necessarily the natural reward of greater wisdom and energy. — Jessica Mitford

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

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

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

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

When you asked me to speak about women and fiction I sat down on the banks of a river and began to wonder what the words meant. They might mean simply a few remarks about Fanny Burney; a few more about Jane Austen; a tribute to the Brontes and a sketch of Haworth Parsonage under snow, some witticisms if possible about Miss Mitford; a respectful allusion to George Eliot; a reference to Mrs Gaskell and one would have done. — Virginia Woolf

Now there is a society where the funeral industry got completely out of control. — Jessica Mitford

The power of admiring whatever is deserving of admiration, the nice and quick perception of the beautiful and the true, is one of the highest and noblest of our faculties, born of taste, and knowledge, and wisdom, or rather it is taste, and wisdom, and knowledge, in one rare and great combination. — Mary Russell Mitford

Growing up in the English countryside seemed an interminable process. Freezing winter gave way to frosty spring, which in turn merged into chilly summer-but nothing ever, ever happened. — Jessica Mitford

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

I have discovered that our great favorite, Miss Austen, is my countrywoman ... with whom mamma before her marriage was acquainted. Mamma says that she was then the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly she ever remembers ... — Mary Russell Mitford

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

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

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

I detest so much ... those persons, who insist upon telling you everything - who labor every point, as the lawyers say, as if they thought all excellence consisted in length ... — Mary Russell Mitford

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

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

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

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

Things on the whole are faster in America; people don't stand for election, they run for office. If a person says he's sick, it doesn't mean regurgitating, it means ill. Mad means angry, not insane. Don't ask for the left-luggage; it's called a checkroom. — Jessica Mitford

I place flowers in the very first rank of simple pleasures; and I have no very good opinion of the hard worldly people who take no delight in them. — Mary Russell Mitford

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

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

I have still the best comforts of life - books and friendships - and I trust never to lose my relish for either. — Mary Russell Mitford

In childbirth, as in other human endeavors, fashions start with the rich, are then adopted by the aspirant middle class with an assist from the ever-watchful media, and may or may not eventually filter down to the poor. — Jessica Mitford

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

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

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

Objectivity? I always have an objective. — Jessica Mitford

I love the Bronte sisters, but I feel a closer kinship to the Ephron sisters, Nora and Delia, if only because their work makes me laugh more than the Brontes. I also love the Mitford sisters with their secret language and their endless letters back and forth. — Kate Klise

Society created the prison in its own image; will history, with its penchant for paradox, reverse those roles? — Jessica Mitford

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

A novel should be as like life as a painting, but not as like life as a piece of waxwork. — Mary Russell Mitford

Funeralese has had its ups and downs. The word 'morticians,' first used in Embalmers Monthly for February, 1895, was barred by the Chicago Tribune in 1932, 'not for lack of sympathy with the ambition of undertakers to be well regarded, but because of it. If they haven't the sense to save themselves from their own lexicographers, we shall not be guilty of abetting them in their folly. — Jessica Mitford