Nancy Mitford Quotes

Quotes about:

• I am sometimes bored by people, but never by life.

  Nancy Mitford

  Bored, People, Sometimes

  Nancy Mitford (1963). “The Nancy Mitford Omnibus”

  56 Copy quote

• 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

  Thinking, Hunting, Eggs

  Nancy Mitford (2010). “The Pursuit of Love”, p.109, Vintage

  47 Copy quote

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

  Nancy Mitford

  Family, Life Lesson, Being Thankful

  The Pursuit of Love ch. 1 (1945)

  38 Copy quote

• If one can't be happy, one must be amused.

  Nancy Mitford

  Motivational, Thought Provoking, Amused

  Nancy Mitford, Charlotte Mosley (1993). “Love from Nancy: the letters of Nancy Mitford”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

  22 Copy quote

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

  Nancy Mitford

  Love, Fall, Advice

  Nancy Mitford, Charlotte Mosley (1993). “Love from Nancy: the letters of Nancy Mitford”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

  41 Copy quote

• 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

  Running, Cutting, Luck

  'Noblesse Oblige' (1956) 'The English Aristocracy'

  36 Copy quote

• Sisters are a shield against life's cruel adversity.

  Nancy Mitford

  Adversity, Shields

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Life, Children, Nice

  Nancy Mitford, Charlotte Mosley (1993). “Love from Nancy: the letters of Nancy Mitford”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

  26 Copy quote

• 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

  Girl, Interesting, Heaven

  Nancy Mitford (2013). “Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie”, p.126, Vintage

  24 Copy quote

• 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

  Party, Gay, Wings

  26 Copy quote

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

  Nancy Mitford

  Cake, Dull, Sometimes

  Nancy Mitford (2010). “The Pursuit of Love”, p.182, Vintage

  16 Copy quote

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

  Nancy Mitford

  Dream, Dresses, Dinner

  Nancy Mitford (2013). “Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie”, p.192, Vintage

  35 Copy quote

• 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

  Travel, Tourists, Yards

  Nancy Mitford (1962). “The water beetle”

  6 Copy quote

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

  Nancy Mitford

  Poverty, Remember, Moments

  8 Copy quote

• I Love children, especially when they cry for then someone takes them away.

  Nancy Mitford

  Love, Children, Memorable

  Nancy Mitford (2011). “The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford”, p.7, Penguin UK

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Running, Baby, Food

  49 Copy quote

• Surely a King who loves pleasure is less dangerous than one who loves glory?

  Nancy Mitford

  Kings, Royalty, Glory

  18 Copy quote

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

  Nancy Mitford

  Effort, United States, Dollars

  Nancy Mitford, Alan Strode Campbell Ross (1956). “Noblesse oblige: an enquiry into the identifiable characteristics of the English aristocracy”, Hamish Hamilton

  10 Copy quote

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

  Nancy Mitford

  Home, Writing, Paper

  1949 Love in a Cold Climate, pt.2, ch.2.

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Nancy Mitford

  Cynical, Lord

  "Noblesse oblige: an enquiry into the identifiable characteristics of the English aristocracy".

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Paris, Joy, Unhappy

  Nancy Mitford (2010). “The Pursuit of Love”, p.146, Vintage

  30 Copy quote

• Paris in the early morning has a cheerful, bustling aspect, a promise of delicious things to come, a positive smell of coffee and croissants, quite peculiar to itself. The people welcome a new day as 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

  Morning, Coffee, Night

  Nancy Mitford (1963). “The Nancy Mitford Omnibus”

  58 Copy quote

• 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

  Funny Things, Drawing, People

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Nancy Mitford

  Book, Reading, White

  1945 The Pursuit of Love, ch.9.

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Nancy Mitford

  Believe, People, Unhappy

  "Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie".

  26 Copy quote

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