Quotes from Nancy Mitford

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

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.

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

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

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

And Left-wing people are always sad because they mind dreadfully about their causes, and the causes are always going so badly.

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

Sisters are a shield against life's cruel adversity.

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

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

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.

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

As far as I am concerned, all reading is for pleasure.

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.

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.

The Radletts were always either on a peak of happiness or drowning in black waters of despair; their emotions were on no ordinary plane, they loved or they loathed, they laughed or they cried, they lived in a world of superlatives.

Love indeed - whoever invented love ought to be shot.

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?

It's a funny thing that people are always quite 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.

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

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...

And Left-wing people are always sad because they mind dreadfully about their causes, and the causes are always going so badly.