Quotes from 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....

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.

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.

She belonged to that rare and objectionable species, the intellectual snob devoid of intellect.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

really enjoyed going out so long as it was not too often, she did not have to stay up too late, and she was allowed to look on peacefully without feeling obliged to make any conversational effort. Strangers bored and fatigued her. She only liked the company of those people with whom she had day-to-day interests in common

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.

A vida é por vezes triste e muitas vezes aborrecida mas de vez em quando há groselhas no bolo.

I was dreading the dinner because I knew that once I found myself in the dining-room seated (...), it would no longer be possible to remain a silent spectator, I should be obliged to try and think of things to say. It had been drummed into me all my life (...) that silence at meal times is anti-social. -'So long as you chatter, Fanny, it's of no consequence what you say (...)

Wrapped in her mink bedspread, she would lie all day with her puppy beside her, reading fairy stories.

Isn't it lovely to be lovely me!

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

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.

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.