Quotes from Georgette Heyer

Perhaps Charis did not realize that when one had passed through a time of terrible anxiety relief did not immediately restore the tone of one's mind. To be sure, she herself had not expected that after the first raptures she would find herself subject to fits of dejection, and much inclined to be crotchety; but still Charis should have known better than to have enacted a tragical scene within an hour of her arrival.

He bowed, still holding her hand, and then, without a word, released it, and marched out, very dignified. It was another fine tragic effect, but Cleone, when the door closed behind him, broke into an hysterical laugh. She was rather amazed, and a little apprehensive.

He has probably gnawed his nails down to the quick, or murdered poor Mr. Orde.

She contrived, without precisely making so vulgar a boast, to convey the impression that she was escaping from courtships so persistent as to amount to persecution; and Mr Beaumaris, listening with intense pleasure , said that London was the very place for anyone desirous of escaping attention.

You can't go about smelling of April and May, the pair of you, and then expect to gull people into thinking you don't mean to get riveted!

He paused and then said, as though the words were wrung out of him: 'O God, Mama, I've made such a mull of it! What am I to do?

I knew you'd make a champion wife, love!' 'On the contrary! My husband will live under the cat's foot.' 'I'm very partial to cats,' offered the Major hopefully.

It was strange how the dullest party could be enjoyed because there was one person present whose eyes could be met for the fraction of a second, in wordless appreciation of a joke unshared by others: almost as strange as the insipidity of parties at which that person was not present.

You need have no fear. But were I to meet you, sir, you would lie dead at my feet within the space of five minutes. Possibly less. I do not know. He appeared to give the matter his consideration.

Barham you may be, but there is one thing you have been which is certain!' He paused to let this sink in. My lord did not seem to be greatly impressed. 'Oh, a number of things!' he assured his guest. 'Of course, there are a number of things I have not been, too.

Oh, Auntie, please take Jenny to the Dering ball next week! she said impulsively. You will come, won't you, sweet? Jennifer blushed and stammered. To be sure, nodded her ladyship. Of course she will come! James, sit down! You should know by now the sight of anyone on their feet fatigues me, silly boy! Dear me, child, how like you are to your brother! Are you looking at my wig? Monstrous, isn't it?

You asked me for a rhyme, De Vangrisse reminded him. So I did! A rhyme for tout and fou, and you gave me chou! Whereupon you threw your wig at me, and I fled.

Now, do listen, Deb! Seven hundred pounds for the bays and a new barouche! Well I can't think where the money is to come from. It seems a monstrous price.' 'We might let the bays go, and hire a pair of job horses,' suggested Miss Grantham dubiously. 'I can't and I won't live in Squalor!' declared her aunt tearfully.

Lady Cinderford,' said the Dowager, referring to her widowed sister-in-law in accents of loathing, 'will act as hostess at Stanyon over my dead body!' 'That would be something quite out of the ordinary way,' murmured the Earl.

Have you limitations, my lord? asked Sir Anthony. My lord looked at him seriously. I do not know, he said, with a revealing simplicity. I have never yet discovered them.

Miss Taverner took the whip and reins in her hands, and mounted into the driving-seat, scorning assistance. Take your orders from Miss Taverner, Henry, said the Earl, getting up beside his ward. Me Lord, you are never going to let a female drive us? said Henry almost tearfully. What about my pride? Swallow it, Henry, replied the Earl amicably.

Simplicity was abhorrent to his lordship; he revelled in a net-work of intrigue; he loved to accomplish the impossible.

I shall write an ode! threatened Philip direfully. Ah no, that is too much! cried De Vangrisse with feeling.

To listen to a poet arguing with himself – for she could scarcely have been said to have borne any part in the discussion – on the merits of blank verse as a dramatic medium was naturally a privilege of which any young lady must be proud, but there could be no denying that to talk for half an hour to a man who listened with interest to anything she said was, if not precisely a relief, certainly a welcome variation in her life.

You're surely not going to tell me that eels find you more entertaining than I do?' he said incredulously.

Venetia had no guile, and no affectations; she knew the world only by the books she had read; experience had never taught her to doubt the sincerity of anyone who did her a kindness.

She said despairingly: 'I see that I might as well address myself to a gate-post!' 'What very odd things you seem to talk to!' he remarked. 'Do you find gate-posts less responsive than eels?

He took her face between his hands, turning it up, and looking down at her for a moment before he kissed her. I do love you, Jenny, he said gently. Very much indeed-- you are part of my life. Julia was never that-only a boy's impractical dream.

Julia stood for his youth, and the high hopes he had cherished; and although he might no longer yearn to possess her she would remain nostalgically dear to him while life endured.