Only the Best Quotes

[DollEyes]

One of the many great things about Downton Abbey are the quotes, such the Dowager Countess' "What is a weekend?" implying that she's lived in luxury for so long that every day is like the weekend for her.

Then there's Mrs. Patmore's "Do I look like a 'frolicker' to you?" which was her response to some gossip about her "frolicking" with a man.

Whether they come from Upstairs or Downstairs, post your Favorite Quotes here-especially if they come from a certain Dowager Countess' mouth.

[SallyAlbright]

A few personal favorites...

 

Isobel Crawley: [about the hospital] Who funds it?

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Oh good, let's talk about money.

 

Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Of course it would happen to a foreigner. No Englishman would dream of dying in someone else's house.

 

Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham: One can't go to pieces at the death of every foreigner. We'd all be in a constant state of collapse whenever we opened a newspaper.

 

Isobel Crawley: How you hate to be wrong.
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham: I wouldn't know, I'm not familiar with the sensation.

 

Cora: I hate to lie.
Mary: I'll do it. I don't mind lying.

 

Mrs. Patmore: Ooh I like that Rudolph Valentino. He makes me shiver all over.
Carson: What a very disturbing thought.

 

Violet: Oh that's a relief. I hate Greek drama. When everything happens off stage.

[Rhetorica]

The Dowager Countess:

On womenhood: 

"I'm a woman, Mary. I can be as contrary as I choose."

On Jazz: 

"Do you think that any of them know what the others are playing?" 

On raising children:

"Yes, but it was an hour every day."

On being a grand parent:

"It's the job of grandmothers to interfere!"

On technology:

“First electricity, now telephones. Sometimes I feel as if I were living in an H.G. Wells novel.”  

[Elsinore]

"But it was an hour every day" will always be my favourite quote.

 

I think it was the resentful tone of it.

[helenamonster]

I'll always love Anna's snappy "Mr. Stick It Up Your Jumper" re: Thomas's insistence of being referred to as Mr. Barrow.

[jnymph]

Isobel Crawley: What are our plans keep Isis (the dog) out of the patients area ?

 

Lord Crawley:   Absolutely nothing !

 

Love it, because see avatar. :)

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Violet: Why the lamentation? You don't have to see him if you don't want.

Isobel: You make it sound so easy.

Violet: There's nothing simpler than avoiding people you don't like. Avoiding one's friends - that's the real test.

 

Daisy: I was rubbish at numbers at school.

Mrs. Patmore: Well all the best people were rubbish at numbers at school.

 

Lady Shackleton: How's that lovely garden of yours?

Lord Merton: Still lovely, largely because I have the same lovely gardener.

 

Cora: How does it help to answer rudeness with rudeness?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Isobel: Servants are human beings too.

Violet: Yes, but preferably only on their days off.

Edited October 6, 2014 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Elsinore]

Mrs Patmore: Can he hear us? (the king speaking on the radio)

Daisy: I don't think it works that way.

 

It was endearing.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Carson: Mr. Barrow, you're back. I'm afraid you've missed our luncheon but you're in time to help upstairs.

Mrs. Hughes: Maybe there's something left.

Thomas: Don't bother. I'm not hungry.

Carson: Charming as ever, I see.

 

Tom: You remember we're meeting Mr. Wavel at three at the corner.

Robert: Very clearly but I don't see the point since I'm not going to agree.

 

Isobel: How are your Russians getting on?

Rose: It's so sad. They talk about the old days - dances at the winter palace, picnics on the banks of the Niva - but there are holes in their shoes and they've got no money for food.

Robert: This is where Tom says it serves them right.

Tom: You're correct I don't approve of how things were managed in Russia but I'm still sorry for people who have to make a new life in a foreign land from scratch.

Mary: Honestly, papa, every time you challenge Tom, you sound much more unreasonable than he is.

Robert: Do I? How's your old beau managing, mama? Prince Thingamajig.

 

Violet: Hope is a tease designed to prevent us accepting reality.

Isobel: You only say that to sound clever.

Violet. I know. You should try it.

 

Edith: Apparently there's a trial going on in Munich of the leader of a group of thugs there.

Robert: I read about this. They wear brown shirts and go around bullying people. The leader tried to start a revolution last year.

 

Violet: I would never suggest anything that is not in your interest.

Edith: In my interest? Or the family's?

Violet: To me they are the same.

Edith: And that is where we differ.

 

Robert: I can't stand that woman.

Cora: No great surprise there.

 

Mrs. Hughes: Surely you can't think-

Sergeant: I'm not paid to think, Mrs. Hughes, just to record the facts.

 

Shrimpy: By the way, Susan has written to Annabel to say she's furious that you've all taken me in.

Violet: Oh, dear. Susan has been in a rage since she was playing with her dolls. I am proof against her tantrums.

Isobel: I would rephrase that if you want to stay neutral.

Violet: I won't take sides, it's true, but I don't think I could ever be described as neutral.

Edited October 13, 2014 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Avaleigh]

I loved this scene:

 

Isobel: Lord Grantham sounds rather more subtle than I'd realized.

 

Violet: Well, like all Englishmen of his type, he hid his qualities beneath a thick blanket of convention so I didn't see who he really was at first.

 

Isobel: It's lucky you found out in time...If it was in time.

 

Violet: I forget.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Rose: I say, some man has opened a nudist colony at Wickford on Essex.

Violet: What do you mean a man's opened a colony in Essex?

Robert: Not that sort of colony, mama. It's for people who want to take all their clothes off.

Violet: In Essex? Isn't it terribly damp?

Rosamund: Would that make a difference?

Violet: Well, yes, if you had no clothes on.

 

Mrs. Hughes: Would you like me to leave?

Mrs. Patmore: I'd love to think I have a secret that was too indelicate for a lady's ear but I haven't.

 

Clarkson: There are many who wouldn't be much puzzled by the desire to marry a lord and live in a palace. Can I ask you a personal question?

Violet: I've lived through great wars and my share of grief. I think I can manage an impertinent question from a doctor.

 

Violet: Barrow, are you quite well? Carson, have you been overworking him?

Carson: Not that I'm aware, your ladyship. Mr. Barrow, am I ill-treating you?

Barrow: You are the soul of kindness, Mr. Carson.

 

Rose: I love cocktail parties.

Cora: Me too. You only have to stay forty minutes instead of sitting for seven courses between a deaf landownera and an even deafer major general.

 

Mrs. Hughes: Then why did you ask [Carson]?

Mrs. Patmore: Because he's a man, I suppose.

Mrs. Hughes: I'm not sure that's a good enough reason.

Mrs. Patmore: Nor am I now. But I don't want to hurt his feelings.

Mrs. Hughes: I wish men worried about our feelings a quarter as much as we worry about theirs.
 

 

Mary: Remember, Tom, make the right choice for you and not us.

Tom: You know you're much nicer than a lot of people realize.

Mary: Not always.

 

Rosamund: Well, it is very hard-

Violet: Rosamund, you are addressing your mother, not the Committee of the Women's Institute.

Rosamund: I'm afraid you've read somewhere that rudeness in old age is amusing, which is quite wrong, you know.

 

Blake: I've asked a friend to join us and I want you to behave.

Mary: Why wouldn't I?

 

Edith: I didn't tell you because I knew you'd think it was a mistake.

Violet: I suppose it never occured to you that I might be right?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Barrow: I've never felt better.

Bates: You've never looked worse.

 

Igor: If Irina were dead, I would as you to run away with me now.

Violet: You can't run away when there's no one left to run away from.

 

Igor: You think to be unhappy in a marriage is ill-bred.

 

VIolet: I do apologize.

Isobel: Oh, don't. I'm enjoying it immensely.

Violet: That's what I was afraid of.

 

Hairdresser: At least she can carry off [the bob]. Most of them look like bald monkeys.

 

Dr. Clarkson: Harsh reality is better than false hope.

 

Mary: Granny, what do you think?

Violet: Oh, it is you. I thought it was a man wearing your clothes.

 

Robert: Maybe it would be good for [Edith] to have a bit of time on her own to think.

Violet: All this endless thinking. It's very overrated. I blame the war. Before 1914, nobody thought about anything at all.

 

Mabel: Why turn up looking like a cross between a Vogue fashion plate and a case of dynamite?

 

Charles: You might have allowed [Mabel] to be the first woman.

Mary: Nonsense. I don't believe in letting people win.

Charles: Even if it's in your own interest.

Edited October 27, 2014 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Violet: We have to tell Cora.

Rosamund: Well isn't that rather a betrayal?

Violet: If anything happens to Edith and Cora learns later we knew all along, she would never forgive us. And I wouldn't blame her. You see, as a mother, it is her right.

Rosamund: But you don't plan to tell Robert. He is Edith's father.

Violet: He's a man. Men don't have rights.

 

Mary: Why the song and dance? Edith's gone away. So what?

 

Violet: When I say we need some air, we need some air.

 

VIolet (to Mary): My dear, a lack of compassion can be as vulgar as an excess of tears.

[Ripley68]

Sir Richard, "I'll be leaving in the morning Lady Grantham.  I doubt we will be seeing each other again."

Lady Violet, "Do you Promise?"

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Violet: Don't proclaim your intransigence as if it were a virtue.

 

Violet: Is it a long list, Lord Sinderby? The things you disapprove of?

Sinderby: No, as long as I can steer clear of card sharps and undercooked fish.

 

Violet: Love is a far more dangerous motive than dislike.

 

Barrow: Why are you bullying him, Miss Denker? Can't you pick on someone your own age?

Denker: He'll have fun when he gets there.

Barrow: Maybe, but I suspect you're a bad influence all the same.

Denker: Then I suspect we have something in common, Mr. Barrow.

Barrow: Cheeky!

 

Mary: It's a dagger in my heart. I don't know what I'll do without you.

Tom: Did you ever think you'd say that when I drove you to your fittings with Madame Swan in Rippon?

 

Mrs. Hughes: And in front of the maids too!

Denker: Well who gives a tinker's cuss about the maids?

 

Susan: I don't believe it. Is that it? Am I just expected to be a good loser?

Violet: It's too late for that, my dear, far too late.

 

Denker: I don't think it's right to put on a wedding dress when it's only a blessing.

Anna: Well, she won't wear a veil.

 

Mrs. Hughes: You should know, Andy, that you take your life in your hands if you throw in your lot with [barrow and Denker].

 

Robert: Look, it's Tony and Mary. They make a handsome couple.

Edith: Give it up, papa. It's a pipe dream.

 

Susan: Whatever I said or did was done from love.

Rose: I'm afraid we must have different definitions of the word.

 

Lady Anville: I do feel for you. It must be very trying but I so admire you for putting on a good face.

Cora: I wonder if you remember that my father was Jewish.

Lady Anville: Oh. I'm afraid I, that is, how interesting.

 

Denker: It was a funny marriage. No proper service, no veil. You'd have thought one of them was divorced.

 

Mary: Now that Lord Sinderby and Lady Flincher both have a reason to look down on the other, that should keep them quiet.

Edited November 10, 2014 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Friendly Lurker]

 

 

Cora: I hate to lie.

Mary: I'll do it. I don't mind lying.

What I love about this is the disapproving look Cora gives Mary, and the obnoxious "What? it's the truth" Look Mary gives back. Credit to the actors for saying so much with out words.

 

I re-watched the first episode last night and still love this quote:

 

Lord G: What do you think? I've given my life to Downton. I was born here and I hope to die here. I claim no career beyond the nurture of this house and the estate. It is my third parent and my fourth child. Do I care about it? Yes, I do care!

[Driad]

 

 

Violet: Oh that's a relief. I hate Greek drama. When everything happens off stage.

She didn't know she was in one.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Violet: Does it ever get cold on the moral high ground?

 

Edith: And then there's the museums and galleries and theater.

Rosamund: Oh, people always talk of such things but one only ever goes when friends come to stay.

 

Rosamund: But the question remains - what is your future? Hanging around Downton being sniped at by Mary?

Edited September 21, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Mary: I think [Rose] could be pregnant.

Robert: Golly, why do you say that?

Mary: She says, "I might be back in August but it's a bit early to say."

Edith: As usual, you add two and two and make fifty three.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Mrs. Hughes: I wanted a big wedding breakfast with all of us sat at groaning tables having a jolly time.

Mrs. Patmore: Well why can't you have that?

Mrs. Hughes: Because it's not how posh people do it. They stand about with nibbly bits getting stuck in their teeth.

 

Violet: I want to be quite certain you're thinking sensibly about the possible changes at the hospital.

Robert: By "thinking sensibly," you mean thinking like you.

Violet: Of course.

 

Violet: You have been talking to Isabel.

Robert: I have been talking to Cora.

Violet: That is a mistake.

Robert: You can't expect me to avoid talking to my own wife.

Violet: Why not? I know several couples who are perfectly happy, haven't spoken in years.

 

Violet: Is it proper for a young woman to be alone in a flat?

 

Denker: I think it's silly.

Sprat: That's because you undertand nothing.

 

Isabel: Does cousin Violet know I'm here this evening?

Cora: Not unless you told her.

Isabel: I don't want her to think I'm plotting againt her.

Robert: Aren't you?

Isabel: Yes, but I don't want her to know.

 

Mary: You think I'm a bully. I think you're a snob.

 

Edith: I refuse to be defeated by a petulant and overweight tyrant!

 

Anna: The [dress] [Mrs. Hughes] wanted to wear [for the wedding] was awful.

[Mrs. Patmore takes the new dress out of the box]

Anna: Oh. Well, it's, um, very... it's an improvement. We can say that.

Daisy: Is it? What was the last one like?

 

Carson: I'm sure you'll look wonderful [at the wedding].

Mrs. Hughes: Well, I'll look tidy.

 

Mary: I'm sorry if I made things awkward about the reception. Please forgive me.

Mrs. Hughes: Milady, Mr. Carson would forgive you if you attacked him with a brick.

 

Carson: I am the happiest and luckiest of men, that a woman of such grace and charm should entrust her life's happiness to my unworthy charge.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Edith: Do you think [Rosamund] will take [Cora and Isobel's] side [about the hospital]?

Mary: Against Granny? Every time.

 

Thomas: Keep your pity, Mr. Moseley. You need it more than I do.

 

Violet: Really, Robert. You paint me as a schemer.

Robert: No one has sharper eyes than a loving son.

Violet: You read that somewhere.

Robert: Why do you think I can never make anything up?

 

Tom: [Violet]'s still on cracking form.

Edith: If she were twenty years younger, you'd just call her a tyrant.

 

Mary: People do such odd things nowadays. I once met a man who spent his time importing guinea pigs from Peru.

 

Rosamund: Don't hide behind Lady Shackleton, Mama. You're quite capable of landing your own punches.

Cora: The question is which system is more likely to deliver modern treatment to the local population?

Violet: That is not the point!

Isobel: I should have thought that was exactly the point.

Violet: Then you've muddled your priorities.

Edith: I suppose cousin Isobel is entitled to put up an argument.

Violet: Of course she is. She's just not entitled to win it.

 

Henry: Would you think it terribly common if I gave you my card?

Mary: Fairly common but I'll take it anyway.

 

Mary: Do you know I couldn't be less interested in cars if I took a pill to achieve it?

 

Mrs. Patmore: I wonder if Karl Marx might finish the liver pâté.

 

Robert: I have an idea that when you mentioned Mrs. Harding's connection with us, you were trying to catch her out. I don't like to see such things, Barrow. I don't care for a lack of generosity.

 

Baxter: You are your own worst enemy.

Thomas: If I am, I've got competition.

 

Mary: When [Gwen] was talking about Sybil, I had one of those moments where you look at your life and I realized how much better Sybil was than I am. It was quite chastening. Why did I have to be so pettish?

 

Mary: I'm so grateful to you for coming out here at down.

Doctor: Don't worry. It will be reflected in my bill.

 

Henry: You work?

Mary: Rather shocking, isn't it?

 

Mary: I hope this means you're boiling up to make a pass before we're done.

Henry: Probably. But will you accept?

Mary: No, but I shall enjoy the process enormously.

Edited October 15, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Robert: [Henry]'s going to be in Yorkshire on Wednesday to look at a car and he wants you to watch him do it.

Mary: To watch him looking at a car?

 

Robert: Edith has a date!

Edith: No, I don't.

Mary: Of course not.

Edith: What do you mean "of course not"?

 

Isobel: [Violet] says that the health minister is happy to dine here this Friday.

Edith: What? How did she manage that?

Robert: She must have found a way to blackmail him.

 

Tom: A day of racing cars and pigs. Who could better that?

 

Mary: I don't mean to sound snobbish, but I won't marry down.

 

Mary: [The drivers] take such risks. I hate it, I just hate it.

Tom: There's no such thing as slow motor racing.

 

Robert: Mama is not a good loser.

Cora: She's had so little experience.

 

Isobel: You're quite agitated.

Violet: Denker has disgraced herself.

Isobel: Well how distressing for you.

 

Violet: It is not your place even to have opinions of my acquaintance let alone express them!

Denker: He can't claim your friendship, not now, not when he's turned against you.

Violet: If I withdrew my friendshp from everyone who had spoken ill of me, my address book would be empty. For a lady's maid to insult a physician in the open street! You've read too many novels, Denker!

 

Tom: Why can't you just say, "I'd love to spend more time with you. When can we do it?"

 

Spratt: How did it happen? Were you drunk?

[TyranAmiros]

Sybbie: Is Granny Violet a red Indian?

Cora: Why would you say that?

George: Nanny said she was on a war path.

[MissLucas]

Denker: It's my passionate nature!

Septimus (!) Spratt: Much more of that and I won't sleep all night.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Robert: I know well enough that when Mary has spoken, my opinion has little bearing on the matter.

 

Carson: I don't like it, people poking and prying around the house. What's to stop them from slipping the odd first edition into their back pocket?

Mrs. Hughes: You've a very poor opinion of your fellow man.

Carson: I have the opinion that life has taught me.

 

Thomas: I suppose I always wonder whether someone else is having a better time than I am.

Carson: That's what's so dangerous. You think they must be having a better time, then you want them not to have a better time, and the next thing you know there's a guillotine in Trafalgar Sqaure.

 

Daisy: I think all these houses should be open to the public. What gives them the right to keep people out?

Carson: The law of property which is the cornerstone of any civilization worthy of the name.

 

Violet: [Cora]'s competent. Leading a revolution without turning a hair.

 

Mary: Is [bertie] worth it?

Edith: As opposed to your car mechanic?

Tom: I'm a car mechanic, thank you!

 

Mason: This is for Mrs. Patmore.

Daisy: What is it?
Mason: A note to thank her. I'm grateful.

Daisy: She already knows that.

Mason: It never hurts to say it.

 

Carson: I think [opening Downtown for a day] is a dangerous precedent.

Robert: Dangerous? I think it's idiotic.

Carson: It adds up to the same thing, milord.

 

Robert: What on earth can we show them to give them their money's worth? Lady Grantham knitting? Lady Mary in the bath?

 

Carson: How are you at making coffee?

Mrs. Hughes: I can make coffee. It's not very hard.

Carson: That's where you're wrong. There's quite an art to it.

 

Mary: Pack something for the evening - medium smart.

 

Edith: I used to go to the Criterion with Michael.

Mary: Do you have to put a damper on every restaurant at the capital?

 

Mary: Edith, you can manage for a day without us, can't you?

Edith: I can manage without you for as long as you want.

 

Tom: Can't you be pleased for [Mary]?

Edith: I'm as pleased for her as she would be for me.

 

Mary: They'll start in the small library then through the big library into the painted room, the drawing room, the smoking room, the great hall, in and out of the dining room, and then back outside.

 

Tom: Who is this flexible and reasonable person? I don't recognize my own dear sister Mary. Could this be love?

Mary: Oh, shut up.

 

Mary: Oh, granny, thank God you're here. What else could I tell them about the library?

Violet: The library was assembled by the fourth earl. He loved books.

Mary: What else did he collect?

Violet: Horses and women.

 

Violet: My son's wife, whom I have treated like a daughter.

Robert: Too like.

 

Robert: Do be logical.

VIolet: I am sick and tired of logic. If I could choose between principle and logic, I'd take principle every time!

 

Random kid: Why is [Violet] in such a tizzy?

Robert: You know mothers. They get terribly wrought up about things.

Random kid: My mum does.

Robert: There you are. Mine does too.

 

Violet: Very interesting.

Lord Merton: Interesting and encouraging.

Violet: I'll leave it at interesting for now.

 

Cora: Mama, can I speak to you?

VIolet: No, you may not.

 

Baxter: I have to think.

Barrow: Think about what?

Baxter: Nothing that would interest you.

Barrow: You don't know what might interest me.

 

Barrow: So my word is still not good enough, Mr. Carson, after so many years?

Carson: I only wish it were.

Edited October 26, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Amelia: May I offer you anything?

Violet: Only your attention. Shall I sit here? Mrs. Crawley tells me that you paid her a visit when you first came and that you were amazingly friendly.

Amelia: Well, I hope I'm always friendly.

Violet: Nobody's always friendly.

 

Amelia: You mean Larry and Mrs. Crawley have not seen eye to eye in the past.

Violet: Larry Grey has spoken to Mrs. Crawley in a manner that in any other century would have resulted in him being called out and shot.

Amelia: I can't believe it was as bad as that.

Violet: Then you have been misinformed.

 

Violet: You're a cool little miss, aren't you? I'd feel sorrier for Larry if I didn't dislike him so much.

Amelia: I shall forget you said that. But you should go now. Much more and we may awkward when we meet, which we are bound to do.

 

Anna: They say opposites attract.

Mary: Yes, they do attract. But do they live happily ever after?

 

Violet: I'm staying with the Bronners in Cannes.

Isobel: Surrounded by foreigners.

Violet: My reason for traveling is to make myself eager to come home. A month among the French should manage it.

 

Violet: I'd say your choice is now harder than before. When we talked, you didn't want to come between a father and his sons. Now must decide whether to abandon him to his selfish and greedy children.

 

Mary: it's a bit obvious, dropping in uninvited after dinner.

Talbot: I hope it is obvious, obvious that I want to be part of ths family.

Mary: Don't I have a say in the matter?

 

Talbot: He's just showing off. I'm faster and I'm younger and I'm better.

Charlie: But not at driving.

 

Rosamund: Is it hard to be a woman editor?

Laura: It's hard to be a woman anything if it isn't domestic.

 

Robert: I can't yell, "Henry!" They might all be called Henry.

 

Moseley: I never think I deserve anything. Perhaps I've been wrong all along.

 

Mrs. Patmore: You must share, Daisy. Love isn't finite. If Mr. Mason makes new friends, it doesn't mean he has any less love for you.

 

Edith: I don't believe it's ever wrong to feel happy and confident in someone else's company.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Mrs. Patmore: A house of ill repute?

 

Robert: Mama has exhausted my patience this time.

Rosamund: But she did give you Teo.

Robert: True. I forgive her everything.

 

Mary: Poor Edith. It's bad enough [bertie] was an agent. Now he might not even be that.

Tom: Don't sound so gleeful about it.

 

Mrs. Baxter: Don't ask [Carson]. Tell him.

 

Merton: [Amelia]'s a very kind and gentle soul.

Isobel: Is she? Is she indeed?

 

Mary: But that's absurd! If Bertie's the marquess then-

Robert: Then Edith would outrank us all!

 

Robert: Golly gumdrops!

 

Tom: So we'll all bow and curtsy to Edith. Will you enjoy that, Mary?

Mary: Hardly. And if Bertie really is Lord Hexon, which I still don't believe, he won't want to marry her now.

Cora: Careful. People will think you're jealous, dear. We don't want that.

 

Carson: And what makes you think you'll be any good?

Molesley: I don't know exactly. Perhaps because I want it so much.

Carson: There are plenty of little boys who want to be famous cricketers. It's not enough to make them champions.

Molesley: I just want to try, Mr. Carson.

 

Rosamund: What an unlikely bawdy house madame.

Isobel: Mrs. Patmore's secret career.

 

Mary: [Henry] and I would be wretched long term.

Tom: And you're not wretched now?

 

Baxter: You're not expecting too much?

Molesley: I think if you expect a lot, you get a lot!

 

Robert: If anyone had told me Mary would hitch up with a mechanic and Edith would marry one of the grandest men in England, I'd have knocked them down.

 

Mary: Honestly.

Tom: I'm always honest.

Mary: Are you?

Tom: Why would you say that, for heaven's sake?

Mary: One word - Marigold.

Tom: It wasn't my secret to tell.

 

Mary: Why did you ask Henry to stay without asking me first?

Cora: Darling, it was half past five. What did you want him to do? Pitch a tent under a tree?

 

Cora: You can't expect us to be rude. The man's only crime is to love you.

 

Edith: I hope you know what you're doing. She's quite a handful, you know.

Bertie: Who's a handful?

Edith: My beloved sister.

Henry: Well, she's beloved by me anyway.

 

Mary: I like Bertie. I do. But when you see them together...

Tom: Meaning?

Mary: Only that if Henry were the new marquess of Hexon, there wouldn't be a woman in England who wasn't setting her cap at him.

Tom: What about you? Would you set your cap at him? Because if that's why you're not, shame on you.

 

Henry: But you see, I think we love each other very much. For some reason, you're fighting it. I'm not. My birth is respectable so it can't be that, which forces me to believe that it is my lack of money and position that present the problem. Aren't you better than that?

Mary: WHAT?

Henry: It just seems rather small to me. Not to marry a man for lack of money is the same as marrying him because of it.

Mary: Get out of my way.

Henry: Am I not right?

Mary: You push in here, into my home, uninvited, in order to call me a grubby little gold digger.

 

Anna: She loves him but she can't control him. That's what frightens her. He's stronger than she is really, or as strong, and she's not used to it.

Bates: She's a bit of a bully, your Lady Mary. She likes her own way.

Anna: She is and she does.

 

Bertie: Will you send me to bed happy?

Edith: Sounds like an indecent proposal.

 

Robert: What happened?

Tom: Mary thought Edith had told [bertie] about Marigold.

Robert: How did Mary find out?

Tom: Mary's not stupid.

Robert: No, and she's not always kind either. Was it really a mistake?

 

Tom: Well, you got what you wanted. Bertie's left for the train and now Edith won't be the next marchioness of Hexon.

Mary: Well, that's not what I wanted.

Tom: Isn't it?

Mary: I still can't believe she never told him. How was I to know that?

Tom: Don't play the innocent with me.

Mary: I didn't mean-

Tom: DON'T LIE! Not to me. You can't stop ruining things - for Edith, for yourself. You'd pull in the sky if you could. Anything to make you feel less frightened and alone.

Mary: You saw Henry when he was here, high handed and bullying and unapologetic. Am I expected to lower myself to his level and be grateful I'm allowed to do so?

Tom: Listen to yourself. Lower yourself to his level? You're not a princess.

Mary: You don't want to understand me.

Tom: You ruined Edith's life today! How many lives are you going to wreck just to smother your own misery?

Mary: I refuse to listen.

Tom: You're a coward, Mary. Like all bullies, you're a coward.

 

Mary: Going away?

Edith: Do you care?

Mary: Look, I wasn't to know you hadn't told him. It never occurred to me-

Edith: Just shut up! I don't know what's happened - Tom's made you feel bad, or Papa. Or maybe it's just the same old Mary who wants her cake and hate me too.

Mary: I never meant to-

Edith: Yes, you did! Who do you think you're talking to? Mama? Your maid? I know you. I know you to be a nasty, jealous, scheming bitch.

Mary: Now listen, you pathetic-

Edith: You're a bitch! And not content with ruining your own life, you're determined to ruin mine.

Mary: I have not ruined my life. And if Bertie's put off by that-

Edith: Don't demean yourself by trying to justify your venom. Just go. And you're wrong, you know, as you so often are. Henry's perfect for you. You're just too stupid and stuck up to see it. Still, at least he's got away from you, which is something to give thanks for, I suppose.

 

Carson: I wouldn't like to see this family dragged into a tawdry local brouhaha.

Mrs. Patmore: He means me.

Robert: I think we have to show a little more backbone than that. Mrs. Patmore has been loyal to this house and now we must be loyal to her.

 

Tom: [Mary]'s unhappy. I think she regrets what she did.

Edith: Not as much as I do.

 

Robert: That's rather below the belt, even for you.

 

Mary: Nobody can believe that I know my own mind.

 

Violet: I believe in love.

 

Henry: Well?

Mary: Well, what?

Henry: Mary, the last time I saw you, you threw me out for saying that I loved you. Now you've whistled and I'm here but I don't know why.

 

 

Tom: Strange, I'll be best man at both of [Mary]'s weddings.

 

Mary: You know I'm sorry.

Edith: I assumed you would be fairly sorry unless you're actually insane.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Robert: I think it's just a bit hasty [to move to London].

Edith: Hasty? I think I've been about as hasty as a glacier.

 

Violet: Your feelings do you credit, my dear, but never let tenderness be a bar to a bit of snooping.

 

Andrew: Is Daisy interested in men?

Mrs. Patmore: What on earth are you implying?

 

Andrew: Would you say I have a chance?

Mrs. Patmore: Well, everyone has a chance, don't they? If you do a bit of wooing.

 

[sprat finds Denker applying nail polish]

Sprat: Her ladyship won't like that.

Denker: It's very discreet, the color. It's called nude.

Sprat: That won't strengthen your argument.

 

Edith: Shall we sit down?

Sprat: If you're comfortable with me sitting in your presence, milady.

Edith: Well, we do in London.

Sprat: But we are not in London. We are in her ladyship's drawing room.

 

Molesley: There was shampoo [in India] hundreds of years before us. Then again, I'm not sure I see the point of it.

 

Violet: Don't be mysterious. It's the last resort of people with no secrets.

 

Mary: Swallow it, granny. It's stuck in your craw long enough.

 

Robert: You're not going to believe it!

Cora: [Edith]'s pregnant again?

Robert: No.

Cora: She's been arrested for treason?

Robert: Not quite.

 

Isobel: After Prince Kuragin, did you ever fall in love again?

Violet: You must know by now I never answer any question more incriminating than whether or not I need a rug.

 

Mrs. Patmore: Do you know your problem? You despise anyone who thinks well of you. If a man should like you, you think he must be rubbish.

 

Tom: It can be hard for women to understand that a man is what he does.

 

Barrow: Well, Master George, I hope you'll be good when I'm gone.

Sybbie: No, we won't.

 

Bertie: I'd have kept you in the dark. It was Edith's decision to speak up.

Mrs. Pelham: Is that supposed to make her sordid revelations fragrant?

 

George: I'm working!

Sybbie: Me too.

 

Isobel: What was all that about?

Violet: In Denker's mind, she's Salome dancing rings around Sprat's Herod.

 

Violet: Did Mrs. Grey actually throw you out?

Isobel: Well she never let me in. But yes.

 

Isobel: What can I do? I can hardly push my way past the servants and run upstairs to his bedroom.

Violet: I don't see why not. As my late father used to say, if reason fails, try force.

 

Lord Merton: I heard Lady Grantham's voice.

Amelia: I can well believe it.

 

Lord Merton: Larry, as my son I love you but I've tried and failed to like you.

 

Amelia: This is ridiculous. Mrs. Crawley wants to take you away from your son and your family and kidnap you into marriage. What do you say?

Lord Merton: How perfectly marvelous.

 

Carson: Mrs. Patmore, shall I ask Lady Mary to come down and put the kettle on?

 

Rose: Where's Cora?

Robert: At the wretched hospital.

Rose: Why don't you like her going?

Robert: Because they take advantage of her good nature.

Rose: But she enjoys it.

Robert:  That's why they're able to take advantage.

 

Mary: All of which means you're secondhand car salesmen.

Henry: Well, we will be once we've sold one.

Tom: Mary, now is not the time to be snobbish. There's nothing wrong with being married to Mr. Rolls or Mr. Royce.

 

Violet: With any luck [Edith and Bertie] will be happy enough, which is the English version of a happy ending.

Rosamund: What do you think makes the English the way we are?

Violet: Opinions differ. Some say our history, but I blame the weather.

 

Carson: But [Anna] can't have [the baby] now!

Mrs. Hughes: Well she hasn't a lot of choice.

Carson: And in Lady Mary's bedroom?

[lulee]

I've recently discovered that the previous series are included with my Amazon Prime membership (wheeee!). Here's a quote that stood out:

 

O'Brien tells Moseley she'll be dealing with him later after he's passed along Barrow's lie that O'Brien would be quitting. After O'Brien leaves, Daisy says to Moseley:

 

I wouldn't want to be in her bad books for a gold clock.

 

I thought that summed up feelings about O'Brien well.

[TudorQueen]

When Robert told Cora, "If this is the end, know that I have loved you," I got very misty-eyed. It was such a... reserved way to declare himself, yet somehow that made it all the more perfect.

 

I may yet forgive him for telling Jane "I want you now more than I've ever wanted anything." Maybe.

[Artymouse]

 

I may yet forgive him for telling Jane "I want you now more than I've ever wanted anything." Maybe.

 

Don't think I can ever forgive him for that, in part because I could not see anything appealing about the character, the actress or the situation.

 

I do love that Robert's signature form of address to another guy is "My dear chap." He says it when he's happy for the guy, when he's perplexed (as in when Lang, the PTSD-suffering valet, had a breakdown when the Army officer came to lunch), and when he's angry (when Sir Anthony Strallan was jilting Edith at the altar).

[UsernameFatigue]

Mrs. Hughes: I'm an experienced housemaid and housekeeper for how many years and he doesn't think I can make a bed.

 

Mrs. Patmore: Well you always knew he was old to be trained as a husband.

[Artymouse]

Just saw an episode from Season 3 with one of my favorite lines from the Dowager Countess.

Violet: What is The Scarlet Letter?

Edith: A novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Violet, aghast: Well, it sounds most unsuitable!

[Constantinople]

Ominous words, at least in retrospect

 

Matthew: I still don't see why I couldn't just refuse it.

Isobel: There's no mechanism for you to do so. You will be an earl. You will inherit the estate.

 

From Season 1, Episode 2.