"I love children, especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away."
— Nancy Mitford

"Twice in her life she had mistaken something else for it; it was like seeing somebody in the street who you think is a friend, you whistle and wave and run after him, and it is not only not the friend, but not even very like him. A few minutes later the real friend appears in view, and then you can't imagine how you ever mistook that other person for him. Linda was now looking upon the authentic face of love, and she knew it, but it frightened her. That it should come so casually, so much by a series of accidents, was frightening."
— Nancy Mitford (The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate: Two Novels)

"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

"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"
— Nancy Mitford (The Pursuit of Love)

"I love childen, especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away."
— Nancy Mitford

"'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?'"
— Nancy Mitford

""Oh! How like a woman," Davey said. "Sex, my dear Sadie, is not a sovereign cure for everything, you know. I only wish it were.""
— Nancy Mitford (The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate: Two Novels)

"You've no idea how long life goes on and how many, many changes it brings. Young people seem to imagine that it's over in a flash, that they do this thing, or that thing, and then die, but I can assure you they are quite wrong."
— Nancy Mitford (Love in a Cold Climate)

"Oh dear... it really is rather disillusioning. When one's friends marry for money they are wretched, when they marry for love it is worse. What is the proper thing to marry for, I should like to know?"
— Nancy Mitford (Christmas Pudding)

"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. When it isn't they blame the other person, which is clearly absurd. I believe that is what generally starts the trouble."
— Nancy Mitford (Christmas Pudding)

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

"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 (Christmas Pudding)

"Sun, silence, and happiness."
— Nancy Mitford (The Pursuit of Love)

"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."
— Nancy Mitford (The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate: Two Novels)

"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..."
— Nancy Mitford (The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate: Two Novels)

"Mother, of course, takes a lot of exercise, walks and so on. And every morning she puts on a pair of black silk drawers and a sweater and makes indelicate gestures on the lawn. That's called Building the Body Beautiful. She's mad about it."
— Nancy Mitford (Christmas Pudding)

"Life itself, she thought, as she went upstairs to dress for dinner, was stranger than dreams and far, far more disordered."
— Nancy Mitford (Christmas Pudding)

"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 (The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate: Two Novels)

"... 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."
— Nancy Mitford (Christmas Pudding)

"...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."
— Nancy Mitford (Love in a Cold Climate)