Love in a Cold Climate Quotes

“Love indeed - whoever invented love ought to be shot.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“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.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“...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

“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.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“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?”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“They spoke as though these Princes are so remote from life as we know it that the smallest sign of humanity, the mere fact even that they communicated by means of speech was worth noting and proclaiming.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels

“(...) 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 (...)”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“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,”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“-(...)I should like you to be on the verge of love but not yet quite in it. That's a very nice state of mind, while it lasts.
-But of course, I had already dived over that verge and was swimming away in a blue sea of illusion towards, I supposed, the islands of the blest, but really towards domesticity, maternity and the usual lot of womankind.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“It only shows, said Aunt Sadie, that nothing really matters the least bit, so why make these fearful efforts to keep alive?
Oh, but it's the efforts that one enjoys so much, said Davey...”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“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.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“Sonia's terribly fond of juggling with people's lives. I never shall forget when she made me go to her doctor...I can only say he very nearly killed me. It's not her fault if I'm here today. She's entirely unscrupulous. She gets a hold over people much too easily, with her charm and her prestige, and then forces her own values on them.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels

“Oh what a pity it happens to be Davey's day for getting drunk. I long to tell him, he will be so much interested.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“Nonsense. And don’t you go marrying just anybody, for love,” she said. “Remember that love cannot last; it never, never does; but if you marry all this it’s for your life. One day, don’t forget, you’ll be middle-aged and think what that must be like for a woman who can’t have, say, a pair of diamond earrings. A woman of my age needs diamonds near her face, to give a sparkle.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“She had all the sentimentality of her generation, and this sentimentality, growing like a green moss over her spirit, helped to conceal its texture of stone, if not from others, at any rate from herself. She was convinced that she was a woman of profound sensibility.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“But I was thinking of Polly. If Boy was bored and lonely she was not likely to be very happy either. The success or failure of all human relationships lies in the atmosphere each person is aware of creating for the other, what atmosphere could a disillusioned Polly feel that she was creating for a bored and lonely Boy? Her charm, apart from her beauty, and husbands, we know, get accustomed to the beauty of their wives so that it ceases to strike them at the heart, her charm used to derive from the sphinx-like quality which came from her secret dream of Boy; in the early days of that dream coming true, at Alconleigh, happiness had made her irresistible. But I quite saw that with the riddle solved, and if the happiness were dissolved, Polly, without her own little daily round of Madame Rita, Debenhams and the hairdresser to occupy her, and too low in vitality to invent new interests for herself, might easily sink into sulky dumps. She was not at all likely to find consolation in Sicilian folk-lore, I knew, and probably not, not yet, anyhow, in Sicilian noblemen.
'Oh, dear,' I said. 'If Boy isn't happy I don't suppose Polly can be either. Oh, poor Polly.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“Polly's no company for him, really, you can see that, and in many ways she seems dreadfully on his nerves. She's so insular, you know, nothing is right for her, she hates the place, hates the people, even hates the climate. Boy at least is very cosmopolitan, speaks beautiful Italian, prepared to be interested in the local folk-lore and things like that, but you can't be interested quite alone and Polly is so discouraging. Everything seems rot to her and she only longs for England.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“They spoke as though these Princes are so remote from life as we know it that the smallest sign of humanity, the mere fact even that they communicated by means of speech, was worth noting and proclaiming.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“It's all in Saint-Simon,' said Boy, 'I've been reading him again and so must you, Montdore, simply fascinating.' Boy was versed in all the court memoirs that had ever been written, thus acquiring a reputation for great historical knowledge.
'You may not like Boy, but he does know a lot about history, there's nothing he can't tell you.' All depending on what you wanted to find out. The Empress Eugénie's flight from the Tuileries, yes, the Tolpuddle Martyrs' martyrdom, no. The Lecturer's historical knowledge was a sublimation of snobbery.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“Have the Sauveterres not arrived yet, Sonia?’ said Lord Montdore coming up for another cup of tea.
There was a movement among the women. They turned their heads like dogs who think they hear somebody unwrapping a piece of chocolate.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“That was where [Lady Montdore’s] charm lay. She would suddenly be nice just when it seemed that she was about to go for you tooth and nail, it was the charm of a purring puma.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“… The group was composed, no doubt, of the ‘young married’ people to whom Lady Montdore had referred in her letter. In my eyes, however, they seemed far from young, being about the age of my own mother. They were chattering like starlings in a tree, did not break off their chatter when I came in, and when Lady Montdore introduced me to them, merely stopped it for a moment, gave me a glance and went straight on with it again. When she pronounced my name, however, one of them said:
‘Not by any chance the Bolter’s daughter?’
Lady Montdore paused at this, rather annoyed, but I, quite used to hearing my mother referred to as the Bolter - indeed nobody, not even her own sisters, ever called her anything else - piped up ‘Yes.’
It then seemed as though all the starlings rose in the air and settled on a different tree, and that tree was me.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“The newspapers came out every day with horror stories of sheep buried in snowdrifts, of song-birds frozen to the branches on which they perched, of fruit trees hopelessly nipped in the bud, and the situation seemed dreadful to those who, like Mrs Heathery, believe all they see in print without recourse to past experience. I tried to cheer her up by telling her, what, in fact, proved to be the case, that in a very short time the fields would be covered with sheep, the trees with birds, and the barrows with fruit just as usual. But though the future did not disturb me I found the present most disagreeable, that winter should set in again so late in the spring, at a time when it would not be unreasonable to expect delicious weather, almost summer-like, warm enough to sit out of doors for an hour or two.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate: The wickedly funny sequel to The Pursuit of Love

“They were respected by their neighbours for their conformity to the fashion of the day, for their morals, for their wealth, and for their excellence at all kinds of sport.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate: The wickedly funny sequel to The Pursuit of Love

“There's only a yard of stuff in it, worth a pound if that," I went on, horrified by the waste of money.
"And how many yards of canvas in a Fragonard? And how much do planks of wood cost, or the skin of a darling goat before some clever person turns them into commodes and morocco? Art is more than yards, just as one is more than flesh and bones.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“And I might offer you a little advice, Fanny, it would be to read fewer books, dear, and make your house slightly more comfortable. That is what a man appreciates in the long run.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“But beauty is more, after all, than bones, for, while bones belong to death and endure after decay, beauty is a living thing.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“People have no memory about that sort of thing and, after all, there’s nothing to forget except bad taste.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“I never saw Sauveterre again and it was to be many years before I even heard his name, but in the end I found myself adopting his little boy, so small is the world, so strange is fate.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

“My companion, with that look of concentration which comes over French faces when a meal is in the offing, did not wait to hear any of this.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate