Black Sheep Quotes

“Well, you have the right to make a sacrifice of yourself, but I'll be damned if I'll let you sacrifice me!”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“Talking to you is like -- like talking to an eel!"

"No, is it? I've never tried to talk to an eel. Isn't it as waste of time?"

"Not such a waste of time as talking to you!”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“My dear girl, you don't consent to an abduction! You consent to an elopement, and I knew you wouldn't do that.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“Has no one ever told you that it is the height of impropriety to kiss any gentleman, unless you have the intention of accompanying him immediately to the altar?”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“If you imagine that I have the smallest desire to receive your hand as a reward for having performed a difficult task to your satisfaction you're beside the bridge, my child! I've no fancy for a reluctant wife. I want your love, not your gratitude.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“He did not defy convention: when it did not interfere with whatever line of conduct he meant to pursue he conformed to it; and when it did he ignored it, affably conceding to his critics their right to censure him, if they felt so inclined, and caring neither for their praise nor their blame.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“I shan't ask you how you do, ma'am: to enquire after a lady's health implies that she is not in her best looks. Besides, I can see that you are in high bloom.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“She thought, in touching innocence, that in Miles Calverleigh she had found a friend, and a better one by far than any other, because his mind moved swiftly, because he could make her laugh even when she was out of charity with him, and because of a dozen other attributes which were quite frivolous – hardly attributes at all, in fact – but which added up to a charming total, outweighing the more important faults in his character.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“Let me tell you, sir, that if you wish to be accepted into Bath society you will do well to mend your manners!’ retorted Abby.
‘I’ve none to mend, and not the smallest wish to be accepted into Bath, or any other, society.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“I love you, you know,’ he said conversationally. ‘Will you marry me?’
The manner in which he made this abrupt proposal struck her as being so typical of him that a shaky laugh was dragged from her. ‘Of all the graceless ways of making me an offer – ! No, no, you are not serious! you cannot be!’
‘Of course I’m serious! A pretty hobble I should be in if I weren’t, and you accepted my offer! The thing is that it is such a devil of a time since I proposed marriage to a girl that I’ve forgotten how to set about it. If I ever knew, but I daresay I didn’t, for I was always a poor hand at making flowery speeches.’ He smiled at her again, a little ruefully. ‘That I should love a bright particular star!”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“You know, Fanny, the melancholy truth is that one's first love very rarely bears the least resemblance to one's last, and most enduring love. He is the man one marries, and with whom one lives happily ever after!”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“Taken thus by surprise, it was several moments before she was able to decide whether to make herself known to him, or to await a formal introduction. The strict propriety in which she had been reared urged her to adopt the latter course; then she remembered that she was not a young girl any longer, but a guardian-aunt ... To flinch before what would certainly be an extremely disagreeable interview would be the act, she told herself, of a pudding-heart. Bracing herself resolutely, she got up from the writing-table, and turned, saying, in a cool, pleasant tone: 'Mr Calverleigh?'
He had picked up a newspaper from the table in the centre of the room, and was glancing through it, but he lowered it, and looked enquiringly across at her. His eyes, which were deep-set and of a light grey made the more striking by the swarthiness of his complexion, held an expression of faint surprise; he said: 'Yes?”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“I plead your cause? What the devil gave you the notion that I plead any causes but my own? Believe me, it's wide of the mark!"
"You can't be such a - such a care-for-nobody as to refuse to lift as much as a finger to assist me!" said Stacy indignantly.
"Oh you're quite mistaken! I am precisely such a care-for-nobody.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“Will you go with me to Wells, ma’am, or will you not?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Abby meekly. ‘If you are quite sure you wouldn’t prefer Miss Butterbank’s company to mine!’
The carriage had drawn up in front of her house. Mr Calverleigh, alighting from it, and turning to hand her down, said: ‘I should, of course, but having already invited you I feel it would be uncivil to fob you off.’
‘Piqued, repiqued, and capoted!’ said Abby, acknowledging defeat.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“Nothing I could say had the least effect on her!’
‘You can’t tell that. The chances are you made her feel damned queasy.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“She accepted the tea he had brought, with a word of thanks and a charming smile, but could not resist the impulse to ask him if he was not ravished by Neroli’s voice.
He replied promptly: ‘Not entirely. A little too much vibrato, don’t you agree?’
‘Ah, I perceive that you are an expert!’ said Abby, controlling a quivering lip. ‘You must enlighten my ignorance, sir! What does that mean, if you please?’
‘Well, my Latin is pretty rusty, but I should think it means to tremble,’ he said coolly. ‘She does, too, like a blancmanger. And much the same shape as one,’ he added thoughtfully.
‘Oh, you dreadful creature!’ protested Mrs Grayshott, bubbling over. ‘I didn’t mean that, when I said I thought she had rather too much vibrato! You know I didn’t!’
‘I thought she had too much of everything,’ he said frankly.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“My – sufficiently wide experience of you, Mr Calverleigh, warns me that you are about to say something outrageous!’
‘No, I assure you! Nothing derogatory! Charming girls, all of them! Only I don’t want to kiss them!’
She gave a startled gasp. ‘You don’t want – Well, upon my word! And if you mean me to understand from that –’
‘I do,’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘I should dearly love to kiss you – here and now!”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“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?”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“You’re surely not going to tell me that eels find you more entertaining than I do?’ he said incredulously.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“My sister, Mr Calverleigh, was not aware, until I enlightened her, that you are not, as she had supposed, a man of character, but one of – of an unsavoury reputation!’ she snapped.
‘Well, what an unhandsome thing to have done!’ he said reproachfully. ‘Doesn’t she like me any more?”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“Entertaining females with accounts of jug-bitten maunderings is one of my favourite pastimes.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“No one knows better than I how unworthy I am.'
A sentimental sigh and an inarticulate murmur from Selina showed that this frank avowal had moved her profoundly. Upon Abby it had a different effect. 'Trying to take the wind out of my eye, Mr Calverleigh?' she said.
If he was disconcerted he did not betray it, but answered immediately: 'No, but, perhaps - the words out of your mouth?'
Privately, she gave him credit for considerable adroitness, but all she said was: 'You are mistaken: I am not so uncivil!'
'And it isn't true!' Fanny declared passionately. 'I won't permit anyone to say such a thing - not even you, Abby!'
'Well, I haven't said it, my dear, nor am I likely to, so there is really no need for you to fly up into the boughs!”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“Mrs Grayshott was no tattle-monger; and since she had a great deal of reserve Abby knew that only a stringent sense of duty could have forced her to overcome her distaste of talebearing. What she knew, either from her own observation, or from the innocent disclosures of her daughter, she plainly thought to be too serious to be withheld from Fanny's aunt. At the same time, thought Abigail, dispassionately considering her, the well-bred calm of her manners concealed an over-anxious disposition, which led her to magnify possible dangers.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“She had every intention of maintaining her punctilious civility, and might have done so had he not said, as he took his seat beside her in the carriage he had hired for the evening: ‘I wish I had ordered a hot brick to be provided.’
‘Thank you, but there was not the least need to do so: I don’t feel at all cold.’
‘I daresay icebergs don’t feel cold either, but I do!”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“Compassion certainly seems to be wasted on you, sir!’ she said tartly.
‘Yes, of course it is. Besides, I like you, and I shan’t if you pity me.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“He was at the concert last night, and she looked at him as if he were her whole dependence and delight.’
‘No, did she? I envy him. Not, of course, that I’ve the smallest desire that Fanny should bestow such a look upon me, but I wish that you would.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“He was not a rebel. Rebels fought against the trammels of convention, and burned to rectify what they saw to be evil in the shibboleths of an elder generation, but Miles Calverleigh was not of their number. No wish to reform the world inspired him, not the smallest desire to convert others to his own way of thinking. He accepted, out of a vast and perhaps idle tolerance, the rules laid down by a civilised society, and, when he transgressed these, accepted also, and with unshaken good-humour, society’s revenge on him. Neither the zeal of a reformer, nor the rancour of one bitterly punished for the sins of his youth, awoke a spark of resentment in his breast. He did not defy convention: when it did not interfere with whatever line of conduct he meant to pursue he conformed to it; and when it did he ignored it, affably conceding to his critics their right to censure him, if they felt so inclined, and caring neither for their praise nor their blame.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“I daresay you know how it is when one falls into a fit of the dismals; one says things one doesn't mean.”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“Oh, you mustn’t blame the poor fellow! I told him I would announce myself.’
‘You had no business to do so!’ scolded Abby. ‘If you hadn’t startled me – if I had had a moment’s warning – I shouldn’t have – it wouldn’t have happened!’
‘Well, you might not have kissed me, but I had every intention of kissing you, so it’s just as well he didn’t announce me,’ said Mr Calverleigh. ‘Do you always kiss gentlemen who walk in unannounced? I’ll take good care none is allowed to do so when we are married!”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

“Who else is to join your expedition?’ ‘I don’t know. Yes, I do, though! We’ll take Fanny and young Grayshott!’
She smiled, but said: ‘You should invite Lavinia too.’
‘Oliver wouldn’t agree with you. Nor do I. There will be no room in the carriage for a fifth person.’
‘She could take my place. Or even Mrs Grayshott. She would enjoy the drive.’
‘She would find it too fatiguing. Can’t you think of anyone else to take your place?’
‘Yes, Lady Weaverham!’ she said instantly, a gurgle of merriment in her throat.
‘No, I think, if I must find a substitute for you, I shall invite your sister’s bosom-bow – what’s her name? Buttertub? Tallow-faced female, with rabbit’s teeth.’
‘Laura Butterbank!’ said Abby, in a failing voice. ‘Odious, infamous creature that you are!”
― Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep