Top 250 Georgette Heyer Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 3 of 6

101. “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.”

— Georgette Heyer

102. “Perhaps you have friends already who laugh when you do,’ she said diffidently. ‘I haven’t, and it’s important, I think – more important than sympathy in affliction, which you might easily find in someone you positively disliked.’ ‘But to share a sense of the ridiculous prohibits dislike – yes, that’s true. And rare!”

— Georgette Heyer

103. “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.”

— Georgette Heyer

104. “It was this impulsive utterance which made Mrs Chartley say, later: ‘My dear John, I marvel at your countenancing this most improper dance! When they went down the room together, with his left hand holding her right one above their heads, his right hand was clasping her waist!”

— Georgette Heyer

105. “Lady Winwood being denied, the morning caller inquired with some anxiety for Miss Winwood, or, in fact, for any of the young ladies.”

— Georgette Heyer

106. “You look very well – at least, you would if you didn’t make such a figure of yourself in that rig! When I was a girl, no gentleman would have dreamed of paying a social call without powder, let me tell you! Enough to make your grandfather turn in his grave to see what you’ve all come to, with your skimpy coats, and your starched collars, and not a bit of lace to your neckcloth, or your wristbands! If you can sit down in those skin-tight breeches, or pantaloons, or whatever you call ’em, do so!”

— Georgette Heyer

107. “In my back bedchamber, sir,’ said Nye loudly. ‘I always house smugglers there to be handy for the riding-officers.”

— Georgette Heyer

108. “Eccentricity may be diverting, Mama, but it is out of place in a wife: certainly in my wife!”

— Georgette Heyer

109. “Much discomposed, Freddy made inarticulate noises.”

— Georgette Heyer

110. “Mrs Patch was all that she had hoped. She was an improbable blonde of uncertain years, with a very much painted face, a singularly penetrating voice, and a laugh which made Mablethorpe wince.”

— Georgette Heyer

111. “I liked that young man, did not you? There was something particularly pleasing about his manners, which I thought very easy and frank. He has an air of honest manliness, too, which, in these days of fribbles and counter-coxcombs, I own I find refreshing!”

— Georgette Heyer

112. “If you mention Bella’s name to me again, Gil, I am likely to do you a mischief!′ Sherry warned him. ‘I never cared the snap of my fingers for that wretched girl, and if you are not assured of that, ask her! Why, God save the mark, she may be a beauty, but give me my Kitten! Bella, with her airs and her graces, and her miffs, and her curst sharp tongue! No, I thank you! What’s more, no man who had lived with Kitten would look twice at the Beauty!”

— Georgette Heyer

113. “Dash it, coz! Been searching for you all over! Even took a look-in at the church. If I hadn’t thought to ask pretty well everyone I met if they’d seen a mountain moving about on legs I might be hunting for you still!”

— Georgette Heyer

114. “But that’s what he did, and if he has made up his mind to be idiotishly noble – Yes, it is going to be very difficult. I must think!”

— Georgette Heyer

115. “Now, that,’ said Sophy, ‘I am very glad to know, because if ever I should desire to please you I shall know just how to set about it. I daresay I shan’t, but one likes to be prepared for any event, however unlikely.”

— Georgette Heyer

116. “So off had gone John to the wars again. But he had not remained for long in the position of a humble volunteer. Colonel Clifton, commanding the 1st Regiment of Dragoons, no sooner heard that Crazy Jack was back then he enrolled him as an extra aide-de-camp.”

— Georgette Heyer

117. “I always agree on trivial points,’ replied Francis. ‘It saves trouble.”

— Georgette Heyer

118. “If people are only kind to me I’m sure I am the last person to quarrel with anyone.’ His.”

— Georgette Heyer

119. “Yes, Nicky, but you think I know everything because I never tell you anything I am not quite certain of.”

— Georgette Heyer

120. “What I mean is, like you to have everything you want. Wished it was me, that’s all.”

— Georgette Heyer

121. “I didn’t make my face, so why shouldn’t I say it’s beautiful? Everyone else does!”

— Georgette Heyer

122. “I feel an almost overwhelming interest in the methods of daylight abduction employed by the modern youth.”

— Georgette Heyer

123. “In all of this she was only partially successful, for although Nurse knew that once Miss Venetia had made up her mind she was powerless to prevent her doing whatever she liked, and was obliged to admit some faint resemblance in Damerel to the Good Samaritan, she persisted in referring to him as The Ungodly, and in ascribing his charitable behaviour to some obscure but evil motive.”

— Georgette Heyer

124. “Your solicitude overwhelms me,’ returned Ravenscar. ‘I own I had expected at least a loaf of bread and a jug of water in my dungeon – until I learned, of course, that you had some idea of starving me to death.”

— Georgette Heyer

125. “Randall laid his hand on Stella’s, but only to remove it from his sleeve. “My precious, you really must have some regard for my clothes,” he said with gentle reproach. “Much as I love you, I cannot permit you to maul this particular coat.”

— Georgette Heyer

126. “Glamour might still have clung to a rakehell who abducted noble damsels, but no glamour remained about a man who had been pushed into a pond in full ball-dress.”

— Georgette Heyer

127. “I contrive,”’ said Prudence softly. ‘Do you know, sir, you puzzle me.’ ‘It has ever been my motto,’ the old gentleman pointed out triumphantly.”

— Georgette Heyer

128. “I am not quite sober you know. In fact, I am drunk, but I cannot help feeling this is all a trifle, shall we say, irregular?”

— Georgette Heyer

129. “Mrs Hendred did not like the people around her to be unhappy. Even the sight of a housemaid crying with the pain of the toothache made her feel low, for misery had no place in her comfortable existence; and when it obtruded itself on her notice it dimmed the warm sunshine in which she basked, and quite ruined her belief in a world where everyone was contented, and affluent, and cheerful.”

— Georgette Heyer

130. “My house seems remarkably full of people,” he observed. “Is it possible we were expected.”

— Georgette Heyer

131. “But perhaps I might feel strange, and unlike myself. It wouldn’t be comfortable, not to be acquainted with myself.”

— Georgette Heyer

132. “The charm of your society, My Sparrow, lies in not knowing what will you say next – though one rapidly learns to fear the worst!”

— Georgette Heyer

133. “Mrs Hendred was a very pretty woman of great good-nature and much less than commonsense.”

— Georgette Heyer

134. “I may have said that I wanted to have an adventure,” replied Miss Thane. “But I never said that I wanted to be murdered in my bed.”

— Georgette Heyer

135. “Really, I don’t know what the world is coming to if I am to be suspected of staring in at windows!”

— Georgette Heyer

136. “The thought flashed into her mind that she beheld the embodiment of her ideal. It was as instantly banished;.”

— Georgette Heyer

137. “When he was pleased he looked what nature had intended him to be: a placid man with a kindly, easy-going disposition; but when harassed his expression changed to one of peevishness, a frown dragging his brows together, and a pronounced pout giving him very much the look of a thwarted baby.”

— Georgette Heyer

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

— Georgette Heyer

139. “You see, I am not pretty, not in the least, never was, and so I have to be odd. Nothing for it! It answers delightfully.”

— Georgette Heyer

140. “Miss Grantham gave a shriek. ‘You have trifled with me!’ she said, into the folds of her handkerchief. ‘You promised me marriage, and now you mean to cast me off for Another!”

— Georgette Heyer

141. “Besides, it was a well-known maxim that maniacs must be humoured.”

— Georgette Heyer

142. “I find it a marvellous circumstance, cousin, that no one has yet strangled you!”

— Georgette Heyer

143. “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.”

— Georgette Heyer

144. “The society of my relatives can only be enjoyed with frequent intervals.”

— Georgette Heyer

145. “The most she could wring from him was a promise that he would say nothing uncivil to Mrs Scorrier unless she offered him provocation, and with this she had to try at least to be satisfied. But as what Aubrey might regard as provocation depended to a large extent upon his mood her expectations were not high;.”

— Georgette Heyer

146. “O God, Mama, I’ve made such a mull of it! What am I to do?”

— Georgette Heyer

147. “I have never met the man who had vision large enough to appreciate my genius,” he said simply. “Perhaps it was not to be expected.”

— Georgette Heyer

148. “Your strength lies in being precisely the kind of man who can procure one a chair when it has come on to rain.”

— Georgette Heyer

149. “It is customary, you know, to exchange polite conversation during the dance. I have now addressed no fewer than three unexceptionable remarks to you without winning one answer!”

— Georgette Heyer

150. “It seemed to Kitty a pity that her new friend’s mind was set so irrevocably upon marriage, but her suggestion that Olivia might seek an eligible situation as a governess met with no favour at all. Olivia stared at her with dismay in her big eyes, and unequivocally stated her preference for death.”

— Georgette Heyer