178 Quotes by Julian Fellowes

The moment I was introduced to my wife, Emma, at a party I thought, here she is – and 20 minutes later I told her she ought to marry me. She thought I was as mad as a rat. She wouldn’t even give me her telephone number – and she wrote in her diary: ‘A funny little man asked me to marry him.’

I think Americans are wonderful film actors – the best in the world – but they are a very contemporary race and they look forward all the time.

Anne Trenchard was a practical woman, and one of her chief virtues was that she did not linger over a disaster but sought, almost immediately, to remedy what could be remedied and to accept what could not.

I mean the truth is, I’ve always been interested in the whole setup of the Old World.

When you are desperate to get someone who isn’t all that interested in you, you lay siege as hard as you can.

Love is like riding or speaking French. If you don’t learn it young, it’s hard to get the trick of it later.

She had that uniquely English talent of demonstrating, through her scrupulously polite manner, just how awful she thought the company. She could leave a roomful crushed and rejected and yet congratulate herself on behaving perfectly. It is of course of all forms of rudeness the most offensive as it leaves no room for rebuttal.

Today, people often make the American mistake of confusing acquaintances with friends. The former are there to share life’s pleasures; only the latter should be invited to share one’s problems.

I just don’t believe in generalisations.