Quotes from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate

Nancy Mitford ·  468 pages

Rating: (4.8K votes)


“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, quote from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate


“But I think she would have been happy with Fabrice,' I said. 'He was the great love of her life, you know.'
Oh, dulling,' said my mother, sadly. 'One always thinks that. Every, every time.”
― Nancy Mitford, quote from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate


“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, quote from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate


“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, quote from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate


“Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry' is a aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow.”
― Nancy Mitford, quote from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate



“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, quote from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate


“She...ran away so often, and with so many different people, that she became known to her family and friends as the Bolter....”
― Nancy Mitford, quote from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate


“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, quote from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate


“Isn't it lovely to be lovely me!”
― Nancy Mitford, quote from The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate


About the author

Nancy Mitford
Born place: in London, The United Kingdom
Born date November 28, 1904
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“The other thing to remember, of course, is that most people get no help at all. I sure didn't, oh, no: it was just me and Castle, charging, desperate, through the country darkness, and that's how it is for most people who dare to run - no help from no Airlines, no help from no one. They just go, man, after years of planning or in the heat of a sudden moment they go, hurl their skinny bodies over a cyclone fence or purge themselves into a moat, break free of a chain line or a guard's hard grip and run, brother, run, sister, run along back roads and through forests. No planes and no cars or trucks, either. Just brave souls darting across open fields and wading in and out of rivers and stumbling along deer paths through dark woods. Find the star and follow it, as runners have done all the way back to the days of Old Slavery.”
― Ben H. Winters, quote from Underground Airlines


“Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Para mim, estar inocente significa não se ter nascido ou estar-se morto. Admito isto, estou pronto a reconhecer que há muitas espécies diferentes de culpa: uma culpa mais inocente do que a da maioria, e uma mais carregada, uma que transborda do sentimento da falta e outra que corre apenas gota a gota.”
― Stig Dagerman, quote from De dömdas ö


“We speak and understand best our native language. We feel most comfortable speaking that language. The more we use a secondary language, the more comfortable we become conversing in it. If we speak only our primary language and encounter someone else who speaks only his or her primary language, which is different from ours, our communication will be limited. We must rely on pointing, grunting, drawing pictures, or acting out our ideas. We can communicate, but it is awkward.”
― Gary Chapman, quote from The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts


“No,” said Myrna. “It happened because no one stopped them. Not enough people stood up soon enough. And why was that?” “Fear?” asked Clara. “Yes, partly. And partly programming. All around them, respectable Germans saw others behaving brutally toward people they considered outsiders. The Jews, gypsies, gays. It became normal and acceptable. No one told them what was happening was wrong. In fact, just the opposite.” “No one should have had to,” snapped Reine-Marie. “Myrna’s right,” said Armand, breaking his silence. “We see what she describes all the time. I saw it in the Sûreté Academy. I saw it in the brutality of the Sûreté itself. We see it when bullies are in charge. It becomes part of the culture of an institution, a family, an ethnic group, a country. It becomes not just acceptable, but expected. Applauded even.”
― Louise Penny, quote from Glass Houses


Interesting books

The Symposium
(31.1K)
The Symposium
by Plato
This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl
(14.5K)
The Secret Adversary
(29.4K)
The Secret Adversary
by Agatha Christie
The Fortress of Solitude
(18.9K)
The Fortress of Soli...
by Jonathan Lethem
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2
(465.4K)
Harry Potter and the...
by John Tiffany
Dream Country
(80.5K)
Dream Country
by Neil Gaiman

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.