Downton Abbey 2×1

Mrs. Hughes: You have to ease up a bit or you'll give yourself a heart attack.
Mr. Carson: There's a war on. Things cannot be the same when there's a war on.
Mrs. Hughes: I do not agree.
Mr. Carson: Keeping up standards is the only way to show the Germans that they will not beat us in the end.
Mrs. Hughes: Well, give me some warning the next time we're expecting Germans at Downton and I'll see what I can do.

Isobel Crawley: Well, if you're serious, what about being an auxiliary nurse? There's a training college in York. I know I could get you onto a course. It may be something of a rough awakening. Are you ready for that? I mean, have you ever made your own bed, for example? Or scrubbed a floor?

Mr. Carson: Last time he was here, he hadn't broken Lady Mary's heart.
Mrs. Hughes: Lady Mary broke her own heart.
Mr. Carson: Hmm!
Mrs. Hughes: That's if she has a heart to break.
Mr. Carson: I don't think we're ever going to see eye to eye on this, Mrs Hughes.
Mrs. Hughes: She refused him when she thought he'd have nothing. And when he was heir again she wanted him back.
Mr. Carson: I thought caution was a virtue.
Mrs. Hughes: Caution maybe. Self-interest is not.

Mrs. Hughes: Perhaps Miss Swire is a gentler person...
Mr. Carson: If you ask me, this "Miss Swire", who, it may interest you to know, is not to be found in Burke's Peerage or Burke's Landed Gentry, has an eye to the main chance.
Mrs. Hughes: Well, that's not snobbish, I suppose?
Mr. Carson: I like to see things done properly, Mrs Hughes. And I won't apologise for that. Now, if you'll excuse me...

Ethel Parks: Why shouldn't she learn how to cook and scrub? She may need it when the war's over. Things are changing. For her lot and us. And when they do I mean to make the most of it.

Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham: What is it, Carson?
Mr. Carson: Something has been going on and I don't feel quite easy that you've not been made aware of it.
Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham: Goodness. What is this dark secret? Mr. Carson: Lady Sybil has spent the last two days in the kitchens.

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: What is this driving mania?
Lady Edith Crawley: It'll be useful. They won't let a healthy man drive us around for much longer. And if Sybil can be a nurse, why can't I be a chauffeur?

Mr. Carson: That was nice of you.
Mrs. Hughes: It was quite nice. But I had my reasons. There's a grating on the wall, which means you can hear what's being said in the room.
Mr. Carson: Now, if I was a gentleman, I wouldn't want to know.
Mrs. Hughes: But you're not.
Mr. Carson: Fortunately.

Lady Sybil Crawley: I'm terribly flattered.
Branson: Don't say that.
Lady Sybil Crawley: Why not?
Branson: Because "flattered" is a word posh people use when they're getting ready to say no.

Matthew Crawley: Thank you for that. Thank you very much.
Thomas Barrow: What would my mother say? Me, entertaining the future Earl of Grantham to tea.
Matthew Crawley: War has a way of distinguishing between the things that matter, and the things that don't.

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