Downton Abbey 2×8

Anna Smith: Lady Mary's right. It's a big thing, to give up your whole world.
Lady Mary Crawley: Thank you. Listen to her if you won't listen to me. I'm not giving up my world!
Lady Sybil Crawley: If they give me up, that's their affair! I'm perfectly happy to carry on being friends with everyone.
Lady Mary Crawley: Married to the chauffer?
Lady Sybil Crawley: Yes. Anyway, he's a journalist now, which sounds better for granny.

Lady Sybil Crawley: It's not such a good idea. We mustn't worry granny.
Branson: You asked me to come and I've come.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Would someone please tell me what is going on or have we all stepped through the looking glass?
Branson: Your grandmother has as much right to know as anybody else.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Why don't I find that reassuring?

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: What on Earth is it?
Lavinia Swire: A gramophone. Some cousins of mine have given it.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: You should stand well clear when you light the blue touch paper.

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Don't worry. Your turn will come.
Lady Edith Crawley: Will it? Or am I just to be the maiden aunt? Isn't this what they do? Arrange presents for their pretty relations?
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Don't be defeatist, dear, it's very middle class.

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: I do hope I'm interrupting something.

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Now, Sybil, dear, this sort of thing is all very well in novels, but in reality, it can prove very uncomfortable and while I am sure Branson has many virtues... No, no, he's a good driver.
Lady Sybil Crawley: I will not give him up!
Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham: Don't be rude to your grandmother.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: No, she's not being rude. Just wrong.

Anna Smith: Mr Carson likes to serve two white wines which you should open and decant just before they eat. A light one for the hors d'oeuvres, a heavy one with the soup. Keep that going for the fish then change to claret which you need to decant now. There's a pudding wine and, after that, whatever they want in the drawing room with their coffee.
Joseph Molesley: It's a wonder they make it upstairs.
Anna Smith: They don't drink much of any of it. Let me show you the decanters. These four...

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Wasn't there a masked ball in Paris when cholera broke out? Half the guests were dead before they left the ballroom.
Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham: Thank you, Mama. That's cheered us up no end.

Major Clarkson: You don't need to worry about Mosley. He'll be fine in the morning. The others have Spanish flu. He's just drunk.

Mrs. Patmore: You never know people, do you. You can work with them for 20 years, you don't know them at all.

Horace Bryant: Ethel, consider this. In the world as it is, compare the two futures. The first, as my heir. Educated, privileged, rich. Able to do what he wants, marry whom he likes. The second, as the bastard son--
Mrs. Hughes: I think we've heard enough of that word for one day!
Horace Bryant: Very well. As the nameless offshoot of a drudge, you're his mother. Which would you choose for him?

Major Clarkson: It's bad, I'm afraid. Very bad. The worst.
Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham: I don't understand. When I was with her, she was fine.
Major Clarkson: It's a strange disease with sudden, savage changes.

Jane Moorsum: I'm not sure...
Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham: It would make me very happy.
Jane Moorsum: If I thought that, then I'd take it, gladly. Will you be happy? Really?
Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham: I have no right to be unhappy, which is almost the same.
Jane Moorsum: Almost. Not quite.

Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham: Well, if I can't stop you, I see no profit in a quarrel. You'll have a very different life from the one you might have lived, but if you're sure it's what you want?
Lady Sybil Crawley: I am.
Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham: Then you may take my blessing with you, whatever that means.

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: So, you've given in?
Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham: She would have gone anyway. .... You'll think that's soft?
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Not at all. The aristocracy has not survived by its intransigence. No, we must work with what we've got to minimise the scandal.
Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham: But what have we got to work with?
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: You'd be surprised. He's political, isn't he? And a writer. I could make something out of that. And there's a family called Branson with a place not far from Cork. I believe they have a connection with the Howards. Surely we can hitch him onto them?...

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