Downton Abbey 4×8

Lady Mary Crawley: I don't know if it's much of a favor. We're giving you a lot of work.
Mr. Drewe: Work's like old age, m'lady: The worst thing in the world except for the alternative.

Isobel Crawley: What's it about?
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: What is it always about? Bribery and corruption.

Lady Mary Crawley: He's turning into quite a bruiser.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Yes, and I must go.
Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham: Stay and have some dinner, Mama. You needn't change.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: No. Thank you, my dear, but no. You should change and I should go.

Jack Ross: Don't... don't do that.
Lady Rose MacClare: You mustn't be so self-conscious.
Jack Ross: A black singer with the daughter of a marquess in a north Yorkshire town? Why should we attract any attention?
Lady Rose MacClare: Well, that's their problem. It doesn't have to be ours.

Lady Edith Crawley: Can you really afford to spend four months reading novels in the Alps?
Lady Rosamund Painswick: Why ask the question when the decision has been made?

Lord Anthony Gillingham: I was on the Spey. I did a tour of the cousinage, then after that, a wedding in Ayrshire. I've enjoyed myself. It gave me time to think, for once.
Lady Mary Crawley: Oh, what about, particularly?
Lord Anthony Gillingham: My life, I suppose.
Isobel Crawley: Everyone should, from time to time.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Oh, I can't agree. In my experience, it is a dangerous occupation.
Isobel Crawley: Dangerous?
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Well, no life appears rewarding if you think too much about it.

Lady Rose MacClare: I love him. And I won't listen to any imperialist nonsense about racial purity and how he should be horsewhipped for daring to dream!

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: I want to know what you were doing at Downton.
Lady Rosamund Painswick: I don't understand. Why shouldn't I come to Downton? I grew up here.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: I see I'll have to take the slow path...

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Isn't it time one of you told me the truth?
Lady Edith Crawley: If I told you the truth, Granny, you would never speak to me again.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Then you have told me the truth, but I would like to hear it enunciated more clearly.

James Kent: Do we get paid extra?
Mr. Carson: No, but if you play your cards right, you'll avoid a clip round the ear.

Isobel Crawley: I'm a feeble substitute for the entire Crawley family.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Mmm, yes, but you're better than nothing. How warming you make that sound.

Sarah Bunting: Oh, I don't want to hold you up.
Tom Branson: I've no appointment. I was just on my way to Skipton to see some suppliers and compare prices.
Sarah Bunting: How impressive. I thought that when the agent was a cousin or a son-in-law, he had free shooting for life, but others did the work.
Tom Branson: To quote my wife's grandmother, you've been reading those socialist newspapers again.

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: Well, Switzerland has everything to offer. Except perhaps conversation, and one can learn to live without that.

Lady Mary Crawley: Mr. Ross, are you sure about this? Marriage is a challenge, even when everyone wants it. Even if everyone prays you'll be happy.
Jack Ross: You mean in our case, they'll all be trying to pull us apart.
Lady Mary Crawley: Every hour of every day.

Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: I read the card. He asks forgiveness for his tactlessness. Was he tactless?
Isobel Crawley: He didn't mean to be tactless.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: How nice.
Isobel Crawley: Mmm. Very nice. Quite surprising... but very nice.

Lady Edith Crawley: Sometimes I feel that God doesn't want me to be happy.
Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham: My dear, all life is a series of problems which we must try and solve. First one, then the next and the next, until at last we die... Why don't you get us an ice cream?
Lady Edith Crawley: Yes. That should sort it out.

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