Downton Abbey (TV Series)
Episode #5.3 (2014)
Maggie Smith: Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham
Quotes
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Isobel Crawley : How is Spratt?
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : Well, I think. Why do you ask?
Isobel Crawley : He wasn't there to open the door. I wondered if he might be ill.
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : Oh, no, no, he's not ill. He's in Liverpool. His niece got married yesterday and Spratt had to take her down the aisle.
Isobel Crawley : Oh. Seems rather unlikely to think of Spratt with a private life.
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : Mmm. Unlikely. And extremely inconvenient.
Isobel Crawley : But you can't begrudge him that, surely. Servants are human beings too.
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : Yes. Preferably only on their days off.
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Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : [crossly, after Pratt has been hinting at knowing something] You're testing me, Spratt... and I warn you, being tested does not bring out the best in me!
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Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : An unlucky friend is tiresome enough; an unlucky acquaintance is intolerable.
Isobel Crawley : You're all heart.
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Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : In my day a lady was incapable of feeling physical attraction until she'd been instructed to do so by her mama.
Lady Mary Crawley : I don't believe that.
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : Seriously, my dear, you have to take control of your feelings before they take control of you.
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Anthony Gillingham : Darling Granny, you know how much I value your advice.
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : Which means you intend to ignore it.
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Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : If I was seduced by a man, I would not let any grass grow under his feet, if he offered to do the decent thing.
Lady Mary Crawley : I wasn't seduced, granny.
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : A young woman of good family who finds herself in the bed of a man who is not her husband has invariably been seduced.
Lady Mary Crawley : She couldn't have gone to bed with him of her own free will?
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : *Not* if she was the daughter of an earl.
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Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham : What is the latest... from your aging Romeo?