Best Regal Quotes from Downton Abbey Movies

Robert Crawley: No maid. No valet. No nanny, even.
Bertie Hexham: It’s 1927. We’re modern folk.

Isobel Merton: I always find her rather sad, Princess Mary.
Violet Crawley: Well, she is royal. Royal women are not meant to grin like Cheshire cats.
Isobel Merton: Well, they don’t have to look miserable.
Violet Crawley: Well, to you, she looks miserable. To me, she looks dignified.

Violet Crawley: How comforting to see you here, Carson. What prompted you to take up the flaming sword again?
Mr. Carson: I felt I should go where I could do the most good, milady.
Violet Crawley: Wise words for all of us.

Tony Sellick: Aren’t you going to wish me luck?
Daisy: You don’t look as if you need me to wish you luck, Mr. Sellick. Or anyone else, for that matter.
Tony Sellick: You don’t know what I need.
Daisy: And I don’t intend to find out.

Mrs. Hughes: These water jugs nearly killed me. How did we manage in the old days?
Mrs. Patmore: Well, maybe people were tougher then.
Daisy: Maybe they expected less from life.
Tony Sellick: Well, I expect a lot from life.
Daisy: So do I. And I mean to have it too.

Robert Crawley: Are you excited?
Cora Crawley: I am a bit. Are you?
Robert Crawley: Would it be common to admit it?
Cora Crawley: Not to an American.

Monsieur Courbet: You. Where can I put this?
Mrs. Patmore: Don’t tempt me.

Anna Bates: Is it always like this?
Richard Ellis: A royal visit is like a swan on a lake. Grace and serenity above, demented kicking down below.

Bertie Hexham: Many a true word is spoken in jest.

Bertie Hexham: But how could you know that? And how would you prove it?
Violet Crawley: We’d find a friendly judge.
Robert Crawley: Friendly or corrupt?
Violet Crawley: Whichever does the trick.

Robert Crawley: Are you here for dinner, Mama? It’s a buffet.
Violet Crawley: Well, I’m not changed.
Lady Edith: We won’t change either, so you just need to take off your hat.
Violet Crawley: You talk as if that were easy.

Thomas Barrow: Why are you here again, Mr. Carson? So you could keep control when I would fail? Was that it? I forget.

Mr. Wilson: What do you want?
Mr. Carson: Since you are in my room, sitting at my desk, it is for me to ask what you want.
Mr. Wilson: Nothing from you.
Mr. Carson: I would remind you that I have been in charge of Downton for many years.
Mr. Wilson: Mr. Carson, you are a retired servant in a minor provincial house, serving an undistinguished family. Your history is of no interest to me.

Violet Crawley: Of course, little Mary could hammer in a tent peg with her teeth.
Isobel Merton: I wonder who she got that from?
Violet Crawley: You know, I’m always surprised when you praise me.
Isobel Merton: I’m surprised to hear that I have.

Lady Mary: Well, the day has dawned, and the weather proves conclusively that God is a monarchist.
Mr. Carson: Who could doubt it, milady?

Cora Crawley: Your Majesties, welcome to Downton Abbey.

King George V: [as Voileto curtsies] Oh, can I help you?
Violet Crawley: Someone must, sir, or I may never rise again.

Violet Crawley: Are we going to kiss?
Maud Bagshaw: I’m glad you want to kiss me. It wasn’t quite what you said when I last heard from you.
Violet Crawley: It wasn’t quite how I felt when I wrote.

Monsieur Courbet: I want the milk now. I want the egg yolks now. I want the olive oil now. And I want the vanilla pod now.
Mrs. Patmore: He wants a clip around the ear, now!

King George V: And you, Lady Grantham. Were you affected by the general strike?
Violet Crawley: Well, my maid was rather curt with me while it was on, sir. But, you know, she is a communist at heart. So I suppose it was only to be expected.

Tom Branson: I’m not impressed you all decided I was a royal assassin.
Lady Mary: I didn’t. It was really the others.

Tom Branson: [referring to Chetwode] He’d heard my sympathies lay with Ireland and the republic.
Lady Mary: Don’t they?
Tom Branson: Not at any cost. I’m a law-and-order man these days. That’s what you lot have done to me.

Lady Mary: So, will there be a great splash all over the newspapers? Poor Papa.
Tom Branson: Oh, no. You’ll find there isn’t a whisper about this anywhere.
Lady Mary: An establishment cover-up. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories.

Lucy Smith: Was it hard, coming up like that? Joining the family.
Tom Branson: Very hard. Between my old world, and the new one, sometimes I didn’t know who I was.
Lucy Smith: But you do now?
Tom Branson: I think so, yes. I came to terms with it.

Anna Bates: We are going to clear the way so you cook and serve dinner for the king and queen at Downton Abbey. As you should.
Mrs. Patmore: Well, oh, my God. I this a revolution?
Mr. Molesley: Shall I fetch the pitchforks?

Tom Branson: Well, to be honest, I’m not much of a royalist. Although I probably shouldn’t say that out loud.
Princess Mary: Certainly not to a stranger. That seems odd, as the Crawleys would die for the Crown if they had to.
Tom Branson: You can love people you disagree with.
Princess Mary: And you love them?
Tom Branson: They’re decent at the core.

Tom Branson: [referring to the royals] And they’re silly too, and snobbish at times. And I wouldn’t give tuppence for their politics. But I’ve learned to be happy with all of that. And besides, they’re my daughter’s family.
Princess Mary: And she lives here?
Tom Branson: I nearly took her away once. But she belongs here now. I spent so much of my life not belonging anywhere. That’s important to me.
Princess Mary: I suppose, in the end, it’s deciding what’s important, isn’t it?

Lady Edith: Everything’s going wrong for me today.

Maud Bagshaw: How clever of you to find me.
Violet Crawley: Well, not really. I lived here forty years.

Bertie Hexham: Secrets always muddle things.

Mrs. Hughes: [referring to serving the royals] Mr. Carson, this is your destiny. You know as much, and so do I. Now, accept it proudly. And walk into that room with your head held high.
Mr. Bates: You can do it, Mr. Carson.

Anna Bates: We must all pull our weight tonight for Downton’s glory.

Violet Crawley: Tom, you’re looking pleased with yourself.
Lady Edith: He was just praising Lady Bagshaw’s maid.
Violet Crawley: Well, how did she contrive to make your acquaintance?
Tom Branson: She didn’t contrive anything. We met by chance.
Violet Crawley: What simpletons men are.

Cora Crawley: [referring to Molesley] Whatever may have happened does not excuse his behavior.
Queen Mary: I can assure you, Lady Grantham, we are quite used to people behaving strangely when we are near.

Maud Bagshaw: [referring to who will be her heir] Lucy Smith, my maid.
Violet Crawley: What? Are you out of your mind?
Maud Bagshaw: No. And I know what I’m doing.
Violet Crawley: On the contrary, you’re clearly insane. You should be in an asylum.
Maud Bagshaw: How like you. A word of resistance, and you slash with your saber.
Violet Crawley: It is lucky for Miss Smith that I do not own a saber.

Violet Crawley: You belong in a straitjacket. To treat your maid as a blood relation is to unpick every fiber of the English way of life.
Maud Bagshaw: What piffle you talk.
Robert Crawley: Oh! Please, there is no need to argue.
Violet Crawley: I never argue. I explain.
Maud Bagshaw: Face it, Violet, I’ll outlive you anyway, so it need trouble you no further.

Robert Crawley: Game, set and match to Lady Bagshaw.
Violet Crawley: Not while I’m the umpire.

Isobel Merton: Lady Bagshaw, could I have a word before you ring for your maid? Does Lucy know that you’re her mother?
Maud Bagshaw: She does.

Isobel Merton: [referring to Lucy] I suppose if she’d been your ward, people would have guessed.
Maud Bagshaw: Exactly. Who takes notice of a servant? I hid her in plain sight.

Maud Bagshaw: Everyone should know a total love at least once.

Maud Bagshaw: I know it sounds reckless, but I was thirty-nine when I got pregnant. I thought I was barren. Of course, I knew I couldn’t tell my father. So, I went to America.
Isobel Merton: They must have thought that wild.
Maud Bagshaw: Well, little did they know how wild it really was.

Isobel Merton: I suppose royal service kept you silent on the subject.
Maud Bagshaw: Yes. In a way. But it was cowardice, really. Now, by making Lucy my heir, I will have taken the first step.

Lady Mary: Isn’t it time to chuck in the towel? Lots of people have.
Anna Bates: You mean, leave Downton?
Lady Mary: We could sell it for a school, or an old people’s home, or something. And buy a manor house with a modest estate, and live a normal life.
Anna Bates: Is that what you want?
Lady Mary: I want everything to stop being such a struggle.

Lady Mary: When I was putting up the chairs in the rain, I kept thinking, “What am I doing?”
Anna Bates: I’ll tell you what you’re doing, milady. You’re making a center for the people who work here. For this village. For the county. Downton Abbey is the heart of this community, and you’re keeping it beating.
Lady Mary: So you think we should battle on?
Anna Bates: While there’s blood in your veins.

Tom Branson: Go forward in health, and use your luck wisely.
Lucy Smith: I have such a feeling that you can understand what’s going on inside my head when no one else does, or ever could.

Mr. Bates: Here’s to the triumph of Downton, and my beautiful wife.
Anna Bates: Oh, here’s to all of you who brought it off.
Mrs. Hughes: Here’s to Mr. Carson for swallowing his principles.

Andy: And here’s to Her Majesty for taking pity on Mr. Molesley.
Mr. Molesley: For a moment there, I thought I was headed for the Tower.

Daisy: You tried to wreck the visit of the King of England. You risked being sacked, you risked ruin, just for the love of me?
Andy: I just, my feelings took over. That’s all I can say. Can you forgive me?
Daisy: Forgive you? Oh, Andy, I’d have done it myself if I’d had the nerve. Don’t you see what it means? We’re alike, you and I. Full of passion for what matters. I thought you were easily satisfied, but I see now you’re not. So we can fight our way to a better world together.

Thomas Barrow: And it feels good. Just to be two blokes, having a chat, not trying to fit in for once.
Richard Ellis: Well, we all have to do what we must to get by. But, yeah. Feels good to be two ordinary blokes.
Thomas Barrow: Will they ever see it our way?
Richard Ellis: I don’t know. Fifty years ago, who’d have thought man could fly?

Miss Lawton: Doesn’t it ever worry you that on each table in this house, there’s an ornament that you couldn’t buy with a year’s wages?
Anna Bates: And what’s your answer? Because everyone can’t have them, no one should have them?
Miss Lawton: No. My answer is, “Why can’t I have them? Or some of them.”

Lady Edith: I just want to own my own life. I want to say things that I think, and do what I like.
Bertie Hexham: Don’t you now?
Lady Edith: No. I spend my time entertaining people who bore me to death, because they’re entitled to sit at our table. I attend committees that I haven’t chosen, because they’ve chosen me. I used to have a job that I loved, but not anymore. And now my husband won’t be there when I have a baby. The woman in the lodge is entitled to that, but I’m not.

Thomas Barrow: Well, I hope we can keep in touch. I feel I’ve finally found a friend.
Richard Ellis: Is that what you found, Mr. Barrow? A friend?
[he kisses Thomas]

Robert Crawley: Carson, what happened to the royal servants last night?
Mr. Carson: Hard to say, milord. They sort of gave up the ghost.
Robert Crawley: Well, you managed splendidly. Although I could have done without Molesley’s aria. But please thank the staff for saving the day.

Mrs. Hughes: Are you very shocked by it all?
Mr. Carson: I should be. Interfering with the palace staff on a royal visit, and me part of it, to boot. I don’t know what came over me.
Mrs. Hughes: But?
Mr. Carson: They had it coming to them, Elsie. Let’s face it, they had it coming in spades.

Violet Crawley: [finally learning that Lucy is Maud’s daughter] Why did you not say this long ago?
Maud Bagshaw: It seemed too great a leap for you.
Violet Crawley: Well, who do you think I am? Some maiden aunt who’s never left the village?
Maud Bagshaw: Obviously not.
Violet Crawley: Well, don’t think I approve, because I don’t. But at least I understand.

Maud Bagshaw: [referring to Lucy] And I’m afraid you’ll dislike it, but she says that she and Tom Branson have agreed to correspond.
Violet Crawley: Dislike it? I will lick the stamps myself.
Maud Bagshaw: You are amazing, Violet. You haven’t won, you know.
Violet Crawley: I don’t believe in defeat.

Isobel Merton: Oh, Violet. After all these years, you still astonish me.
Violet Crawley: Oh, good. I’m glad I’m a revelation and not a disappointment.

Violet Crawley: [to Mary] I have lived a privileged, and an interesting life, and now it’s time to go. I’m leaving the family, and the place that I treasure, in talented hands.

Violet Crawley: Our ancestors lived different lives from us, and our descendants will live differently again, but Downton Abbey will be part of them.
Lady Mary: Won’t be the same without you.
Violet Crawley: Of course it will. You’ll take over from where I left off. You’ll be the frightening old lady keeping everyone up to the mark.

Violet Crawley: Oh, Mary, I can’t spend the rest of my life in a shower of “How are you feeling?” And “Are you quite well?” Oh, no. The point is, I’ll be fine until I’m not. That’s all there is to it.

Lady Mary: You know, you’ll always be with us, Granny. Staring from every picture, talking from every book, as long as the house stands.
Violet Crawley: Sounds very exhausting. Do you know, I think I should prefer to rest in peace.

Lady Mary: [referring to the king releasing Hexham from his duties] How did that happen? Was it you, Mama? How did you do it?
Cora Crawley: Simple. Bertie asked the king. I asked the queen.

Cora Crawley: I do love our adventures.
Robert Crawley: But isn’t it fun when they’re over?

Henry Talbot: Leave Downton? I think we’re stuck with it, aren’t we?
Lady Mary: Yes. Yes, I believe we are.

Mrs. Hughes: Well, they’ve gone, and Downton is still standing.
Mr. Carson: Elsie, a hundred years from now, Downton will still be standing. And the Crawleys will still be here. And that is a promise.
Mrs. Hughes: We’ll see, Charlie. We’ll see.