Where to Watch:
Season 2 Quotes
Queen Charlotte: I yearn for someone fresh, someone unexpected, to turn this season on its head. That is what we need. There is no room for indifference. Apathy is a blight the monarchy simply cannot endure.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: I do not need feeling. What I need is what I have, and that is a list. Tolerable, dutiful, suitable enough hips for childbearing, and at least half a brain. And that last part is not so much a requirement but a preference, in fact.
Lady Whistledown: Dearest gentle reader. Did you miss me?
Prudence Featherington: A season with no new dresses, nor servants. Are we to empty our own chamber pots too?
Kate Sharma: It is not a man’s appearance or title that will woo you. It is his mind and spirit that will court yours. He will speak in a manner that only your heart can hear. That is what you are looking for. That is the true love you deserve.
Lady Violet Bridgerton: You look lovely, dear.
Eloise Bridgerton: I look like a prize calf, trussed up for auction.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: Love is the last thing I desire. But if my children are to be of good stock, then their mother must be of impeccable quality. A pleasing face, an acceptable wit, genteel manners enough to credit a viscountess. It should not be hard to find. And yet, the debutantes of London fall short at every turn.
Kate Sharma: Viscount Bridgerton, yes? When you manage to find this paragon of virtue, whatever makes you think she will accept your suit? Are the young ladies of London truly so easily won by a pleasing smile and absolutely nothing more?
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: So you find my smile pleasing?
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: I can still barely feel my toes. I thought you ladies were taught to dance.
Eloise Bridgerton: And I thought you gentlemen capable of worthwhile conversation. How sad both of our hopes were dashed.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: I am looking for perfection, Mother. And you should be too. The woman I marry shall be the Viscountess Bridgerton. The lady of this household, responsible for launching my sisters, and bearing my children. Do you truly desire them to be raised by a woman who does not know how to so much as hold a map right side up? This is the duty I must fulfill.
Lady Violet Bridgerton: You will end up alone with such expectations.
Prudence Featherington: I will be perfectly putrefied if Philippa does manage to marry Finch.
Penelope Featherington: “Petrified”. The word is “petrified”.
Kate Sharma: I’ve spent the last eight years raising my sister to walk in the right way, to talk in the right way, to play the pianoforte just so. Teaching her twice as much and watching her work twice as hard as anyone else. I even taught her how to make this pitiful excuse for tea the English so adore. I despise English tea. But if it means my sister will not be left destitute, then I will smile, and I will nod politely after each and every sip, to be sure.
Penelope Featherington: It’s not that bad, you know. The wallflower thing. I always get the first glass of lemonade. I know who all the best dancers are just from watching. I can always tell when a suitor is serious about courtship just by how he looks when a young lady dances with another. The wall even affords me the chance to hear what the footmen say in secret.
Eloise Bridgerton: I can feel people’s eyes on me. Every time I walk into a ballroom, I know they are comparing me to Daphne. She was so good at being the diamond, and it made my mother so happy. I can never live up to that. I do not want to live up to that, but it does not make it any easier to know you are constantly disappointing people just by walking into a room.
Penelope Featherington: No one truly notices me. I suppose that is what I like. When you’re invisible, you can have all the amusement you want without any of the expectations popularity brings. It frees you.
Edwina Sharma: A man who knows what he wants is most admirable.
Lady Whistledown: Is the entire practice of naming a diamond not, well, rather ridiculous? Should a woman not be valued for so much more than her dancing skills, or her comportment? Should we not value a woman instead for her candor, her character, her true accomplishments? Perhaps if the queen abandoned this absurdity that is the diamond, we would all see that a woman can be so much more.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: It is only out of the greatest love of my family that I aim to choose a bride with my head and not my heart.
Lady Whistledown: Any suitor wishing to gain an audience with Miss Edwina Sharma must first tame the rather prickly spinster of a beast, otherwise known as her sister.
Lady Danbury: [to Kate] Most marriages of the ton are, in fact, mere matters of business, my dear. Matters that have been working for centuries. It is the true love match that is quite rare.
Lady Violet Bridgerton: I only mean to say, Eloise, that we must be willing to look to find the partner that will excite us.
Eloise Bridgerton: So dance with a bevy of frogs, and one of them might turn out to be a prince?
Queen Charlotte: It is not an easy mantle to take on, you realize. To have so many eyes upon you at all times. Regardless of the truth, people, nay, gossips, they will contrive shameless falsehoods. Rumor can oftentimes be a great hardship to endure.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: [to Kate] You act as if I’m some kind of villain, when every other woman in London aspires for the kind of marriage I’m offering. You must know that.
Benedict Bridgerton: Deceitful? Poetry is the opposite, Brother. It is the art of revealing precious truth with words.
Benedict Bridgerton: What is it, truly, to admire a woman? To look at her and feel inspiration. To delight in her beauty. So much so that all your defenses crumble, that you would willingly take on any pain, any burden for her. To honor her being with your deeds and words. That is what the true poet describes.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: Words of flattery are beautiful and sweet. But they are also hollow, unless accompanied by action.
Lady Danbury: When one is frustrated, it is often much wiser to focus upon satisfying one’s own needs. Attempting to influence others as to the correct course of action, well, it is often a trying and irritating endeavor that only brings out the worst in us before we discover it has been fruitless all along.
Lady Danbury: I have lived a life. I am a widow. I have loved. I have lost. I have earned the right to do whatever I please, whenever I please, and however I please to do it. Child, you are not me. And if you continue down this road, you most certainly never will be.
Lady Whistledown: There are two things that lurk within the dark and shadowy places of our fair city. Vermin and secrets. I shall leave it to you, dear reader, as to which do the most harm.
Lady Whistledown: To be fair, one might call this author the biggest secret-sharer of all. For who else could possibly keep all of you honest? When even the most well-kept of secrets must eventually come to light.
Lord Edmund Bridgerton: You cannot show someone your best without allowing them to see your worst.
Daphne Basset: It is a poor player who plays the game, and a wise one who plays their opponent.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: Have I done something to you? Why is it that you dislike me so? Kate Sharma: True love is something else entirely. It is when the rest of the world goes quiet. It is not eyes that meet, but souls that dance. Settle into each other. Make room for each other, until there is nowhere else to hide. Lord Anthony Bridgerton: [as they’re kissing] I will stop.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: I believe I underestimated you, Miss Sharma.
Kate Sharma: That seems to be the theme of our acquaintance, does it not?
Kate Sharma: The world is not exactly welcoming to an unmarried woman. There seems to be no place in society for us, except at the edge of things.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: [to Violet] I seek an amiable partner with whom I may share a pleasant life, untouched by heartbreak, and the ravages of grief. You were barely even there after he died. And yet, I, myself, am cursed to remember every waking moment. I could never be the cause of such pain, no matter how cruel and hard-hearted everyone else may find me to be.
Colin Bridgerton: Funny how distance is no match for memory, is it not?
Kate Sharma: [to Anthony] I can assure you, happiness is not your strength. Exasperation, perhaps. Fixation, most definitely. The only feeling you are, in fact, capable of engendering, my lord, is that of discontent.
Kate Sharma: Because you vex me!
Edwina Sharma: [to Kate, referring to Anthony] All this time, I thought I needed your help getting him to fall in love with me. But I have realized what I need is your help getting him to fall in love with you.
Young Lady: I do everything my mama says.
Eloise Bridgerton: And you still wonder why you’re so miserable.
Marina Thompson: We are not all guaranteed a fairy tale ending.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: [referring to Edmund being stung by a bee] To see a great man felled by such a small creature, it was humbling, to say the least.
Daphne Basset: You know, every time I think my marriage has become simple, Simon and I find some new stone to turn over, a new foible that one of us needs the other to tease out and inspect. It is decidedly irritating. Yet incredibly gratifying at the same time.
Eloise Bridgerton: [to Morrison] Next time you compliment a woman, at least try not to insult her entire sex in the process.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: [as he’s inches away from kissing Kate] Say you do not care for me. Tell me you feel nothing, and I will walk away.
Lady Mary Sharma: It is a very powerful thing to meet someone and feel that you know them. In a way unlike any other.
Lady Violet Bridgerton: [to Anthony] You should be excited to wed Miss Edwina, but for all I have seen, you act as if you are approaching the gallows instead.
Lady Danbury: [to Kate] Your sister’s betrothal may be the end of certain hopes you harbored regarding the viscount, but access to the Sheffield fortune would certainly be a fine reward, would it not? A life of independence is no mere consolation. Indeed, many would think it the better prize. After passion cools and fate intervenes, who else is a woman left with but herself?
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: [to Kate] You are the bane of my existence. And the object of all my desires. Night and day, I dream of you.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: [to Kate] If I wed your sister, it will bind me and you together for eternity. And I will spend every day of my marriage wanting you, dreaming of you, dreading the day when my last thread of honor finally snaps. Is that the future that you want for us? For your sister?
Kate Sharma: Anthony. You must keep your word. You must marry my sister. You must marry her as soon as you can, because this feeling that plagues us so, it will pass. It will become tenable, it will become bearable, and soon enough, it will be as if we never felt it at all. Mere passion. It must because it has to.
Eloise Bridgerton: It is a fool’s errand to try to make an impression on those in good society who have not a single original thought. And what good is it anyway to make a name for oneself if it is only to be written on dance cards?
Daphne Basset: You can choose to be happy. To follow the desires of your heart instead of pushing away any feeling that comes to the surface. It should not be a luxury, but a right to choose, to fight for the family that you want.
Daphne Basset: [to Anthony] I mourn for you, Brother. All of these decisions that you seem to make and then resent us for. Though they do not make you worthy of your family’s respect. They simply make us pity you. Nothing more.
Edwina Sharma: [to Kate, referring to Anthony] After a lifetime of filling my head with nonsense, of all this talk of great, gallant notions and looks between lovers. You have feelings for him! All this time, you wanted him for yourself.
Queen Charlotte: A failed wedding with their queen presiding. As if I needed the embarrassment.
Eloise Bridgerton: My feelings about his feelings do not matter if I do not know for a fact what it is he is feeling.
Kate Sharma: This is my place of refuge.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: A closet?
Kate Sharma: Yes. It may not be grand, but it met my main requirement when you were not present. So go and leave me in peace.
Lady Danbury: For what may very well be the first time in my life, I do not know what to do.
Edwina Sharma: [to Kate] I do not know which pains me more. Your betrayal or your pity.
Colin Bridgerton: Your dreams are grander than you let on, Pen.
Penelope Featherington: Yes, they are mere fantasies, but I do believe we must allow ourselves those private moments so we may face reality armed with our reveries.
Queen Charlotte: The challenge of the Crown is that it is tangible. It is a physical reminder of the position. It is why, say, Lady Whistledown circulates her pamphlets instead of trading in whispered rumor. A whisper is relevant for only as long as it is spoken, but a paper represents more. Its physical form grants permanence. The same cannot be said of true love, of course. It changes. It forgets. It forces you to remember who you once were. And it forces you to choose how you will live with it, again and again.
Queen Charlotte: I am your queen, but I suppose even I must recognize the importance of each person deciding what to do in the face of true love. Everyone deserves to make that choice, just as everyone deserves to feel its power. But one must know, it is the hardest and greatest choice one can ever make.
Lady Whistledown: It is a distinctly human act to marry. Animals require no contracts or dowries. The hen and the rooster make no vows.
Edwina Sharma: I cannot marry you, Lord Bridgerton. You cannot provide me with what it is that I want. What it is that I deserve. What everyone deserves. I may not know exactly what true love feels like, but I certainly know what it is not. It is not deception, or wandering eyes, or a role to be fulfilled. I cannot marry you because I cannot betray myself. You will never meet my eyes in the same manner that you met my sister’s on that altar today. You will never look at me the same way.
Edwina Sharma: You say you have spent your life trying to give me everything I lacked. But really, you simply gave me everything you really wanted for yourself, as though my life were not my own. I did not ask for any of it, Kate. So, today, I can be sure that what I leave behind is not my loss. It is yours. Your dream, your plan, your feelings that I had merely borrowed. Today, you have lost your power, while I have made up my own mind. And that is victory enough for me.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: Your sister is braver and wiser than us both. She had the courage to act on what she sensed between us. And here we are, standing perfectly still, having felt it for months.
Kate Sharma: I stand here because the moment we go, the moment we step foot outside those doors, we face the truth.
Kate Sharma: [to Anthony] We have indeed failed, my lord. Of our duties. Of our responsibilities. We have failed at it all. So forgive me if it is now my wish to suspend time. To delay the inevitable. To for a mere moment, not think of what comes next. To wait. Goodbye, my lord.
Lady Whistledown: A jilted groom. A broken-hearted bride-to-be. A royal wedding in shambles. Sensational? Quite. But true? This author may traffic in chatter and speculation, dear reader. But misinformation? Never.
Eloise Bridgerton: Are we not overlooking the benefit of this tragedy?
Gregory Bridgerton: Leftover cake?
Kate Sharma: Of course I believe in true love. Of course I believe in happy endings. How could I not? You saw Appa and Mama, how happy they once were.
Edwina Sharma: What I saw is how even that ended in tragedy. Happy endings do not exist, Kate. At least not in real life.
Lady Whistledown: What is it about betrayal that excites us so?
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: [to Kate] Can you ever just agree? You have been like this from the moment we first met in those woods. Obstinate, inflexible, unyielding to good, plain common sense.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: [to Kate] I have never met anyone like you. It is maddening, how much you consume my very being.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: [to Kate] All I find myself thinking about, all I find myself being able to breathe for, is you. Do you think that I want to be in this position? Contending with these thoughts of wanting to be nowhere except with you. Wanting to run away with you. Of acting on the most impure, forbidden desires, no matter how much I must remind myself I am a gentleman, and you are a lady. Of that scent. It has remained imprinted on my mind ever since the night of the conservatory ball on that terrace. Lilies.
Kate Sharma: It has been you. It has been you this entire time. Spinning my world off its axis, making me reconsider everything I have ever told myself. I came here resolved to save my family. Everything I have ever done has been for them…
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: Has been for them.
Kate Sharma: You are the one who must stop. You are the one who must stop. Before…
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: Before what? Before we both finally do something for ourselves?
Kate Sharma: Do not stop.
Lady Violet Bridgerton: Real, true love is worth it. No matter what.
Kate Sharma: I thought I could deny my feelings. But…
Edwina Sharma: They were too strong.
Lady Mary Sharma: Kate. I hope your return to India is not because of some eagerness to flee what is difficult. I know the feeling too well, and I can tell you, it is never the wise choice.
Lady Mary Sharma: Love is not something that is ever owed.
Edwina Sharma: Be the sister I know that you are. Be funny, and brave, and feeling. Be unafraid to follow your heart after doing the exact opposite for far too long. You have spent so much of your time shining your light on me. It is time for you to shine all on your own.
Kate Sharma: Are you going to ask me to dance? One last time?
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: Are you going to say yes?
Kate Sharma: [as everyone is staring at them while they dance] Do you want to stop?
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: Just keep looking at me. No one else matters.
Eloise Bridgerton: [after discovering Penelope is Whistledown] I do not even know you. I look at you now, and all I feel is pity for you. Sequestered here in this very room, writing your secret little scandal sheet, tarnishing everyone in town, all because you are too scared to stand up for yourself in reality. You are something, Penelope. An insipid wallflower, indeed.
Penelope Featherington: At least I did something. All you ever do is talk about doing something. You’ve all these great ambitions, these great plans, but I am the one who actually did something great. And you cannot stand it, can you?! And what do you think that makes you?
Eloise Bridgerton: I wish never to see or speak to you again.
Lady Portia Featherington: Oh, I already have a team. They are three young ladies, often nettling and contrary, but they are mine.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: [to Kate] I was fearful of losing you. It is why I could not visit you after your accident. I could not bring myself to… I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment we raced each other in that park. I’ve loved you at every dance, on every walk, every time we’ve been together, and every time we’ve been apart. You do not have to accept it. You do not have to embrace it, or even allow it. Knowing you, you probably will not. But you must know it, in your heart. You must feel it because I do. I love you.
Kate Sharma: You do know there will never be a day where you do not vex me.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: Is that a promise, Kathani Sharma?
Kate Sharma: Yes. Yes, it is a promise.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: Well, then. It seems the two of us are finally seeing eye-to-eye on something.
Penelope Featherington: It has been said that silence can wield more power than words. No one knows that better than me. It is in silence where one may find truth. All one has to do, I suppose, is listen for it. I know there will always be times when silence is necessary. And, of course, times when it is not.
Lady Whistledown: Gentle reader, you thought I was silenced, but you thought wrong. And if there is one thing you should know by now, it is that this author cannot keep quiet for long. Yours truly, Lady Whistledown.
Eloise Bridgerton: [referring to Kate and Anthony] Away traveling for six months. Now they take six hours coming down the stairs.
Daphne Basset: Six is nothing when you are a newlywed.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: He’s your dog.
Kate Sharma: And yours through marriage.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: I do not recall ever making such an agreement.
Kate Sharma: Ah, well, that is between you and him.
Lord Anthony Bridgerton: He does not listen to me.
Kate Sharma: You believe I do?