Molly Keane > Quotes

“Yes, we'll have to put a stop to this bookworming. No future in that.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“Certainty fell away from me as though a loved person dropped my hand in indifference.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“Sholto’s hairbrush?”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“The Anglo-Irish occupied a strange position in 1920s Ireland, the time in which the book is set. A breed apart, poverty-stricken yet proud, they were struggling to keep their niche in a changing country.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“Boys are beaten for reading poetry, grocers are called ‘robbers’ for sending in their bills, dogs are fed chicken while the servants are forced to eat laundry starch to stave off hunger, terrified children are put on horses at a remarkably young age, a nanny is dismissed for drunkenness but still given a good reference because to do otherwise ‘would have been unkind and unnecessary’. The proper way to conduct oneself in all matters is to employ selective silence: Papa”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“she instructs Rose to put the mousse over some hot water, to keep it warm for her own ‘luncheon’. It’s”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“extremis,”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“Myxomatosis,”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“see in today’s paper where a woman in Kilmacthomas burned to death in an electric blanket.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“rabbit mousse”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“herself to be ugly, enormous, ungainly, taller than is acceptable, ‘bosoms, swinging like jelly bags,’ forever cursed as the plain daughter of a beautiful mother.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“grouse”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“he lay on a chaise longue under the cedar tree with lemonade constantly at his elbow. In those”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“she did go to a race-meeting, in Papa’s riding days, she would shut her eyes during his race, and once when he was to ride a bad jumper she”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“for a ring which Lady Grizel had lost – her engagement ring – star sapphire and diamonds.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“Now, shut up, old boy,’ the Captain said kindly, as he put down his leather-covered malacca stick.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“her books are shot through with painful parties and awkwardly inane dining-table conversation,”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“When Lady Grizel gave Mrs Brock not one, but two grey flannel suits,”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“When we were children the food in the nursery was quite poisonously disgusting. None of the fruit juice and vitamins of today for us – oranges only at Christmastime and porridge every morning, variable porridge slung together by the kitchen maid, followed by white bread and butter and Golden Syrup. Boiled eggs were for Sundays and sausages for birthdays.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“execrable”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“miasma”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“his mother and I aren’t too happy about Richard. Frankly, he’s getting a bit, er, well … first reading poetry when he ought to be getting his pony ready for the Bath and County next Thursday, then lying to his mother – took his beating in a very, well, cowardly way, then, am I right? howling on your, in your, in the schoolroom,’ the Captain finished desperately.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“Those wide shoulders and swinging hips were once parts of a winged quality she had –”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“She crossed herself and started to pray in that loose, easy way Roman Catholics do: ‘Holy Mary, pray for us now and in the hour of our death … Merciful Jesus”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“entrée”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“but neat as a bird.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“Rabbit in Keane’s world is a food more suitable for the lower echelons of society (and children: ‘the cook sent up [to the nursery] whatever came easiest, mostly rabbit stews,’ Aroon notes). It is available to all from the fields; it is not procured from butchers, sanitised and billed-for.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“consommé,”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“lifted the silver lid off the hot plate to smell”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour

“She was opening the window as high as the sash would go – that’s one of their superstitions, something to do with letting the spirit go freely. They do it.”
― Molly Keane, Good Behaviour