Ah, Gentleman Jack – the lesbian Downton Abbey. How we love it! The titular character is based on the excellent real life of Anne Lister, the storyline drawn from detailed diaries she left behind. So, in honor of Aries Queen Anne Lister’s birthday, April 3rd, here are 14 quotes to memorize and repeat to, as Anne would say, “dampen your day in a good way” and really annoy your friends and family. Suggested servings included.
- To state the obvious –
“I think that you’re a little bit in love with me.”
2. To respond to rumors –
“A fiction, fueled by dare I say it, jealousy. We (Miss Walker and I) have chosen to rise above it and we have a thousand better things to expend our energies on.”
3. To better assert yourself –
“Perhaps the request was too subtly hidden… People need educating, is all. The truth is what we show people it is, not some bitter tittle tattle.”
4. To prefix any statement you need to make –
“This sort of thing just doesn’t do for me. Are you going to say something or shall I?”
5. To passive aggressively apologize for rudeness –
“I’m sorry if I was like that, I wasn’t aware.”
6. To feign ignorance –
“That’s how I heard it. That’s unequivocally how I heard it.”
or
“You have feared where no fear was. You have doubted where no doubt ought to have been.”
7. To generally confuse people –
“I remain indifferent about selling my coals or not.“
8. To be unreasonable –
“More reasonable? Oh, you meant softer. Well, now you know me better… Rather than find me easier to bargain with, now you’ll find me harder.”
9. When giving a gift, especially jewelry –
“Wear it always and then when you think of me, you’ll feel perfectly safe. I’ll miss you.”
10. To answer questions like “Why do you ask?” –
“Because it fascinates me.”
11. To tell people they’ve been sadly misinformed –
“I’m afraid you’ve been sadly misinformed”
12. To address the Marion in your life. Marion is the original Karen, after all –
“You’re not going to go and get married right now are you, Marion? Good heavens, there’s no stopping her, better get the bands read.”
Shortened to – “Good Heavens, Marion.”
More Marion mutterings –
“You’re going to give birth to spite me?”
“If you put Marion in a room with alone, within ten minutes she’d be arguing with herself! Marion and I rarely argue about anything.”
13. To roundly tell someone off for drinking. Ideally at 9.40am –
“Has he been drinking? It’s five and twenty to ten in the morning!”
14. To declare something ridiculous –
“It’s all a load of tripe… Tripe all over the place, presumably.”
Was there anything else? I hope you enjoy quoting Anne Lister as much as I will during her birthday month. Although I think I now owe ITV my firstborn for copyright infringement.
