“People who start a sentence with personally (and they're always women) ought to be thrown to the lions. It's a repulsive habit.”

“I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense .... But it's unquestionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter or recovering from flu."[As quoted in Jane Aiken Hodge, The Private World of Georgette Heyer (p. xii).]”

“You are an atrocious person! Since the day I met you I have become steadily more depraved.”

“Desford said abruptly: "How old are you, my child? Sixteen? Seventeen?""Oh, no, I am much older than that!" she replied. "I'm as old as Lucasta - all but a few weeks!""Then why are you not downstairs dancing with the rest of them?" he demanded. "You must surely be out!""No, I'm not," she said. "I don't suppose I ever shall be, either. Unless my papa turns out not to be dead, and comes home to take care of me himself. But I don't think that at all likely, and even if he did come home it wouldn't be of the least use, because he seems never to have sixpence to scratch with. I am afraid he is not a very respectable person. My aunt says he was obliged to go abroad on account of being monstrously in debt." She sighed, and said wistfully: "I know that one ought not to criticize one's father, but I can't help feeling that it was just a little thoughtless of him to abandon me.”

“And don’t you say that it is very kind and obliging of him, sir, like Jessamy, because if you don’t like a person, you don’t wish to be obliged to him!”

“How is this?" she demanded "I had thought a Marquis must always be acceptable!""That, Miss Merriville, Depends on the Marquis!”

“I just told them that dear Uncle Silas has gone away on a long journey," she said. "They're such mites, you know, and I've never let them hear about Death, or have ugly toys or stories about ogres and things. I mean, I do frightfully believe in keeping their little minds free from everything but happy, beautiful things, don't you?”