John Ciardi Quotes

I wasn't born into land or titles, or new money, or an oil rig.

I always wanted so much glamour in my life, so I have always been obsessed with class, and from dating a few people who were from old money and a few from new money in my 20s, I just sort of became obsessed with this idea of clueless rich people.

I was no Marie Antoinette. I was not born to nobility, but I had a human right to nobility.

'Downton Abbey' about upper-class posh people: of course it is.

Upper class to me means you are either born into wealth or you're Royalty.

I was not to the manor born.

'Posh' is not really political. I didn't want to aim a brickbat at the system. Or to bash Old Etonians. It was always the class and privilege aspect of that world that I was most drawn to. There is something endlessly fascinating about imagining something you could never be involved in.

You're a socialite because you're born into it. That's not what I want.

Gentility is nothing but Ancient Riches.

Aristocrats need not be rich, but they must be free, and in the modern world freedom grows rarer the more we prate about it.

Lyall had spent centuries nibbling about the great layered cake that was polite society while Lord Akeldama acted the part of the frosting on its top.

Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.

I like aristocracy. I like the beauty of aristocracy. I like the hierarchical feeling.

I have wondered sometimes if there are not perhaps some disadvantages in having really blue blood in one's veins, like grandmamma and me.

We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money.

Unlike the majority of the writers of his age, La Rochefoucauld was an aristocrat; and this fact gives a peculiar tone to his work.

The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.

One of the disadvantages of being a patrician is that occasionally you're obliged to act like one.

I'm not from aristocracy, or anything like that.

Neither money nor position can atone to me for low birth.

Americans sometimes say to me that they have no class system themselves. All human beings have class systems. It can be based on a different thing in a different country, but the thing about breeding is, you can't buy it. You can't buy class.

I'm not posh, not in the slightest. My parents spent some money on my education, but I wasn't born to the purple.

Money doesn't buy class.

I never know what defines you as being posh. I went to a posh school, definitely.

Aristocracy is naturally abhorrent to me, and adored equality is my idol.