Life Lessons from Downton Abbey Characters

“You know me. Never complain, never explain.”

Actually, you might not know who “me” is because these are lines spoken by Violet, the Dowager Countess, in Season 5 of Downton Abbey.

Pretty and I are now members of a movie group that began last week with a viewing of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale at The Nickelodeon. We loved Downton from its beginning in the US on the little screen in 2011 and needed no coercing to go see the latest (and possibly final) movie on the big screen

I have now officially gone down a rabbit hole on quotes from Mrs. Patmore and others in the Downton series. “You can’t spend too long on a one-sided love,” said Mrs. Patmore to Daisy in Season 3. If only I’d known that sixty years ago.

Mrs. Patmore, the cook for the family, was passing her pots and pans to the young Daisy who was next in line to take over the kitchen reins. She delivered what I found to be the most compelling lines in the Grand Finale movie: “Our lives are lived in chapters – and nothing is wrong when one chapter ends and another begins.” Hm. What do you think about that? I’ve found the lines are often blurred between endings and beginnings, especially when one person sees the ending and another person doesn’t. Chapter be damned; life is messy.

“We must all have our hearts broken once or twice before we’re done,” said Mrs. Hughes, the head housekeeper, in Downton’s Season 4. Tell it, Sister.

Mr. Carson was the Butler of Downton Abbey throughout the series and one of my favorite characters. “The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end, that’s all there is,” he said in Season 6. Make memories every day, okay?

Finally, I’ll close with a quotation from Cora, Lady Grantham, in Season 3: “I think accepting change is quite as important as defending the past.” When Cora spoke, everyone listened.

Thank the gods of the little screen and the big screen for Julian Fellowes, the great philosopher who was the creator and writer for the characters we came to know and love in Downton Abbey.

Do you have a favorite line and/or character from the series?

You know me. Never complain, never explain.