Jilly Cooper Quotes

22 Sourced Quotes

The male — I have found — is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things.

Jilly Cooper
I can assure you that the class system is alive and well and living in people's minds in England.

Jilly Cooper
Although it is the biggest time-waster in office life, you must never underrate the importance of the memo. You will be judged by the volume of your paper work.

Jilly Cooper
Always be nice to everyone in the firm on the way up. You never know who you may meet on the way down.

Jilly Cooper
The aristocrat, when he wants to, has very good manners. The Scottish upper classes, in particular, have that shell-shocked look that probably comes from banging their heads on low beams leaping to their feet whenever a woman comes into the room. Aristocrats are also deeply male chauvinist, and... on the whole they tend to be reactionary.

Jilly Cooper
It's a good idea to wait a few months before joining anything when you arrive at a village. A bookseller friend who retired to nearby Oxfordshire, and was worried he might be bored, got himself on to every village committee in the first six months, and spent the next ten years extricating himself.

Jilly Cooper
Bachelors begin at thirty-six. Up till this age they are regarded as single men.

Jilly Cooper
The letter of application... should be a masterpiece of fiction, papering over all the cracks. Get it properly typed on decent writing paper. Never let it run over the page, people get bored with reading.

Jilly Cooper
I've always felt reading romantic novels was a bit like eating a whole box of chocolates or going to bed with a rotter. You can't stop because it's so nice but afterwards you wish you hadn't.

Jilly Cooper
If you feel compelled to give a New Year's Eve party, don't invite people to arrive too early or they'll go off the boil before midnight.

Jilly Cooper
There is something infinitely dingy about the word workshop. Pray that England doesn't become a nation of workshopkeepers.

Jilly Cooper
The only thing a whirlwind courtship does is blow dust in everyone's eyes.

Jilly Cooper
Never drink black coffee at lunch; it will keep you awake in the afternoon.

Jilly Cooper
Sex is only the liquid centre of the great Newberry Fruit of friendship.

Jilly Cooper
In a village you can't sack or fight with someone, as you'll find yourself stuck beside them in the hairdresser's next morning.

Jilly Cooper
Go to lots of interviews, at least one a month even when you don't need a job, to keep in training for when you do.

Jilly Cooper
People always assume that bachelors are single by choice and spinsters because nobody asked them. It never enters their heads that poor bachelors might have worn the knees of their trousers out proposing to girls who rejected them or that a girl might deliberately stay unmarried.

Jilly Cooper
The memo's chief function... is as a track-coverer, so that you can turn on someone six months later and snarl: 'Well, you should have known about it, I sent you a memo.'

Jilly Cooper
Nostalgia excuses everything, enabling people to click their tongues over the out-dated inequalities, yet guiltily enjoy the sense of hierarchy.

Jilly Cooper
A lot of meetings are held to arrange when to have meetings.... Meetings today are usually called conferences to make them sound more significant.

Jilly Cooper
Hurting other people is not excusable because you've been hurt yourself.

Jilly Cooper
Meetings…are rather like cocktail parties. You don't want to go, but you're cross not to be asked.

Jilly Cooper