Talk:Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

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Unsourced

• "Whatever would American tourists think?"

Admonishing a group of London teenagers she saw throwing stones at a car.

• "Is it just me or are pensioners getting younger these days?"

To a group of pensioners. (At age 90)

• "Is that wise, darling? Remember you have to reign all afternoon."

To the Queen, who was contemplating having a second glass of wine at lunch.

• "Quite, quite good. Very, very, very, very, very good, indeed!"

About something, maybe a movie or a glass of beer. I forget.

• "I hadn't realised I enjoyed that reputation. But as I do, perhaps you could make it a large one."

To her host who blurted out "I hear you like gin" during an engagement at which she was supposed to be offered a cup of tea.

• "The chopper has changed my life as conclusively as it did Anne Boleyn's."

To a pilot after having decided that helicopters were a useful convenience.

• "Oh, I understand that perfectly. That's how we feel in Scotland too, but the English won't allow it."

On a 1947 tour of South Africa, in reply to an Afrikaner who said "I don't think much of royalty. I think South Africa ought to be a republic."

• Canadian veteran: Are you Scotch or English?
  Elizabeth: I'm Canadian!

• "I wouldn't if I were you, Noel; they count them before they put them out."

To Noel Coward, when he showed interest in the guardsmen at a gala function.

• "When one of you young queens has finished, can you bring this old queen a drink?"

To her largely homosexual personal staff

• "Not very romantic."

About her honeymoon, spent at Glamis Castle suffering from whooping cough.

• "Who are you supposed to be, dear? Are you Daddy or the Mad Hatter?"

To her daughter, Princess Margaret Rose. The reply was "No, I'm Johnnie Walker."

• "I'll polish it off myself."

On the fate of a gift of a nebuchadnezzar of champagne (20 bottles worth) even if her family didn't come for the holidays.

• "The princesses could not possibly leave without me; I wouldn't leave the King, and the King will never leave under any circumstances."

After being asked to go to Canada for her safety during the Blitz

• "I am almost glad we have been bombed. Now I feel I can look the East End in the face."

After Buckingham Palace was bombed. The East End of London had been badly damaged by bombing.

• "The only other man who has ever done that to me was my husband."

After U.S. President Jimmy Carter greeted her with a kiss on the lips.

Quotes about Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (unsourced)

• If [Winston] Churchill is the man in Europe I must fear most, then surely she is the woman I have most to fear of in Europe.

Adolf Hitler (attributed)

• [She should be] Hung, drawn and...quartered...hung in diamonds, drawn in a coach, and...quartered in the best house in the land.

A British serviceman, in her autograph book, for her service caring for wounded soldiers