Jane Austen Quotes

Upon my word, you five your opinion very decidedly for so young a person.

I'm very fond of experimental housekeeping.

There is a monsterous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit.

I seem finally to have stopped worrying about Elinor, and age. She seems now to be perfectly normal -- about twenty-five, a witty control freak. I like her but I can see how she would drive you mad. She's just the sort of person you'd want to get drunk, just to make her giggling and silly.

Emma Thompson

At that moment a solitary violin struck up. But the music was not dance music; it was more like a song - a solemn, sweet song. (I know now that it was Beethoven's Romance in F.) I listened, and suddenly it was as if the fog that surrounded me had been penetrated, as if I were being spoken to.

Jennifer Paynter

I knew it was Peter playing. I fancied he was trying to tell me something - an absurd idea, but it persisted - 'I may not be able to spell, but just you listen to this.

Jennifer Paynter

What an excellent father you have, girls!' said she, when the door was shut. 'Such joys are scarce since the good Lord saw fit to close the gates of Hell and doom the dead to walk amongst us.

Seth Grahame-Smith

It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,’ said he. ‘Oftentimes very convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.’‘Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction may be the greater.

Jane Austen

She is never alone when she has Her Books. Books, to her, are Friends. Give her Shakespeare or Jane Austen, Meredith or Hardy, and she is Lost - lost in a world of her own. She sleeps so little that most of her nights are spent reading.

E.M. Delafield

Hello, Mary.'It was like hearing a note of divine calm after a dissonant passage of music. My confusion died away.

Jennifer Paynter

After a moment, he added more seriously: 'I don't get as angry as m'father used to about things. Or maybe I', just better at hiding m'feelings.''I fear I'm not very good at hiding my feelings.'He covered my hand with his own. 'That's what I like about you. I liked it from the first. You're so different from the others.

Jennifer Paynter

I dearly love a laugh.

Jane Austen

Peter was now standing very close - as if he wanted to comfort me - as if he knew how hurt I felt that Mrs Knowles had not asked me to play or to sing. And I did feel comforted. It was as if a tide of warmth was carrying me out of myself, inclining me to trust him and to conduct myself well.

Jennifer Paynter

This made my father laugh. 'Mary made a cake, did she? Well, well. Better that than she should make a cake for herself, I suppose.'Peter then burst out: 'Why must you always be making a game of Mary? 'Tis not fair; 'tis not sporting.

Jennifer Paynter

In suiting the action to the words, however, I perceived that the stars were all wrong.That was my undoing. I had looked up unthinkingly, anticipating the familiar, and, finding it gone, began to cry like a baby. Whereupon Peter stopped the gig and took me in his arms, kissing me so that my face was soon sore both from kissing and crying.

Jennifer Paynter

I found I could listen without envy to Letty's singing, and afterwards when the applause came, I did not mind that Mrs Knowles was heaping praises upon her. Peter's hands were on my chair, and when I leaned back I could feel them against my shoulders.

Jennifer Paynter

I would self-medicate with fat, carbohydrates, and Jane Austen, my number one drug of choice, my constant companion through every breakup, every disappointment, every crisis. Men might come and go, but Jane Austen was always there in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part.

Laurie Viera Rigler

Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts.

Virginia Woolf

Shortly after you left the room, Bushell came over and spoke to your father. I was not near enough to hear what he said, but Maria Lucas told me afterwards that he had been -' (she smiled) 'amazingly impertinent.''Peter actually spoke to Papa?''He did. According to Maria, he had the impudence to criticise Mr Bennet for his treatment of you. I must say it gives me the most favourable idea of his character.

Jennifer Paynter

Lucy saw the delighted expressions of the guests and knew they looked like something out an Austen movie. Well, at least Jem did. She giggled a little and cleared her throat.t“Something funny?” he murmured out of the corner of his mouth.t“Just thinking how you’re just like Captain Wentworth and I’m just like Tina Turner.

Mary Jane Hathaway

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a warm house and a well-stocked fridge must be in want of a cat.

Heather Hacking

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." ~ Jane Austin. Arguably one of the best opening lines in literary history (I said ARGUABLY doesn't mean I want to argue). However, to make it a modern retelling it would have to read: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man or women in possession of a good fortune, just treading water or so broke it aint no joke, must be in want of a life partner.

Brandy Potter

How unfortunate, considering I have decided to loathe him for eternity

Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged, he’d mused, that most people will never find their ‘call me Ishmael’.

Django Wylie

She is probably by this time as tired of me, as I am of her; but as she is too Polite and I am too civil to say so, our letters are still as frequent and affectionate as ever, and our Attachment as firm and sincere as when it first commenced.

Jane Austen

Our time was most delightfully spent, in mutual Protestations of Freindship, and in vows of unalterable Love, in which we were secure from being interrupted, by intruding and disagreeable Visistors, as Augustus and Sophia had on their first Entrance in the Neighbourhood, taken due care to inform the surrounding Families, that as their happiness centered wholly in themselves, they wished for no other society.

Jane Austen

What a trajedy to be a martyr for love, yet we worship the characters anyways because they remind us of how we struggled.

Shannon L. Alder

After having so nobly disentangled themselves from the shackles of Parental Authority, by a Clandestine Marriage, they were determined never to forfeit the good opinion they had gained in the World, in so doing, by accepting any proposals of reconciliation that might be offered them by their Fathers – to their farther trial of their noble independence however they never were exposed.

Jane Austen

Though she had been surprised to find that murder was so thoroughly enjoyable, Mrs Bennet did not believe that this reflected any fault or wickedness in her character. She knew she only committed these acts tosecure the future well-being of her daughters. Naturally, she would be able to stop killing once her daughters had husbands and there was no further use for such bloodthirsty deeds. Indeed, she felt adamant that she only enjoyed the planning and execution of such matters because her daughters had not been so good as to provide her with wedding preparations to occupy her active mind.

Debbie Cowens

When once we are buried you think we are gone. But behold me immortal!

Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single girl in possession of her right mind must be in want of a decent man.

Alexandra Potter

Blessed with the love of a good man, I felt equal to anything - even the prospect of living out my days in the Antipodes.

Jennifer Paynter

I don't need to see the trail to know you're at the end of it. My grandfather's compass may not work, but mine is still true.

Diana Peterfreund

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life.That word is love."(Sophocles)by Adam Harford, Duke of Harford,from the last page of "Sophie's Salvation

Janet Aylmer

I saw that he was looking anxious.'I thought you weren't coming.' As he spoke, he grasped my hand. And if the sight of him had not quite restored the magic, the touch of him most certainly did. 'You're not wishing yourself some place else, Mary?

Jennifer Paynter

I suppose I look acceptable, the black (haired) sheep among the Barrett blondes.

Stephanie Wardrop

He shakes his head and his mouth is quirked at one corner. I can't tell if he thinks I am sort of amusing or truly pathetic. It's especially hard to tell because we are both looking resolutely at the teacher so she can't accuse us of not paying attention. We talk out of the sides of our mouths, like gangsters in those old movies my dad likes to watch.

Stephanie Wardrop

When I first met him (Michael) at the beginning of the year and found out that I would have to be his lab partner in bio and the year-long series of projects in AP English, I seriously considered taking night school classes and getting a GED just to avoid him.

Stephanie Wardrop

I will probably die a misunderstood virgin like Ophelia in HAMLET, only I won't do it by floating down a stream, singing my own mad song. They'll just find me here, on my bed, on a weekend night, my dead body slumped over a homework assignment.Hopefully they'll discover me before Teeny eats my remains.

Stephanie Wardrop

Your powers of observation are formidable," Michael says and Darien giggles behind one perfectly manicured hand, like some sort of preppie geisha.

Stephanie Wardrop

Whenever you are transplanted, like me, you will understand how very delightful it is to meet with anything at all like what one has left behind.

Jane Austen

When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme, to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.

Jane Austen

Anne did think on the question with perfect decision, and said as much in replay as her own feelings could accomplish, or as his seemed able to bear, for he was too much affected to renew the subject - and when he spoke again, it was something totally different.

Jane Austen

But look behind you, Mary.' She nodded towards the dais. 'One of the musicians seems to be trying to attract your attention.'It was Peter. He was standing on the dais smiling across at me. My delight at seeing him was such that I could not disguise it - did not try to disguise it.

Jennifer Paynter

[Jane] Austen was not a novelist for nothing: she knew that our stories are what make us human, and that listening to someone else's stories -- entering into their feelings, validating their experiences -- is the highest way of acknowledging their humanity, the sweetest form of usefulness.

William Deresiewicz

It was gratitude; gratitude, not merelyfor having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him.

Jane Austen

I did not have an opportunity to speak privately with Peter until just as he was leaving, when he handed me one of the Burns song-sheets and (with a most earnest look) told me to read it before I went to bed.The song was 'My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose,' but it was not until was up in my bedchamber that I saw he had written on the inside page: 'My mother would be honoured if you visited her after church tomorrow.

Jennifer Paynter

Right, I totally forgot. I can’t wait to taste the flummery.”“I’m not sure if I want to know what that is,” Manning said.“It’s a sort of jelly, but made into a mold that is shaped like a castle or a tower or just a”—Debbie Mae wiggled one hand—“big wobbly thing. The ragout of veal will be a hit, I’m sure. And the Roman punch will have to be changed a little bit. It’s usually lemon water and hot syrup with a lot of rum.

Mary Jane Hathaway

Much was said, and much was ate, and all went well.

Jane Austen

...seeing the way his trousers clung to those most English parts.

Seth Grahame-Smith

You know, there was a time when childbirth was possibly the most terrifying thing you could do in your life, and you were literally looking death in the face when you went ahead with it. And so this is a kind of flashback to a time when that's what every woman went through. Not that they got ripped apart, but they had no guarantees about whether they were going to live through it or not. You know, I recently read - and I don't read nonfiction, generally - Becoming Jane Austen. That's the one subject that would get me to go out and read nonfiction. And the author's conclusion was that one of the reason's Jane Austen might not have married when she did have the opportunity...well, she watched her very dear nieces and friends die in childbirth! And it was like a death sentence: You get married and you will have children. You have children and you will die. (Laughs) I mean, it was a terrifying world.

Stephenie Meyer

You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it!

Jane Austen

Gentleman: An imaginary creature found in Jane Austen novels.

Natalya Vorobyova

Mr. Knightley to be no longer coming there for his evening comfort! - No longer walking in at all hours, as if ever willing to change his own home for their's! - How was it to be endured?

Jane Austen

Before the house-maid had lit the fire the next day, or the sun gained any power over the cold, gloomy morning in January, Marianne, only half dressed, was kneeling against one of the window-seats for the sake of all the little light she could command from it, and writing as fast as a continual flow of tears would permit her.

Jane Austen

Dear Eloisa (said I) there’s no occasion for your crying so much about such a trifle. (for I was willing to make light of it in order to comfort her) I beg you would not mind it – You see it does not vex me in the least; though perhaps I may suffer most from it after all; for I shall not only be obliged to eat up all the Victuals I have dressed already, but must if Henry should recover (which however is not very likely) dress as much for you again; or should he die (as I suppose he will) I shall still have to prepare a Dinner for you whenever you marry any one else. So you see that tho perhaps for the present it may afflict you to think of Henry’s sufferings, yet I dare say he’ll die soon and then his pain will be over and you will be easy, whereas my Trouble will last much longer for work as hard as I may, I am certain that the pantry cannot be cleared in less than a fortnight

Jane Austen

Sophia shrieked and fainted on the ground – I screamed and instantly ran mad. We remained thus mutually deprived of our senses, some minutes, and on regaining them were deprived of them again. For an Hour and a Quarter did we continue in this unfortunate situation – Sophia fainting every moment and I running mad as often. At length a groan from the hapless Edward (who alone retained any share of life) restored us to ourselves.

Jane Austen

Lucy gripped her chilled glass of orange and raspberry juice. When Rebecca talked about Austen, she’d mostly mentioned Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley. She hadn’t really thought of the doe-eyed, pale-skinned heroines. tOn the screen, Anne Elliot walked down a long hallway, glancing just once at covered paintings, her mouth a grim line. Lucy thought Jane Austen would start the story with the romance, or the loss of it, but instead the tale seemed to begin with Anne’s home, and having to make difficult decisions. Maybe this writer from over two hundred years ago knew how everything important met at the intersection of family, home, love, and loss. This was something Lucy understood with every fiber of her being.

Mary Jane Hathaway

Her face crumpled and he felt her pain as if it were his own. He wanted to take it back, but just like that memory, it was always going to be there.tShe worked to get control over her features, then said, “I’m sorry I didn’t defend you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell them you were my guest.”tJem hadn’t thought he cared anymore, not really, but her words were tugging loose the hard, painful knot in his chest. “It’s okay.”tShe shook her head. “It’s not. It wasn’t.”tHe reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand. He didn’t know what else to say and all he wanted was to touch her skin, let her know that he wasn’t that boy anymore and that she wasn’t that girl.

Mary Jane Hathaway

Her face crumpled and he felt her pain as if it was his own. He wanted to take it back, but just like that memory, it was always going to be there.tShe worked to get control over her features, then said, “I’m sorry I didn’t defend you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell them you were my guest.”tJem hadn’t thought he cared anymore, not really, but her words were tugging loose the hard, painful knot in his chest. “It’s okay.”tShe shook her head. “It’s not. It wasn’t.”tHe reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand. He didn’t know what else to say and all he wanted was to touch her skin, let her know that he wasn’t that boy anymore and that she wasn’t that girl.

Mary Jane Hathaway

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Jane Austen Quotes

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