Jane Austen Quotes
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And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine's portion - to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night's rest in the course of the next three months.
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...she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
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I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding?joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid leaves with disgust.
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How horrible it is to have so many people killed! And what a blessing that one cares for none of them!
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I assure you. I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.
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Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations.
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I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.
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My sore throats are always worse than anyone's.
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The most incomprehensible thing in the world to a man, is a woman who rejects his offer of marriage!
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And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt too, who must not be longer neglected.
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I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.
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On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provisions for discourse.
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What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance.
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Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
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What could I do! Facts are such horrid things!
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A lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it.
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...but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.
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Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.
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In a letter from Bath to her sister, Cassandra, one senses her frustration at her sheltered existence, Tuesday, 12 May 1801. Another stupid party . . . with six people to look on, and talk nonsense to each other.
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But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.
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...there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter of fact, plain spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without striking it out.
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'I am afraid', replied Elinor, 'that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.'
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I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.
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My good opinion once lost is lost forever.