Jane Austen

Quotes

• “It would have amused you to see our progress. We went up by Sion Hill, and returned across the fields. In climbing a hil...”
• “I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any o...”
• “Whatever 'Bloomsbury' may think of Jane Austen, she is not by any means one of my favourites. I'd give all she ever wrot...”
• “Many thanks for your kind care for my health; I certainly have not been well for many weeks, and about a week ago I was ...”
• “I am gratified by her having pleasure in what I write, but I wish the knowledge of my being exposed to her discerning cr...”
• “I give you joy of having left Winchester. Now you may own how miserable you were there; now it will gradually all come o...”
• “Dinner was soon followed by tea and coffee, a ten miles' drive home allowed no waste of hours; and from the time of thei...”
• “Charlotte Brontë, with all her splendid gift for prose, stumbled and fell with that clumsy weapon in her hands. George E...”
• “There are such beings in the world - perhaps one in a thousand - as the creature you and I should think perfection; wher...”
• “Miss Austen's language deserves closer attention than it has received. She is not indeed one of the great writers of Eng...”
• “He and I should not in the least agree, of course, in our ideas of novels and heroines. Pictures of perfection, as you k...”
• “Of various admirals I could tell you a great deal: of them and their flags, and the gradation of their pay, and their bi...”
• “His having been in love with the aunt gives Cecilia an additional interest with him. I like the idea - a very proper com...”
• “I wish I could finish stories as fast as you can. I am much obliged to you for the sight of Olivia, and think you have d...”
• “I cannot anyhow continue to find people agreeable; I respect Mrs. Chamberlayne for doing her hair well, but cannot feel ...”
• “My head-dress was a bugle-band like the border to my gown, and a flower of Mrs Tilson's. I depended upon hearing somethi...”
• “Jane Austen was born before those bonds which (we are told) protected women from truth, were burst by the Brontës or ela...”
• “Comedy was implicit in the manner in which she told her story. Her irony, her delicate ruthless irony, was of the substa...”
• “I read Pride and Prejudice when I was about 8 or 9. It was the first adult novel I read and it opened my imagination to ...”
• “You mention Miss Austen; her novels are more true to nature, and have (for my sympathies) passages of finer feeling than...”
• “I am very much obliged to my dear little George for his message - for his love at least; his duty, I suppose, was only i...”
• “Our little visitor has just left us, and left us highly pleased with her; she is a nice, natural, open-hearted, affectio...”
• “Devereux Forester's being ruined by his vanity is extremely good, but I wish you would not let him plunge into a "vortex...”
• “In Paragon we met Mrs. Foley and Mrs. Dowdeswell with her yellow shawl airing out, and at the bottom of Kingsdown Hill w...”
• “("What do you owe Jane Austen?") Endless pleasure. Years and years of delight. ("What did you learn from Jane Austen?") ...”
• “A rational wisdom, exceptional intellect, unique in wit, found herself in circumstances which were always meagre, and at...”
• “The Webbs are really gone! When I saw the waggons at the door, and thought of all the trouble they must have in moving, ...”
• “Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a p...”
• “You could not shock her more than she shocks me;Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.It makes me most uncomfortable ...”
• “I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and th...”
• “You are very kind in planning presents for me to make, and my mother has shown me exactly the same attention; but as I d...”
• “Sophia shrieked and fainted on the ground-I screamed and instantly ran mad! We remained thus mutually deprived of our se...”
• “Mrs. B. and two young women were of the same party, except when Mrs. B. thought herself obliged to leave them to run rou...”
• “Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such ...”
• “To me his (Edgar Allan Poe's) prose is unreadable - like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his...”
• “What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on...”
• “We saw a countless number of post-chaises full of boys pass by yesterday morning - full of future heroes, legislators, f...”
• “An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she ...”
• “Don't forget books. What would life be without them? Emily Brontë, Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Toni Morrison, ...”
• “I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand tod...”
• “[A]s her would-be biographer, I had to face the fact that information about Jane Austen the woman was limited and fragme...”
• “I had a very pleasant evening, however, though you will probably find out that there was no particular reason for it; bu...”
• “The General has got the gout, and Mrs. Maitland the jaundice. Miss Debary, Susan, and Sally, all in black, but without a...”
• “Lord David Cecil, interview with Patrick Garland for the BBC documentary Conversations at Cranborne (1970), quoted in Tr...”
• “This is something more than the discovery of a document; it is the discovery of an inspiration. And that inspiration was...”
• “Jane lies in Winchester - blessed be her shade!Praise the Lord for making her, and her for all she made!And while the st...”
• “It is a lovely night, and they are much to be pitied who have not been taught to feel, in some degree, as you do; who ha...”
• “Another stupid party last night; perhaps if larger they might be less intolerable, but here there were only just enough ...”
• “We have been exceedingly busy ever since you went away. In the first place we have had to rejoice two or three times eve...”
• “He seems a very harmless sort of young man, nothing to like or dislike in him - goes out shooting or hunting with the tw...”