“ There are books that speak to us of our own lives with a clarity we cannot match. They prevent the morose suspicion that we do not fully belong to the species, that we lie beyond comprehension. Our em… Alain de Botton
“ I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and… Mark Twain
“ The conversation soon turned upon fishing, and she heard Mr. Darcy invite him, with the greatest civility, to fish there as often as he chose while he continued in the neighbourhood, offering at the s… 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,… Jane Austen
“ Darling, in this family we don't call anyone a novelist who has not written more books than Jane Austen. Pansy Schneider-Horst
“ Seriously, a thirty-something woman shouldn't be daydreaming about a fictional character in a two-hundred-year-old world to the point where it interfered with her very real and much more important lif… Shannon Hale
“ 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
“ Like Wollstonecraft, Austen rejects the notion that ‘man was made to reason, woman to feel.’ Perhaps Austen was tired of reading passages in conduct books suggesting that young women were innately sen… Emily Auerbach
“ How easily such a thing can become a mania, how the most normal and sensible of women once this passion to be thin is upon them, can lose completely their sense of balance and proportion and spend yea… Kathryn Hurn
“ Yes; he had done it. She was in the carriage, and felt that he had placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it, that she owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution to g… Jane Austen
“ I never saw quite so wretched an example of what a sea-faring life can do: but to a degree, I know it is the same with them all; they are all knocked about, and exposed to every climate, and every wea… Jane Austen
“ Sence and Sensibility, for instance, came out in three separate volumes, as did Pride and Prejudice (so the next time you read one of the ubiquitous time-travel Austen adaptations and somebody picks u… Amy Smith
“ Her [Mrs Croft's] manners were open, easy, and decided, like one who had no distrust of herself, and no doubts of what to do; without any approach to coarseness, however, or any want of good humour. A… Jane Austen
“ ...it is very well worth while to be tormented for two or three years of one's life, for the sake of being able to read all the rest of it. Consider - if reading had not been taught, Mrs. Radcliffe wo… Jane Austen
