Quotes About Jane Austen

He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my acquaintance.

Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will.

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.

I've been fortunate in that I never actually read any Jane Austen until I was thirty, thus sparing myself several decades of the unhappiness of having no new Jane Austen novels to read.

I'm totally in love with Jane Austen and have always been in love with Jane Austen. I did my dissertation at university on black people in eighteenth-century Britain - so I'd love to do a Jane Austen-esque film but with black people.

I 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.

Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.

Nothing is more deceitful, said Darcy, than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.

I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love said Darcy. Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.

Always resignation and acceptance. Always prudence and honour and duty. Elinor, where is your heart?

You deserve a longer letter than this; but it is my unhappy fate seldom to treat people so well as they deserve.

for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him.

There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.

She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous.

To her own heart it was a delightful affair, to her imagination it was even a ridiculous one, but to her reason, her judgment, it was completely a puzzle.

I am happier than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world, that he can spare from me.

Do you dance, Mr. Darcy? Darcy: Not if I can help it! Sir William: What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing, after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies. Mr. Darcy: Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world; every savage can dance.

Mama, the more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.

The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. - Mr Darcy

You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these last twenty years at least.

It has sunk him, I cannot say how much it has sunk him in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!-None of that upright integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that distain of trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of his life.

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

Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty women can bestow. Mr. Darcy

I . . . am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever--& of finding my own story & my own people all forestalled.