Quotes About Austen

Bennet would have been very miserable;

I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or going to be married! so charming as you are!

After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations.

Everybody of any consequence or notoriety in Bath was well know by name to Mrs Smith.

Your plan is a good one," replied Elizabeth, "where nothing is in question but the desire of being well married, and if I were determined to get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I should adopt it.

Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features...

were I rich enough, I would instantly pull Combe down, and build it up again in the exact plan of this cottage.' 'With dark narrow stairs, and a kitchen that smokes, I suppose,' said Elinor.

And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody. "And yours," he replied with a smile,"is willfully to misunderstand them.

maid! and that's so dreadful!

His regard for her was quite imaginary; and the possibility of her deserving her mother's reproach prevented his feeling any regret.

People who suffer as I do from nervous complaints can have no great inclination for talking. Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.

if Anne will stay, no one so proper, so capable as Anne.

the history; that was the glory of Miss

And your defect is to hate everybody.' 'And yours,' he replied with a smile, 'is willfully to misunderstand them.

felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.

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?

Elinor...whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding and coolness of judgment...her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them.

I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.

It will be her turn soon to be teased, said Miss Lucas. I am going to open the instrument, Eliza, and you know

Ne sachant quoi lire ni dans quel ordre, j'ai suivi l'alphabet. Dieu merci, elle s'appelait Austen...

We quickly notice how very few metaphors Jane Austen uses...we can see that Jane Austen's works do seem to aim at establishing ' a single world of discourse' and that she is not at all concerned to 'join a plurality of worlds'. Such a 'plurality' could lead to a potentially uncontrollable proliferation of ambiguities and possible meanings, whereas the drive of her writing seems to aim at a 'single' sense ... Jane Austen aims at a total transparency...

Lee stood in front of the class the first day and said, "Anybody who makes fun of romance fiction is making fun of Jane Austen, and anybody who makes fun of Jane Austen answers to me." Why yes, I would walk across broken glass for that man. Why do you ask?

Jane Austen was born before those bonds which (we are told) protected women from the truth were burst by the Brontës or elaborately untied by George Eliot.… Jane Austen may have been protected from truth: but it was precious little of truth that was protected from her." G.K. CHESTERTON

Austen is a moralist, but, as John Lauber has put it, she is not a punitive moralist. Sometimes her villains receive no more serious punishment than to achieve their desires. Often that is punishment enough.