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Jane Austen Quotes

Browse 214 quotes about Jane Austen.

Jane Austen Quotes

“Every line, every word was -- in the hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer, were she here, would forbid -- a dagger to my heart. To know that Marianne was in town was -- in the same language -- a thunderbolt. -- Thunderbolts and daggers! -- what a reproof would she have given me! -- her taste, her opinions -- I believe they are better known to me than my own, -- and I am sure they are dearer.”

PainHeartbreakLettersJane Austen
Book:Sense and Sensibility
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“You’re thinking, maybe it would be easier to let it slip let it go say ”I give up” one last time and give him a sad smile. You’re thinking it shouldn’t be this hard, shouldn’t be this dark, thinking love could flow easily with no holding back and you’ve seen others find their match and build something great together, of each other, like two halves fitting perfectly and now they achieve great things one by one, always together, and it seems grand. But you love him. Love him like a black stone in your chest you couldn’t live without because it fits in there. Makes you who you are and the thought of him gone—no more—makes your chest tighten up and maybe this is your fairytale. Maybe this is your castle. You could get it all on a shiny piece of glass with wooden stools and a neverending blooming garden but that’s not yours. This is yours. The cracks and the faults, the ugly words in the winter walking home alone and angry but falling asleep thinking you love him. This is your fairy tale. The quiet in the hallway, wishing for him to turn around, tell you to stay, tell you to please don’t go I need you like you need me and maybe it’s not a Jane Austen novel but this is your novel and your castle and you can run from it your whole life but this is here in front of you. Maybe nurture it? Sweet girl, maybe close the world off and look at him for an hour or two. This is your fairy. It ain’t perfect and it ain’t honey sweet with roses on the bed. It’s real and raw and ugly at times. But this is your love. Don’t throw it away searching for someone else’s love. Don’t be greedy. Instead, shelter it. Protect it. Capture every second of easy, pull through every storm of hardship. And when you can, look at him, lying next to you, trusting you not to harm him. Trusting you not to go. Be someone’s someone for someone. Be that someone for him. That’s your fairy tale. This is your castle. Now move in. Build a home. Build a house. Build a safety around things you love. It’s yours if you make it so. Welcome home, sweet girl, it will be all be fine.”

LoveTwoRomanceYoungGirlNovelSadnessTrustHeartbreakGardenSafetyTrue LoveWinterHeartacheFairyHardshipLove QuoteFairy TaleFinding LoveLove PoemLove PoetryYoung LoveRosesJane AustenHerStayLooking For LoveHimTrustingCastleYou And IWelcome HomeFinding HomeDon T GoYour Castle
Author:Charlotte Eriksson
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“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 embarrassments, our sulks, our envy, our feelings of guilt, these phenomena are conveyed in Austen in a way that affords us bursts of almost magical self-recognition. The author has located words to depict a situation we thought ourselves alone in feeling, and for a few moments, we see ourselves more clearly and wish to become whom the author would have wanted us to be.”

LifeHumanityLiteratureEmotionBooksClarityAloneComprehensionJane AustenAustenSelf Recognition
Author:Alain de Botton
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“I did not have an opportunity to speak privately with Peter until just as he was leaving, when he handed me one of the Burns song-sheets and (with a most earnest look) told me to read it before I went to bed. The song was 'My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose,' but it was not until was up in my bedchamber that I saw he had written on the inside page: 'My mother would be honoured if you visited her after church tomorrow.”

LoveSecretFamilyLoversRomanticJane AustenPride And PrejudiceNoteMary BennetPeter BushellJennifer Paynter
Book:Mary Bennet
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“It was as easy as breathing to go and have tea near the place where Jane Austen had so wittily scribbled and so painfully died. One of the things that causes some critics to marvel at Miss Austen is the laconic way in which, as a daughter of the epoch that saw the Napoleonic Wars, she contrives like a Greek dramatist to keep it off the stage while she concentrates on the human factor. I think this comes close to affectation on the part of some of her admirers. Captain Frederick Wentworth in Persuasion, for example, is partly of interest to the female sex because of the 'prize' loot he has extracted from his encounters with Bonaparte's navy. Still, as one born after Hiroshima I can testify that a small Hampshire township, however large the number of names of the fallen on its village-green war memorial, is more than a world away from any unpleasantness on the European mainland or the high or narrow seas that lie between. (I used to love the detail that Hampshire's 'New Forest' is so called because it was only planted for the hunt in the late eleventh century.) I remember watching with my father and brother through the fence of Stanstead House, the Sussex mansion of the Earl of Bessborough, one evening in the early 1960s, and seeing an immense golden meadow carpeted entirely by grazing rabbits. I'll never keep that quiet, or be that still, again. This was around the time of countrywide protest against the introduction of a horrible laboratory-confected disease, named 'myxomatosis,' into the warrens of old England to keep down the number of nibbling rodents. Richard Adams's lapine masterpiece Watership Down is the remarkable work that it is, not merely because it evokes the world of hedgerows and chalk-downs and streams and spinneys better than anything since The Wind in the Willows, but because it is only really possible to imagine gassing and massacre and organized cruelty on this ancient and green and gently rounded landscape if it is organized and carried out against herbivores.”

LiteratureWomenSilenceQuietEuropeEnglandCrueltyWorld War IiRabbits1960sCountrysideMansionsJane AustenLiterary CriticismHiroshimaHampshireMassacreNapoleonWind In The WillowsNapoleonic WarsMeadow11th CenturyPersuasion NovelSussexWatership DownGassingRichard AdamsTownshipsWar MemorialsEarl Of BessboroughMyxomatosisNew ForestTheatre Of Ancient Greece
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“That was the place to start. Jane Austen. A quick Internet search confirmed what I assumed: a diet full of fricassees, puddings and pies (savory and sweet), and stews, but few vegetables and a strong prejudice against salads until later in the nineteenth century. I looked up a Whole Foods nearby---a haven, albeit an expensive one, for fresh, organic, and beautiful produce---and then jotted down some recipes I thought would appeal to Jane's appetite. I landed on a green bean salad with mustard and tarragon and a simple shepherd's pie. She'd used mustard and tarragon in her own chicken salad. And I figured any good Regency lover would devour a shepherd's pie. I noted other produce I wanted to buy: winter squashes, root vegetables, kale and other leafy greens. All good for sautés, grilling, and stewing. And fava beans, a great thickener and nutritious base, were also coming into season. And green garlic and garlic flowers, which are softer and more delicate than traditional garlic, more like tender asparagus. I wanted to create comfortable, healthy meals that cooked slow and long, making the flavors subtle---comfortably Regency.”

InspiringProduceFood For ThoughtJane AustenRegencyReferencingEnglish Cuisine
Book:Lizzy and Jane
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“Never presume to know a person based on the one dimensional window of the internet. A soul can’t be defined by critics, enemies or broken ties with family or friends. Neither can it be explained by posts or blogs that lack facial expressions, tone or insight into the person’s personality and intent. Until people “get that”, we will forever be a society that thinks Beautiful Mind was a spy movie and every stranger is really a friend on Facebook.”

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Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“And once at home, we have our remedy at hand, you know. A little of our own bracing sea air will soon set me on my feet again. Depend upon it, my dear, it is exactly a case for the sea. Saline air and immersion will be the very thing. (growing up on Prince Edward Island; I can testify that this is true! ;) When I was a child, it was a cure for everything from a cut to dropping your hot dog in the sand! And when I go home, I truly feel the beaches healing properties in all areas of my life! <3)”

HomeHumorJane AustenClassicsSanditon
Author:Jane Austen
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“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,' I said, sighing. 'Is it?' said Veronica, looking surprised. 'Universally acknowledged? Surely that presupposes life similar to human societies beyond this planet, and besides--' 'No, no, it's a quote from ... Never mind,' I said.”

HumorTruthQuotesMarriageUniversalMisunderstandingJane Austen
Book:The FitzOsbornes in Exile
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“his feelings as to a first, strong attachment; sentences begun which he could not finish, his half averted eyes and more than half expressive glance; all, all declared that he had a heart returning to her at least; that anger, resentment, avoidance, were no more; and that they were succeeded, not merely by friendship or regard, but by the tenderness of the past. Yes, some share of the tenderness of the past. she could not contemplate the change as implying less. He must love her.”

RomancePersuasionJane AustenClassics
Book:Persuasion
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“Right, I totally forgot. I can’t wait to taste the flummery.” “I’m not sure if I want to know what that is,” Manning said. “It’s a sort of jelly, but made into a mold that is shaped like a castle or a tower or just a”—Debbie Mae wiggled one hand—“big wobbly thing. The ragout of veal will be a hit, I’m sure. And the Roman punch will have to be changed a little bit. It’s usually lemon water and hot syrup with a lot of rum.”

FoodJane AustenRegency Era
Book:Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Chili-Slaw Dogs
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“I want you to know I have never loved anyone like I love you. More than Darcy loved Elizabeth or Heathcliff loved Cathy. I just don’t want to make you a widow.” “I never really understood why Brontë is considered to be a romance writer. We were required to read Wuthering Heights in high school and I always believed that her novel showcased the bleakest aspects of human nature. The story provided readers with a small yet unforgettable glimpse into the depths of human cruelty. Personally, I never considered the story romantic because the love shared between Cathy and Heathcliff was fatal, not just for themselves but for those around them. Their souls were incompatible, and they were a toxic pairing. Despite their love, passion, jealousy, and desire for connection, they were unable to recognize this fact.” “I was never a fan of Victorian romance novels.” “It was never one of my favorites. It’s often viewed as one of the great romance novels of all time, but I think it represents something darker: the fatal, selfish side of love, obsession, and abuse. To this day, I have not encountered a more accurate depiction of how love can become selfish.” “Why do you say that?” Xuan asked. “Because I think you have to love someone in the way that I love you to truly understand what love means... and to understand how wrong the story is. My soul and yours are the same in a way that Catherine and Heathcliff’s could never be. Widow or not, I will never stop loving you, Xuan. You have mesmerized me. My very soul has been entangled completely by you over these past three years. If Brontë or Austen could write the greatest love story of all time they’d write our story. And whether you marry me or not, how I feel about you will never change.”

RomanticObsessionRomance NovelsJane AustenContemporary Romance Love StoryHeathcliffBronteWuthering HeightsVictorian Romance
Book:Fated to Love You
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“the only source whence any thing like consolation or composure could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and leave her less to regret when it were gone.”

AcceptanceSelf ImprovementSelf DiscoveryClarityRealizationResolutionJane AustenEmma
Book:Emma
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“Life was transparent, literature opaque. Life was open, literature a closed system. Life was composed of things, literature of words. Life was what it appeared to be: if you were afraid your plane would crash it was about death, if you were trying to get a girl into bed it was about sex. Literature was never about what it appeared to be about, though in the case of the novel cosiderable ingenuity and perception were needed to crack the code of realistic illusion, which was why he had been professionally attracted to the genre (even the dumbest critic understood that Hamlet wasn't about how the guy wanted to kill his uncle, or the Ancient Mariner about cruelty to animals, but it was surprising how many people thought Jane Austen's novels were about finding Mr Right).”

LifeDeathLiteratureSexNovelCriticismJane Austen
Book:Changing Places
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