Emma By Jane Austen Quotes

#1. 'Clueless' is an adaptation of 'Emma' by Jane Austen. It works either way: if you know the book and if you don't.

Jason Moore

#2. It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,' said he. 'Oftentimes very convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.'
'Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction may be the greater.

Jane Austen

#3. I seem finally to have stopped worrying about Elinor, and age. She seems now to be perfectly normal
about twenty-five, a witty control freak. I like her but I can see how she would drive you mad. She's just the sort of person you'd want to get drunk, just to make her giggling and silly.

Emma Thompson

#4. I cannot make speeches, Emma ... If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.

Jane Austen

#5. She closed her eyes, not really hearing the rest of what he murmured against her ear. All she knew was that it echoed everything that was in her heart. He was a surprise. Love was a surprise. And a surprise love between friends was the best kind of all.

Mary Jane Hathaway

#6. No! Thank you for thinking I am thoughtful.

Jane Austen

#7. Badly done, Emma!

Jane Austen

#8. Emma knows I never flatter her,

Jane Austen

#9. Hugh Laurie (playing Mr. Palmer) felt the line 'Don't palm all your abuses [of language upon me]' was possibly too rude. 'It's in the book,' I said. He didn't hit me.

Emma Thompson

#10. It did not often happen; for Mr. John Knightley had really a great regard for his father-in-law, and generally a strong sense of what was due to him; but it was too often for Emma's charity, especially as there was all the pain of apprehension frequently to be endured, though the offense came not.

Jane Austen

#11. Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

Jane Austen

#12. But Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at all to confuse his intellects.

Jane Austen

#13. Charlotte Palmer is no sillier than Harriet Smith; and yet, how intolerable we should find it to see and hear as much of Charlotte as we do of Harriet! And would Miss Bates have been endurable if she had been presented in the mood and manners of Sense and Sensibility?

Mary Lascelles

#14. These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make every thing else appear!
I feel now as if I could think of nothing but these poor creatures all the rest of the day; and yet, who can say how soon it may all vanish from my mind?

Jane Austen

#15. My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each other?

Jane Austen

#16. It is such a happiness when good people get together
and they always do.

Jane Austen

#17. 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.

Jane Austen

#18. The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself;

Jane Austen

#19. There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. - Mr. Knightley

Jane Austen

#20. Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

Jane Austen

#21. I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless.

Emma Donoghue

#22. A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals.

Jane Austen

#23. Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them.

Jane Austen

#24. Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest of her family. At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen.

Jane Austen

#25. Heavens! let me not suppose that she dares go about Emma Woodhouse-ing me! But, upon my honour, there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman's tongue!

Jane Austen

#26. 'Emma' is my favorite Jane Austen novel - one of my favorite novels period; a novel about intelligence outsmarting itself, about a complicated, nuanced, irresistible heroine who does everything wrong.

Cathleen Schine

#27. You might not see one in a hundred with
gentleman so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley.

Jane Austen

#28. The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think and be miserable.

Jane Austen

#29. It all easy. I have been always telling you, my love, that I had no idea of the change being so very material to Hartfield as you apprehended; and now you have Emma's account. I hope you will be satisfied.

Jane Austen

#30. I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.

Jane Austen

#31. It was a sweet view-sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being oppressive.

Jane Austen

#32. Move over, Emma Woodhouse. You have met your match.

Diane Moody

#33. Jane Fairfax is a very charming young woman - but not even Jane Fairfax is perfect. She has a fault. She has not the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife. Emma

Jane Austen

#34. I don't approve of surprises. The pleasure is never enhanced and the inconvenience is considerable.

Jane Austen

#35. Emma - "faultless, in spite of her faults

Jane Austen

#36. No," said he, smiling, "that is no subject of regret at all. I have no pleasure in seeing my friends, unless I can believe myself fit to be seen.

Jane Austen

#37. For shame, Emma! Do not mimic her. You divert me against my conscience.

Jane Austen

#38. She was his own Emma, by hand and word

Jane Austen