Top 100 Jane Austen And Quotes
#1. She had spoken it; but she trembled when it was done, conscious that her words were listened to, and daring not even to try to observe their effect.
Jane Austen
#2. Miss Bingley's congratulations to her brother, on his approaching marriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere.
Jane Austen
#3. THIS little work was finished in the year 1803, and intended for immediate publication.
Jane Austen
#4. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?
Jane Austen
#5. A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number.
Jane Austen
#6. All this she must possess, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading. Mr. Darcy
Jane Austen
#7. I think Jane Austen builds suspense well in a couple of places, but she squanders it, and she gets to the endgame too quickly. So I will be working on those things.
Val McDermid
#8. If there is a heaven, Jane Austen is sitting in a small room with Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, listening to Duran Duran, forever. If there's a hell, she's standing.
Roddy Doyle
#9. Where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and,
Jane Austen
#10. And this," cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, "is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully.
Jane Austen
#11. Jane Austen had created six heroines, each quite different, and that gave Charlotte courage. There wasn't just one kind of woman to be.
Shannon Hale
#12. 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
#14. Where there is a wish to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great deal.
Jane Austen
#15. ... she had nothing to do but to forgive herself and be happier than ever ...
Jane Austen
#16. Oh! No, I only mean what I have read about. It always puts me in mind of the country that Emily and her father travelled through, in The Mysteries of Udolpho. But you never read novels, I dare say?" "Why not?" "Because they are not clever enough for you - gentlemen read better books.
Jane Austen
#17. It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant.
Jane Austen
#18. But some characters in books are really real
Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.
Dodie Smith
#19. 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
#20. Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason, and she continued to rail bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about.
Jane Austen
#21. Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with
Jane Austen
#23. That the Miss Lucases and the Miss Bennets should meet to talk over a ball was absolutely necessary; and the morning after the assembly brought the former to Longbourn to hear and to communicate.
Jane Austen
#24. There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere.
Jane Austen
#25. How earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more reasonable, more moderate!
Jane Austen
#26. I can recollect nothing more to say at present; perhaps breakfast may assist my ideas. I was deceived
my breakfast supplied only two ideas
that the rolls were good and the butter bad.
Jane Austen
#27. How much I love every thing that is decided and open!
Jane Austen
#28. The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking, and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone.
Jane Austen
#29. The rector of a parish has much to do. - In the first place, he must make such an agreement for tythes as may be beneficial to himself and not offensive to his patron.
Jane Austen
#30. Yet some happiness must and would arise, from the very conviction, that he did suffer.
Jane Austen
#31. I actually didn't like Jane Austen. I was more into the Brontes. They were so wild and passionate. I thought there was something a bit tame about Austen.
Frances O'Connor
#32. I love books; my suitcases are always full of them. Books and shoes. I read when I am sad, when I am happy, when I am nervous. My favourite British author is Jane Austen, and my favourite American one is John O'Hara.
Carolina Herrera
#33. How good Mrs. West could have written such books and collected so many hard works, with all her family cares, is still more a matter of astonishment! Composition seems to me impossible with a head full of joints of mutton and doses of rhubarb.
Jane Austen
#34. Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. - It is not fair. - He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. - I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it - but fear I must.
Jane Austen
#35. It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; - it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.
Jane Austen
#36. 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.
Jane Austen
#37. His understanding and opinions all please me; he wants nothing but a little more liveliness, and that, if he marry prudently, his wife may teach him. I thought him very sly; - he hardly ever mentioned your name. But slyness seems the fashion.
Jane Austen
#38. But I will not repine. It cannot last long. He will be forgot, and we shall all be as we were before.
Jane Austen
#39. It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was not part of her disposition.
Jane Austen
#40. I cannot look at you with anything other than abhorrence, much less affection! I couldn't bare your presence when we were children and, I'm afraid to say, the repulsive way at which you have grown to be has made it even worse! You have taken everything from me...
Madeline Courtney
#41. She is never alone when she has Her Books. Books, to her, are Friends. Give her Shakespeare or Jane Austen, Meredith or Hardy, and she is Lost - lost in a world of her own. She sleeps so little that most of her nights are spent reading.
E.M. Delafield
#42. But if I were you, I would stand by the nephew. He has more to give.
Jane Austen
#43. Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections.
Jane Austen
#44. But while the imaginations of other people will carry them away to form wrong judgements of our conduct, and to decide on it by slight appearances, one's happiness must in some measure be always at the mercy of chance.
Jane Austen
#45. Her spirits wanted the solitude and silence which only numbers could give.
Jane Austen
#46. Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of, and gives her a sort of distinction among her companions
Jane Austen
#47. Charles Adams was an amiable, accomplished & bewitching young Man; of so dazzling a Beauty that none but Eagles could look him in the Face.
Jane Austen
#48. All my life I thought that the story was over when the hero and heroine were safely engaged
after all, what's good enough for Jane Austen ought to be good enough for anyone. But it's a lie. The story is about to begin, and every day will be a new piece of the plot.
Mary Ann Shaffer
#49. A man ... must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow.
Jane Austen
#50. And she leaned back in the corner, to indulge her murmurs, or to reason them away; probably a little of both - such being the commonest process of a not ill-disposed mind.
Jane Austen
#51. Blessed with the love of a good man, I felt equal to anything - even the prospect of living out my days in the Antipodes.
Jennifer Paynter
#52. But your mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity, and, therefore, not accessible to the cool reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge.
Jane Austen
#53. Mr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near a vicinity to her mother and Meryton
Jane Austen
#54. He is just what a young man ought to be," said she, "sensible, good-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners! - so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!
Jane Austen
#55. But Catherine did not know her own advantages - did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward.
Jane Austen
#56. They parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.
Jane Austen
#57. Well, he certainly is very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person." "Dear Lizzy!
Jane Austen
#58. I feel as if I could be any thing or every thing, as if I could rant and storm, or sigh, or cut capers in any tragedy or comedy in the English language.
Jane Austen
#59. Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.
Jane Austen
#60. With the Musgroves there was the happy chat of perfect ease;[ ... ] and with Captain Wentworth, some moments of communication continually occurring, and always the hope of more, and always the knowledge of his being there.
Jane Austen
#61. Sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning
Jane Austen
#62. And what arts did he use to separate them?
Jane Austen
#63. Picture of perfection make me sick and wicked.
Jane Austen
#64. And Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger.
Jane Austen
#65. As it happened that Elizabeth had much rather not, she endeavoured in her answer to put an end to every entreaty and expectation of the kind. Such relief, however, as it was in her power to afford,
Jane Austen
#67. She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing, and it was not possible that encouragement from her should be long wanting.
Jane Austen
#68. There are few of us who are secure enough to be within love without proper encouragement - Charlotte Lucas
Jane Austen
#69. Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer; and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence.
Jane Austen
#70. And yet, it was not in her nature to question the veracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Wickham.
Jane Austen
#71. Because I had grown up with Jane Austen novels and period dramas, I was very familiar with that period and that world.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw
#72. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.
Jane Austen
#73. And everyday confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters.
Jane Austen
#74. I was simple enough to think, that because my faith was plighted to another, there could be no danger in my being with you; and that the consciousness of my engagement was to keep my heart as safe and sacred as my honour.
Jane Austen
#75. Anne could not immediately fall into a quotation again. The sweet scenes of autumn were for a while put by - unless some tender sonnet, fraught with the apt analogy of the declining year, with declining happiness, and the images of youth and hope, and spring, all gone together, blessed her memory.
Jane Austen
#76. She mediated, by turns, on broken promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneys and trap-doors.
Jane Austen
#77. And you're right- I don't want nice. I want sparks and fire. I want a romance novel. A Jane Austen movie. A fairy tale.
Shari L. Tapscott
#78. [She] is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own, and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.
Jane Austen
#79. Hello, Mary.'
It was like hearing a note of divine calm after a dissonant passage of music. My confusion died away.
Jennifer Paynter
#80. She was stronger alone; and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as, with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be.
Jane Austen
#81. The past, present, and future, were all equally in gloom.
Jane Austen
#82. It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection.
Jane Austen
#83. I have come to realise that your are the most important person in the world to me, and I wanted to know if you would consider ... if you would do me the honour of becoming my wife
C. Allyn Pierson
#84. If you look at my personal library, you will notice that it ranges from Henry James to Steig Larsson, from Margaret Atwood to Max Hastings. There's Jane Austen and Tom Perrotta and volumes of letters from Civil War privates. It's pretty eclectic.
Chris Bohjalian
#85. They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.
Jane Austen
#86. There, he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind.
Jane Austen
#87. Doubtless it was so, and she could take no revenge, for he was not altered, or not for the worse. She had already acknowledged it to herself, and she could not think differently, let him think of her as he would. No:
Jane Austen
#88. And talking of the dear family party which would then be restored, of their mutual pursuits and cheerful society, as the only happiness worth a wish.
Jane Austen
#89. Brandon is just the kind of man whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.
Jane Austen
#90. While I can have my mornings to myself," said she, "it is enough - I think it is no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening engagements. Society has claims on us all; and I profess myself one of those who consider intervals of recreation and amusement as desirable for everybody.
Jane Austen
#91. Yes, I found myself, by insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the happiest hours of my life were what I spent with her.
Jane Austen
#92. Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Eliot's character; vanity of person and of situation.
Jane Austen
#93. even in the quieter professions, there is a toil and a labour of the mind, if not of the body, which seldom leaves a man's looks to the natural effect of time.
Jane Austen
#94. I had never in all my life felt so elated. Peter cared for me! It was a miracle I longed to celebrate - to tell all Hertfordshire - and I had to hold my hand to my mouth against an involuntary smile.
Jennifer Paynter
#95. The promise, therefore, was given, and must be performed.
Jane Austen
#96. All books are hyggelig, but classics written by authors such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Leo Tolstoy, and Charles Dickens have a special place on the bookshelf. At the right age, your kids may also love to cuddle up with you in the hyggekrog and have you read to them. Probably not Tolstoy.
Meik Wiking
#97. This made my father laugh. 'Mary made a cake, did she? Well, well. Better that than she should make a cake for herself, I suppose.'
Peter then burst out: 'Why must you always be making a game of Mary? 'Tis not fair; 'tis not sporting.
Jennifer Paynter
#98. Mr. Collins was to attend them, at the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid of him, and have his library to himself
Jane Austen
#99. It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.
Jane Austen
#100. ...and to aim at the restraint of sentiments which were not in themselves illaudable, appeared to her not merely an unnecessary effort, but a disgraceful subjection of reason to common-place and mistaken notions.
Jane Austen
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