#austen

I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. ... All that interests in any character [is this]: has he (or she) the money to marry with? ... Suicide is more respectable. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#life

The celestial brightness of Pride and Prejudice is unequalled even in Jane Austen's other work; after a life of much disappointment and grief, in which some people would have seen nothing but tedium and emptiness, she stepped forth as an author, breathing gaiety and youth, robed in dazzling light. ↗

— Elizabeth Jenkins

#jane-austen #pride-and-prejudice #life

It is a truth universally acknowledged, he’d mused, that most people will never find their ‘call me Ishmael’. ↗

— Django Wylie

#jane-austen #moby-dick #pride-and-prejudice #truth #wordplay

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

#jane-austen #love #mary-bennet #peter-bushell #pride-and-prejudice

To a good man, yes, one who knows her in all her moods, who can laugh at her follies and rejoice in her virtues; who will not allow her to give in to her worst instincts; one who knows her, and who, knowing her, will still love her, and love her as she should be loved. ↗

— Amanda Grange

#love

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

— Jane Austen

#marianne-dashwood #sense-and-sensibility #love

There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person. ↗

— Jane Austen

#emma #reserved #love

I felt my mouth go dry, my throat constrict. What possible interpretation could Peter place on those words, other than that they were about him? - that the entire song was about him? ↗

— Jennifer Paynter

#jane-austen #love #mary-bennet #mortification #peter-bushel

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

#jane-austen #jennifer-paynter #love #loyalty #mary-bennet

Hello, Mary.' It was like hearing a note of divine calm after a dissonant passage of music. My confusion died away. ↗

— Jennifer Paynter

#divine #innocent #jane-austen #jennifer-paynter #love