Jane Austen

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.

I must learn to be satisfied with being wanted a great deal by those who are worth pleasing.

The very first outbreak of the novel form was a rejection of the world as it was.

Nothing ever occurs: seeing the Eltons in their parading state is enough to have the glory of the day to me.

I am quite out of patience with you.

Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter.

Where an unequal rank is the only reason for an unequal attachment, it is hardly worth considering.

Men have every advantage of us in telling their own story.

My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of a good book.

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.

I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.

All the privilege I claim for my own sex is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.

Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.

I cannot speak well enough to be heard, but I can write well enough to be read.

Every real sort of love is a triumphant thing.

To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment.

The soul that can speak with the eye alone is the soul that can read the heart.

One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.

Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well.