Jane Austen Quotes

May as well be single

Argh -- yesterday was a rough Lyme day.  I'm afraid against my best intentions this has become the occasionally-daily Austen quote.  Happy Friday the 13th!

"Miss Blachford is married, but I have never seen it in the Papers.  And one may as well be single if the Wedding is not to be in print."

letter to her niece Anna Lefroy
March 1815 [118]

Resolving on marriage

"I cannot easily resolve on anything so serious as marriage, especially as I am not at present in want of money."

Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson
Lady Susan, letter 10

With all my soul

"I wish with all my soul his wife may plague his heart out."

sweet, kind Mrs. Jennings
Sense & Sensibility, volume 2, chapter 8

Never loving by halves

" . . . that Marianne found her own happiness in forming [Col. Brandon's] was equally the persuasion and delight of each observing friend.  Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband as it had once been to Willoughby."

Sense & Sensibility, volume 3, chapter 14

An extraordinary fate

"Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate.  She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract by her conduct her most favorite maxims.  She was born to overcome an affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and with no sentiment superior to strong esteem and lively friendship, voluntarily to give her hand to another--and that other, a man who had suffered no less than herself under the event of a former attachment, whom, two years before, she had considered too old to be married, and who still sought the constitutional safeguard of a flannel waistcoat!"

Sense & Sensibility, volume 3, chapter 14

More on Marianne and Colonel Brandon in an article I wrote in response to Lori Gottlieb:  Would Jane Austen Settle?  (I think not, but I also think she would challenge our definition of love.)

Dear Mrs. Jennings

“It would be an excellent match, for he was rich, and she was handsome. . . . she was always anxious to get a good husband for every pretty girl.”

busybody Mrs. Jennings on why she thinks Marianne and Colonel Brandon should get together
Sense & Sensibility, volume 1, chapter 8

Such happiness

"It is such a happiness when good people get together--and they always do."

Miss Bates
Emma, volume 2, chapter 3

Enjoy Emma on Sunday!

Who can be in doubt?

Ack... spent this morning at the doctor's office, and running very late today.  One more from Persuasion:

"Who can be in doubt of what followed?  When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort.  This may be bad morality to conclude with, but I believe it to be truth; and if such parties succeed, how should a Captain Wentworth and an Anne Elliot, with the advantage of maturity of mind, consciousness of right, and one independent fortune between them, fail of bearing down every opposition?"

Persuasion, volume 2, chapter 12

The gravel walk

"There they exchanged again those feelings and those promises which had once before seemed to secure everything, but which had been followed by so many, many years of division and estrangement.  There they returned again into the past, more exquisitely happy, perhaps, in their re-union, than when it had been first projected; more tender, more tried, more fixed in a knowledge of each other's character, truth, and attachment; more equal to act, more justified in acting."

Of Anne and Captain Wentworth's engagement along the gravel walk in Bath.
Persuasion, volume 2, chapter 11

I believe I walked along this gravel path in Bath, but didn't realize what it was while I walked there.

Too excellent creature!

"I can hardly write.  I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me.  You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others.  Too good, too excellent creature!  You do us justice, indeed.  You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men.  Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in    F.W."

Captain Wentworth's letter to Anne, in the Musgrove's room at the White Hart in Bath
Persuasion, volume 2, chapter 11