#austen

[Jane] Austen was not a novelist for nothing: she knew that our stories are what make us human, and that listening to someone else's stories -- entering into their feelings, validating their experiences -- is the highest way of acknowledging their humanity, the sweetest form of usefulness. ↗

— William Deresiewicz

#stories #experience

My object then," replied Darcy, "was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you. ↗

— Jane Austen

#elizabeth-bennet #jane-austen #mr-darcy #pride-and-prejudice #forgiveness

There is a monsterous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit. ↗

— Jane Austen

#jane-austen #wit #humor

She is probably by this time as tired of me, as I am of her; but as she is too Polite and I am too civil to say so, our letters are still as frequent and affectionate as ever, and our Attachment as firm and sincere as when it first commenced. ↗

— Jane Austen

#jane-austen #letters #love-and-friendship #loyalty #pen-pals

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

#emma #integrity #jane-austen #man #trick

Mama, 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

#jane-austen #love #marianne-dashwood #sense-and-sensibility #world

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

#jane-austen #marriage #marriage

-Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all. -Take care, Lizzy; that speech savours strongly of disappointment. ↗

— Jane Austen

#men

Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#criticism #jane-austen #london

I think the success of 'Downton' is partly because there are effectively 18 leading characters, all given equal importance, so it's enormously involving on many levels. But also, it's a new story. It's not like Dickens or Austen, where everyone knows the denouement. ↗

— Michelle Dockery

#austen #because #characters #dickens #effectively