1,664 Quotes by Jane Austen

I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.

No- I cannot talk of books in a ballroom; my head is always full of something else.

I . . . am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever--& of finding my own story & my own people all forestalled.

A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.

Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else.

I certainly must,' said she. 'This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of everything's being dull and insipid about the house! I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not.

It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does. And men take care that they should.

If there is any thing disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it.

She would have liked to know how he felt as to a meeting. Perhaps indifferent, if indifference could exist under such circumstances. He must be either indifferent or unwilling. Has he wished ever to see her again, he need not have waited till this time; he would have done what she could not but believe that in his place she should have done long ago, when events had been early giving him the indepencence which alone had been wanting.