1,664 Quotes by Jane Austen

Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it.

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine.

You think me foolish to call instruction a torment, but if you had been as much used as myself to hear poor little children first learning their letters and then learning to spell, if you had ever seen how stupid they can be for a whole morning together, and how tired my poor mother is at the end of it, as I am in the habit of seeing almost every day of my life at home, you would allow that to torment and to instruct might sometimes be used as synonymous words.

You have everybody dearest to you always at hand; I, probably, never shall again; and therefore, till I have outlived all my affections, a post office, I think, must always have power to draw me out in worse weather than today.

She had nothing to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly.

Dear Diary, Today I tried not to think about Mr. Knightly. I tried not to think about him when I discussed the menu with Cook... I tried not to think about him in the garden where I thrice plucked the petals off a daisy to acertain his feelings for Harriet. I don't think we should keep daisies in the garden, they really are a drab little flower. And I tried not to think about him when I went to bed, but something had to be done.

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

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

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her.