Austen Quotes - Page 4

• I boast of being the only man in London who has been bombed off a lavatory seat while reading Jane Austen. She went into the bath; I went through the door.

  Kingsley Martin

  War, Reading, Men

  Kingsley Martin (1960). “Critic's London diary: from the New statesman, 1931-1956”

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• As blue chips turn into penny stocks, Wall Street seems less like a symbol of America's macho capitalism and more like that famous Jane Austen character Mrs. Bennet, a flibbertigibbet always anxious about getting richer and her 'poor nerves.'

  Maureen Dowd

  Wall, Character, Blue

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• [Art] would have helped us survive in the Pleistocene - in the period, say, 1.6 million years ago until fairly recently. The kind of imaginative abilities that artists have and that we all have in the appreciation of art - to appreciate Jane Austen, the late quartets of Beethoven.

  Denis Dutton

  Appreciation, Art, Years

  Source: muse.jhu.edu

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• I think as far as the action genre goes, I like when it has a sense of humor. I'm a Jane Austen/Jane Eyre kind of girl.

  Maggie Grace

  Girl, Thinking, Action

  "Maggie Grace Talks LOCKOUT, TWILIGHT, TAKEN 2, DECODING ANNIE PARKER, and More". Interview, collider.com. April 10, 2012.

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• Couples are really funny, because if they are together, they can fight and do fun things together. In Jane Austen books, marriage is the end of the story, but I actually think a really funny couple could be a fun thing to watch.

  Mindy Kaling

  Couple, Fun, Book

  "Mindy Kaling's Real-Life Dating Adventures, The Mindy Project, and SO Much More". Interview with Jessica Radloff, www.glamour.com. October 15, 2013.

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• I believed in happily ever after as much as anyone, because Jane Austen, Prince Charming, and Hugh Grant promised me it could happen. But maybe that particular delusion was universal.

  Robin Wasserman

  Ever After, Charming, Delusion

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• Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote, I thought, looking at Antony and Cleopatra; and when people compare Shakespeare and Jane Austen, they may mean that the minds of both had consumed all impediments; and for that reason we do not know Jane Austen and we do not know Shakespeare, and for that reason Jane Austen pervades every word that she wrote, and so does Shakespeare.

  Virginia Woolf

  Hate, Writing, Mean

  Virginia Woolf (2015). “A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas”, p.111, OUP Oxford

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• Jane Austen, much in advance of her day, was a mistress of the use of the dialogue. She used it as dialogue should be used-to advance the story; not only to show the characters, but to advance.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Character, Writing, Mistress

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• Jane Austen: Getting into her books is like getting in bed with a cadaver. Something vital is lacking; namely, life.

  Edward Abbey

  Book, Bed, Cadavers

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.32, RosettaBooks

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• The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous. You know, my fantasy of being a famous writer, and again there's a slight disconnect with reality which happens a lot with me. I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen.

  J. K. Rowling

  Reality, Interesting, Would Be

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• I waited patiently - years - for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we'd say, Yeah, he's a Cool Guy.

  Gillian Flynn

  Reading, Party, Men

  Gillian Flynn (2014). “The Complete Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl, Dark Places, Sharp Objects”, p.243, Broadway Books

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• Jane Austen can in fact get more drama out of morality than most other writers can get from shipwreck, battle, murder, or mayhem.

  Ronald Blythe

  Drama, Battle, Facts

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• To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a married man in possession of a vast fortune must be in want of a newer, younger wife.

  Bruce Feirstein

  Men, Wife, Want

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• I did a cover for Rolling Stone the other day and it was a kind of crazy lack of outfit. I thought, "Oh, Lord. I'm never going to be Jane Austen in a film now!" 'Cause that's what I'd really like to do.

  Rose McGowan

  Crazy, Rolling, Stones

  "Grindhouse Interview: Rose Mcgowan". IGN Interview, www.ign.com. April 5, 2007.

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• With impeccable prose, dry wit, and uncommon wisdom, Ted Thompson brings to life one family's painful disappointments and powerful resilience. The Land of Steady Habits combines Austen's shrewd mastery of domestic economics with Updike's compassion for the melancholy commuter to make something elegant, fresh, and brilliant.

  Maggie Shipstead

  Powerful, Disappointment, Compassion

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• [Henry] James is much more complex than Jane Austen. That's why it's not so easy to adapt him. People expect a nice period piece, but that's not always the case. There's a deep human mystery in his work.

  Agnieszka Holland

  Nice, People, Pieces

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• I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.

  Anne Stevenson

  Literature, Loyal, Schubert

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• Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will.

  Terry Eagleton

  Art, Years, Ducks

  "A puritan at play" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. March 15, 2008.

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• I do like the idea of the novel of repressed college students being a contemporary novel of courtship! I guess what I would say to that is, we tend to think of historical periods and historical mores as ending a lot more concretely than they do. Like, in an Austen novel, there are lots of reasons - cultural, moral, religious - why the characters don't have sex during courtship. Maybe, even though those reasons have kind of expired, historically, they're still around in some sense.

  Elif Batuman

  Religious, Sex, Character

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The latest gorgeous entry in the Belknap Press' growing library of annotated Jane Austen novels arrives, this time the mighty Emma under the exactingly careful guidance of Bharat Tandon of the University of East Anglia. Belknap has once again done its end of the job superbly: the book is a physical treat-luxuriantly over-sized, heavy with quality paper and solid binding, decked out in a beautiful cover and dozens of well-chosen illustrations throughout. This is one of the prettiest Jane Austen volumes available in bookstoresthis season.

  Steve Donoghue

  Beautiful, Jobs, Book

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• If there was a Jane Austen camp, I would go, no question.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Camps, Jane, Ifs

  Source: collider.com

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• All of women's stories in the 19th century had either one of two endings: you either had the good Jane Austen marriage at the end and you were happy; or you had the terrible Henry James savage downfall because of your own hubris as a woman, or you've made some great error leading you down a path to ruin. One is the story of love that's successful and the other is the story usually of reckless love that goes terribly wrong that destroys the woman.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Successful, Two, Errors

  "Elizabeth Gilbert, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ Author, On What It Takes To Get Inspired". Interview with Chantal Pierrat, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 11, 2013.

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• It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of woman's life is that.

  Virginia Woolf

  Sex, Thinking, Fiction

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.614, Wordsworth Editions

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• I read "Pride and Prejudice" [by Jane Austen]. I was gobsmacked by it - it's so funny and so modern. Unbelievable. You don't expect funny to come through after 200 years - humor doesn't transcend decades, let alone centuries.

  Julie Walters

  Pride, Years, Prejudice

  Source: www.digitalspy.com

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• Jane Austen is the feminine Peter Pan of letters. She never grew up.

  George Sampson

  Letters, Feminine, Grew Up

  "12 Sick Burns From People Who Didn’t Get The Jane Austen Hype" by Sara Boboltz, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 13, 2015.

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