Bryn > Bryn's Quotes

“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I am a fallen woman, but I assure you: I did not fall. I was pushed.”
― Michel Faber

“Ah, but you're the insidious type--Jane Eyre with of touch of Becky Sharp. A thoroughly dangerous girl.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“Feminism means having a choice. And feminism doesn't care which choices you make, either. Just that you have them. The point has never been to establish some principled refusal to give yourself to another human being. The point is to make sure you can give yourself--or not give yourself--of your free will.”
― Rachel Kadish

“The Grocery Checkout Proviso: The more things you care about, the more vulnerable you are. If you are part of that epicurean minority in this country that is still offended by violations of the English language, you will be slapped in the face every time you stand in line at the market. FIFTEEN ITEMS OR LESS. Caring passionately about grammar—caring passionately about anything most of humanity doesn’t care about—is like poking a giant hole in your life and letting the wind blow everything around.”
― Rachel Kadish, Tolstoy Lied: A Sharp Literary Romance – Finding Love That Fulfills Head and Heart

“Oh yes. Draw your hem back from my mud, little sister.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl

“When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning.”
― Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions

“The only thing you have to do in this life is die," said Mrs. Pinsky..."everything else is a choice.”
― Karen Thompson Walker, The Age of Miracles

“The Waverley sisters hadn't been close as children, but they were as thick as thieves now, the way adult siblings often are, the moment they realize that family is actually a choice.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“When one’s life seems broken beyond repair, there remains one last move: a person can at least shut her eyes.”
― Karen Thompson Walker, The Dreamers

“They might permit a king to burn their fields or rape their daughters, as long as payment was made. But you did not touch a man’s sons.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“This was true magic, the making and unmaking of the world with paper and ink.”
― Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic