Midnight in Austenland Quotes

“But, how do you know if an ending is truly good for the characters unless you've traveled with them through every page?”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Don't beat yourself up," said Charlotte. "True love can be so easily mistaken for other things-friendship, humane concern, indigestion...”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Even stories need a chance to sleep.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Sometimes one does not mean to fall in love. Sometimes it just happens”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Breakfast should always come before sleuthing.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Sometimes instinct isn't fancy.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Even the jerks earn some of our affection. We can be glad they're gone and yet still mourn the good parts.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“The woman gestured to a seat and put on a patient face. An impatient sort of patient face, like an impatient face dressing up as a patient one for Halloween.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Jane Austen had created six heroines, each quite different, and that gave Charlotte courage. There wasn't just one kind of woman to be.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“It’s a universal truth that nothing spoils a postlunch game of croquet like suspecting the other players of murder.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“...Age gave her the peace, at least, to live inside that moment like a poet - to not sacrifice the beauty to the anxiety of What Next, but to just observe.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Here's the thing about home: you can create it most anywhere, as long as you gather your people around you.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Rock Canyon OB-GYN: We're GYNO-MITE!”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“In movies, we are accustomed to seeing handsome actors. It's so commonplace on the screen, large or small, that we barely note it as extraordinary. But in life, rarely do we encounter an onslaught of beauty, entire a hive of handsomeness, find ourselves awash in an ocean of attractiveness, drowning in a miasma of hotness.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Charlotte wondered if she would have recognized the crazy much earlier if he looked more like Steve Buscemi then Mr. Medieval Hotness.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“This was the part where Charlotte, heroine, remembered she was a twenty-first-century woman and a mother. This was Charlotte saying, Hell no!”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Tell me something true about you.”
“Okay …” She mentally rifled through birthplace (Portland, Oregon), college major (sociology), astrological sign (Virgo), favorite movie (The Apple Dumpling Gang—don’t judge), until she hit a fact that wasn’t completely mundane. “One of my favorite things in the world are those charity events where everyone buys a rubber ducky with a number and the first person’s duck to get down the river wins.”
“Why?”
“I like seeing the river teeming with all those outrageously yellow and orange ducks. It’s so friendly. And I love the hope of it. Even though it doesn’t matter if you win, because all that wonderful, candy-colored money is going to something really important like a free clinic downtown or cleft palate operations for children in India, you still have that playful hope that you will win. You run alongside the stream, not knowing which is your duck but imagining the lead one is yours.”
“And this is the essence of your soul—the ducky race?”
“Well, you didn’t ask for the essence of my soul. You asked for something true about me, and so I went for something slightly embarrassing and secret but true nonetheless. Next time you want the essence of my soul, I’ll oblige you with sunsets and baby’s laughter and greeting cards with watercolor flowers.”
He squinted at her thoughtfully. “No, so far as I’m concerned, the yellow duckies are the essence of your soul.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“A few minutes later, Miss Charming gasped. But then, Miss Charming gasped a lot. She gasped when someone shut a door too loudly; she gasped when there were sausages for breakfast. She sometimes gasped and then coughed, as if she'd meant to cough from the beginning and gotten the two confused.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Sometimes ..." Miss Charming's voice dropped lower, and she looked Charlotte in the eye. "Sometimes my boobs kill."
Charlotte's eyes wideened, her mouth agape. It wasn't until Miss Charming followed her shocking statement by rubbing her chest in discomfort that Charlotte realized " my boobs kill" meant "my boobs ache" rather than " my boobs fatally maim people." It was a natural mistake to make. After all they really were large enough to suffocate a grown man.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“We found it!" Charlotte yelled, as they ran back through the house. "We found it, we found it!"

Eddie, Mr. Mallery, and Colonel Andrews came from separate directions, converging in the front hall. Miss Charming was hopping up and down, her bosom nearly rising to slap her own forehead.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“She read like a woman drinks water after nearly dying of dehydration.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Hope had been that thing with burnt feathers buried in her soul, but now it was waking up, stretching, beating fresh wings in the ashes.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Come on, she willed through the care window. Come on, change me. I dare you.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“A woman without hobbies is dangerously self-negligent.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“She knew it! Charlotte just knew it! And now her daughter was boyfriend-less! Yes! Wait-no! Oh no, poor Lu.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“No one just falls in love, you idiot.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Never fear, protecting my womb from Gothic novels is my first priority.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“How inconvenient clever women must be to men like Mr. Mallery. If only she’d been frivolous, light-minded, vapid even. Generally speaking, when a man is a murderer and a woman uncovers the unmistakable clue pointing to him, it would be so much easier if that woman were dull-witted. A clever woman can get herself killed.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“She read like a woman drinks water after nearly dying of dehydration. The stories pulled out of her sensation after sensation: a fluttering in her belly, a laugh on her lips, a pounding in her heart.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

“Romance. That seemed silly.... Now-so cheap, mass market-, high-discount. It was temporary insanity caused by the brain. It was a biological trick to ensure the survival of the species.”
― Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland