The Jane Austen Book Club Quotes

“Arriving late was a way of saying that your own time was more valuable than the time of the person who waited for you.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“I once broke up with a boy because he wrote me an awful poem.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“Allegra's Austen wrote about the impact of financial need on the intimate lives of women. If she'd worked in a bookstore, Allegra would have shelved Austen in the horror section.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“You've done so many things and read so many books. Do you still believe in happy endings?"
"Oh my Lord, yes." Bernadette's hands were pressed against each other like a book, like a prayer. "I guess I would. I've had about a hundred of them.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“It was the marriage that was important; Jane Austen rarely even bothered to write about the wedding.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“You know, I don't think there's anything truly unforgivable. Not where there's love.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“What should we read next?” Bernadette asked. “Pride and Prejudice is my favorite.
So let’s do that,” Sylvia said.
Are you sure, dear?” Jocelyn asked,
I am. It’s time. Anyway, Persuasion has the dead mother. I don’t want to subject Prudie to that now. The mother in Pride and Prejudice on the other hand…”
Don’t give anything away,” Grigg said. “I haven’t read it yet.”
Grigg had never read Pride and Prejudice.
Grigg had never read Pride and Prejudice.
Grigg had read The Mysteries of Udolpho and God knows how much science fiction – there were books all over the cottage – but he’d never found the time or inclination to read Pride and Prejudice. We really didn’t know what to say.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“Marriage seemed like such a small space whenever I was in it. I liked the getting married. Courtship has a plotline. But there's no plot to being married. Just the same things over and over again. Same fights, same friends, same things you do on a Saturday. The repetition would start to get to me.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“Baby, high school's over.
High school's never over..”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“We all have a sense of level. It may not be based on class exactly anymore, but we still have a sense of what we're entitled to. People pick partners who are nearly their equal in looks. The pretty marry the pretty, the ugly the ugly. To the detriment of the breed.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“In the feudal fiefdom of school, rank was determined early. You could change your hair and clothes. You could, having learned your lesson, not write a paper on Julius Caesar entirely in iambic pentameter or you could not tell anyone if you did. You could switch to contact lenses, compensate for your braininess by not doing your homework. Every boy in school could grow twelve inches. The sun could go fucking nova. And you'd still be the same grotesque you'd always been.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“Dean coughed helpfully. Somewhere in the cough was the word “persuasion.” He was throwing Mo a lifeline.
Mo preferred to go down. “I haven’t actually read any Austen. I’m more into mysteries, crime fiction, courtroom stuff.” This was disappointing, but not damning. On the other hand it was a failing; on the other, manfully owned up to. If only Mo had stopped there.
“I don’t read much women’s stuff. I like a good plot,” he said.
Prudie finished her drink and set her glass down so hard you could hear it hit. “Austen can plot like a son of a bitch,” she said. “Bernadette, I believe you were telling us about your first husband.”
“I could start with my second. Or the one after that,” Bernadette offered. Down with plot! Down with Mo!”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“There was something appealing in thinking of a character with a secret life that her author knew nothing about. Slipping off while the author’s back was turned, to find love in her own way. Showing up just in time to deliver the next bit of dialogue with an innocent face.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“I couldn't fit my whole self into a marriage, no matter who my husband was. There were parts of me that John liked, and different parts for the others, but no one could deal with all of me, So I'd lop some part off, but then I'd start missing it, wanting it back.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“The next day I lay out on the grass in our backyard and I looked straight into the sun, the way my mother had told me never to do because it would damage my eyes. I thought that I would grow up to be a famous artist and everything and everyone I saw, everything and everyone I painted, would be blinding to look at.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“A night that began with mind-reading a grateful crustacean and ended with drunken elves would be a night to remember.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“Poor Elinor! Willoughby on one side, Brandon on the other. She is quite entre deux feux.” Prudie had a bit of lipstick on her teeth, or else it was wine. Jocelyn wanted to lean across and wipe it off with a napkin, the way she did when Sahara needed tidying. But she restrained herself; Prudie didn’t belong to her. The fire sculpted Prudie’s face, left the hollows of her cheeks hollow, brightened her deep-set eyes. She wasn’t pretty like Allegra, but she was attractive in an interesting way. She drew your eye. She would probably age well, like Angelica Houston. If only she would stop speaking French. Or go to France, where it would be less noticeable.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“It was long past time to change the subject. “The boy playing the bagpipes is really good,” Prudie said.
If only she’d said it in French! Trey made a delighted noise. “Nessa Trussler. A girl. Or something.”
Prudie looked at Nessa again. There was, she could see now, a certain plump ambiguity. Maybe Trey wouldn’t tell anyone what she’d said. Maybe Nessa was perfectly comfortable with who she was. Maybe she was admired throughout the school for her musical ability. Maybe pigs could jig.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“No one with real integrity tries to sell their integrity to you. People with real integrity hardly notice they have it.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“What did it mean, all this personal looking backward? What were people hoping to find? What bearing, really, did their ancestry have on who they were now?”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“I made tiny newspapers of ant events, stamp-sized papers at first, then a bit bigger, too big for ants, it distressed me, but I couldn’t fit the stories otherwise and I wanted real stories, not just lines of something that looked like writing. Anyway, imagine how small an ant paper would really be. Even a stamp would have looked like a basketball court.
I imagine political upheavals, plots and coups d e’tat, and I reported on them. I think I may have been reading a biography of Mary Queen of Scots at the time….
Anyway, there was this short news day for the ants. I’d run out of political plots, or I was bored with them. So I got a glass of water and I created a flood. The ants scrambled for safety, swimming for their lives. I was kind of ashamed, but it made for good copy. I told myself I was bringing excitement into their usual humdrum. The next day, I dropped a rock on them. It was a meteorite from outer space. They gathered around it and ran up and over it; obviously they didn’t know what to do. It prompted three letters to the editor.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“People earn the way they are missed.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“You might change and your reading might change as a result, but the book remained whatever it had always been”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“Sylvia’s first impression of Allegra was that no one had ever before had such a beautiful baby.
Jocelyn’s first impression of Grigg was that he had nice eyelashes and a funny name, and didn’t interest her in the slightest.
Prudie’s first impression of Bernadette was that she was startling to look at and dull if you listened, which you hardly ever had to do.
Bernadette’s first impression of Prudie was that, in all her long years, she had rarely seen such a frightened young woman.
Grigg’s first impression of Jocelyn was that she appeared to think sharing an elevator with him for a few floors was some sort of punishment.
Allegra’s first impression of Sylvia was blurred with her first impression of the larger world. For me? she’d asked herself back when she had no words and no way to even know she was asking. And then, when Sylvia, and then, when Daniel had first looked into her eyes — More for me?”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“Yes, it is. I’m leaving the marriage, I’m not leaving you. As long as you’re in the house, I’ll take care of the house.” “Fuck off,” said Sylvia.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“My husbands weren't any of them bad men, I was the problem. Marriage seemed like such a small space whenever I was in it. I liked the getting married. Courtship has a plotline. But there's no plot to being married. Just the same things over and over again. Same fights, same friends, same things you do on a Saturday. The repetition would start to get to me.

And then I couldn't fit my whole self into a marriage, no matter who my husband was. There were parts of me that John liked, and different parts for the others, but no one could deal with all of me, So I'd lop some part off, but then I'd start missing it, wanting it back. I didn't really fall in love until I had that first child.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“What if you had a happy ending and didn’t notice? Sylvia made a mental note. Don’t miss the happy ending.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“We should get you Linux, too. Nobody uses Windows anymore.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“If she was exposing more skin than usual, that was because it was going to be a hundred-fucking-six degrees. Was she supposed to wear a suit?”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“Jocelyn was dumbstruck. She couldn’t think of a single thing
she’d done that might give that impression. “I don’t.”
― Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club