Miss Austen Quotes

“To surrender one's books, well: it is to surrender part of one's soul.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“Oh, marriage!' Jane retorted. 'Marriage! Always the excuse for all failures of character. One does so long for it to bring some improvements, but more often it appears the root cause of all poor behaviour.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“For whoever looked at an elderly lady and saw the young heroine she once was?”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“Is it not obvious? You will persist in writing these stories, full of splendid fellows of all different sorts, but never once have I heard one of your heroines to be blessed with a dashing sailor brother whom she admires and adores."
"That is true." Jane laughed. Cassy looked up from her sewing and smiled to see her sister so at ease. After a successful reading of her own work to the family, she glowed as she never glowed otherwise. "But to do so would defeat my own purposes. It would strike right through the narrative. You must see that if a young lady is so fortunate as to have her own dashing sailor brother, she is spoiled then for any other hero I could create for her. For how, with such an example in her own background, could she fall in love on dry land? No man could match him.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“Of course all parents should be mourned: That was the duty of all offspring. But were they all to be missed in the same way?”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“The House of God, when empty, behaved in a quite different fashion from the houses of men. This was not sunken; this was no shell dependent upon people for its personality and atmosphere: Quite the opposite. Free of worshippers and busyness, it stood solid in its own splendor; confident in its own purpose: cold, damp, and simple, yet rich with magnificence.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“No music. No games. No reading or good conversation! This was the first time that Cassy had ever stayed anywhere without another member of her own family beside her. She had always known that the Austens were remarkable; now it occured to her that they were simply unique...

And she decided that other families must be one of life's most unfathomable mysteries. It was no use sitting as an outsider and even trying to fathom them. One could have no idea of what it must be like to be in there, on the inside.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“And then your story turned into tragedy. I am sorry for that, Cassandra.'

'Oh no, not exactly, my dear,' Cassandra replied. 'Indeed, it was a terrible blow to lose your dear Uncle Tom. His death bright enormous distress to us all. Your poor grandmother never recovered. But I - Please do not think to have had a sad life, Isabella. After all, there are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“Was I terribly rude?' It was almost as if she might care a jot.

'Yes! You were frightful!' Cassy tugged at her locks playfully.

'As rude as I was to Mr Blackall?'

'No,' Cassy conceded, laughing. 'Nobody has ever, in the history of social intercourse between the two sexes, been as rude as you were to Mr Blackall. You set impossibly high standards with him, for all womankind.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“Well ...' Cassie thought for a moment, and found she could not disagree. 'I suppose she is very happy to be married to James. And, perhaps, for the moment, yes, a little ... bumptious with it.'

Jane laughed. 'You see? My theory put there in a nutshell: even happiness in a bride is irksome to witness. And yet the happy single lady spreads universal delight!”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“Happy endings are there for us somewhere, woven into the mix of life’s fabric. We just have to search the detail, follow the pattern, to find the one that should be our own.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“You see? My theory put there in a nutshell: Even happiness in a bride is irksome to witness. And yet the happy single lady spreads universal delight!”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“It occurred to Cassy that Fulwar was quite a different person in his own home. Certainly he was not like this with the Austens. Her family had no truck with pomposity or dominance.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“Cheerfulness and good humor were the Austen way.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“No music. No games. No reading or good conversation! This was the first time that Cassy had ever stayed anywhere without another member of her own family beside her. She had always known that the Austens were remarkable; now it occurred to her that they were simply unique. ...

And she decided that other families must be one of life's most unfathomable mysteries. It was no use sitting as an outsider and even trying to fathom them. One could have no idea of what it must be like to be in there, on the inside.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“It is not only the discomfort—my back aches, my skin is all over peculiar—but the fatigue that most plagues me.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“She was a perfect woman, my mistress—too perfect, as I see it. Perfection!” She sniffed and shook her head with disgust. “Perfection brings no end of trouble.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“First she revised Elinor and Marianne, which became Sense and Sensibility, and—oh, joy!—found a publisher and had sold really quite well. At the urging of the household, First Impressions was next to receive her attentions. With its new title of Pride and Prejudice, that was doing even better. It was the fashionable novel of 1813, and its anonymous author at the top of her tree.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“My bowels feel much steadier now, thanks be to the Lord, after what was, as you of all people know, Cass, the most frightful evacuation. I think I shall like this apothecary. He has a good feel for my system.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“Elinor and Marianne.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“all. “His poor mother has never recovered herself, but he, I believe, could have a future. My scheme is to bring him on as well as I am able and then introduce him to my good friend at the Hungerford Apothecary.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“Through the simple virtues of his charm and easy good nature, he had been adopted at the age of fourteen by their distant relations, the childless and wealthy Mr. and Mrs.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen

“this assumption: that the divine blessing of a male presence somehow made a household more desirable, superior.”
― Gill Hornby, Miss Austen