Laurie Viera Rigler

“But see, that's the thing about movies. Nothing is left to the imagination. You read a book, and you see a picture of the characters and the scenes in your mind. You don't have that with a movie. It's all either up there on the screen laid out for you, or it isn't there at all.”

“Only Complete and absolute surrender.”

“God forbid the wife should have prior knowledge of sex, let alone enjoy it.”

“Just be where you are. That is the only way to get where you're supposed to go.”

“You know, it is a little known fact that thinking is entirely overrated. The world would be a much better place if we all did a lot less of it”

“None of my friends knows that most of the sick days I've taken from work are not sick days, but Austen days.”

“They say the truth will set you free, but what nobody tells you is that sometimes the truth will also make you miserable.”

“What Martha Stewart-like demon of a Stepford wife is possessing me?”

“...and I decide to stop inwardly composing the feminist world court's prosecutorial summation to the jury.”

“I would self-medicate with fat, carbohydrates, and Jane Austen, my number one drug of choice, my constant companion through every breakup, every disappointment, every crisis. Men might come and go, but Jane Austen was always there in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part.”

“It seems there is nothing I cannot find out from my oracle, the computer.”

“But I know that any man whose very presence incites me to nearly throw away my reputation-or whatever shreds of it remain-is someone I must avoid at any cost.”

“Most of us walk through our daily lives as if we were asleep. We regard not what is before our eyes. We see not how we construct fantasies of our own and others' intentions without having the smallest knowledge of what we, or they, are truly about. We are all imaginists, storytellers if you will, and the pity is that none of us recognizes his sorry state.”

“But I do know that any place where there are six novels by the author of Pride and Prejudice must be a very special sort of heaven.”

“Be where you are right now. Live your life. You are only hurting your chances by struggling so . . . .”

“What she said was something about trusting that everything, no matter how horrible it might seem at the moment, ultimately turns out to be a blessing.”

“Most intelligent men and women like to go forth into the world and stalk their own prey, choose their own mirrors of dysfunction . . . .”

“I cannot imagine a world in which one can read Jane Austen only once.”

“What couldn't I do now, having already committed such a breach of fashion logic and lived to tell the tale? Why couldn't I pretend to be a woman with a solid core of self-worth, who likes herself no matter what the nearest handsome man or evil mother thinks of her?”

“Tonight, however, all I can think of is the juxtaposition of destiny and free will, and whether it makes no difference what I do, or all the difference in the world.”

“I self-medicate with fat, carbohydrates, and Jane Austen, my number one drug of choice, my constant companion through every breakup, every disappointment, every crisis. Men might come and go, but Jane Austen was always there. In sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part.”