40 Quotes From Jane Austen

Jane Austen, an iconic figure in English literature, continues to enchant readers with her wit, social commentary, and memorable characters. Her novels, written in the early 19th century, have transcended time, offering enduring insights into human nature and relationships. In this post, we present a carefully curated collection of the top 40 quotes from Jane Austen's works, showcasing her timeless wisdom, sharp humor, and poignant observations. Whether you are a devoted Austen fan or new to her literary world, these quotes are sure to captivate and inspire. Dive into the elegance of her prose and discover why Jane Austen's words remain so beloved by readers around the globe.

1. “I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.” - Charlotte Brontë

2. “HappinessThere's just no accounting for happiness,or the way it turns up like a prodigalwho comes back to the dust at your feethaving squandered a fortune far away.And how can you not forgive?You make a feast in honor of whatwas lost, and take from its place the finestgarment, which you saved for an occasionyou could not imagine, and you weep night and dayto know that you were not abandoned,that happiness saved its most extreme formfor you alone.No, happiness is the uncle you neverknew about, who flies a single-engine planeonto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikesinto town, and inquires at every dooruntil he finds you asleep midafternoonas you so often are during the unmercifulhours of your despair.It comes to the monk in his cell.It comes to the woman sweeping the streetwith a birch broom, to the childwhose mother has passed out from drink.It comes to the lover, to the dog chewinga sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,and to the clerk stacking cans of carrotsin the night.It even comes to the boulderin the perpetual shade of pine barrens,to rain falling on the open sea,to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.” - Jane Kenyon

3. “Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see fault in any body. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life.""I would wish not to be hasty in censuring any one; but I always speak what I think.” - Jane Austen

4. “What are you doing?" "Ya!" said Jane, whirling around, her hands held up menacingly. It was Mr. Nobley with coat, hat, and cane, watching her with wide eyes. Jane took several quick (but oh so casual) steps away from Martin's window. "Um, did I just say, 'Ya'?" "You just said 'Ya,'" he confirmed. "If I am not mistaken, it was a battle cry, warning that you were about to attack me.I, uh..." She stopped to laugh. "I wasn't aware until this precise and awkward moment that when startled in a startled in a strange place, my instincts would have me pretend to be a ninja.” - Shannon Hale

5. “We kiss. Her hands are freezing on my face, and she tastes like coffee and the smell of the onion is still stuck in my nose, and my lips are all dry from the endless winter. And it's awesome.” - John Green

6. “Crushed again!” - W.S. Gilbert

7. “Vanity, not love, has been my folly.” - Jane Austen

8. “I never saw quite so wretched an example of what a sea-faring life can do: but to a degree, I know it is the same with them all; they are all knocked about, and exposed to every climate, and every weather, till they are not fit to be seen. It is a pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach Admiral Baldwin's age.” - Jane Austen

9. “She was breathtaking in her beauty and her human spirit, he thought, unable to speak as he gazed upon her. Hers was the sort that would not fade or grow jaded with time and years, but flourish, grow more radiant with life and its experience. Hers was a beauty that no other possessed. A beauty he longed to keep, to hide away, to bask in, himself alone. She had become his. He didn’t know when, whether it had been the moment her fingertips had touched him when he was hurt, or if it had grown, like a seed, slowing spreading until Jane had become the root anchoring the shattered pieces of his heart, pulling them tight together until it resembled the organ it should.” - Charlotte Featherstone

10. “And if you couldn't be loved, the next best thing was to be let alone.” - L.M. Montgomery

11. “Take off your coat.""Excuse me?""Take it off.""No.""I want it off.""Then I suggest you hold your breath. Won't affect me in the slightest, but at least the suffocation will help pass the time for you. [Vishous to Jane]” - J.R. Ward

12. “Life, deal gently with her ... Love, never desert her” - L.M. Montgomery

13. “Jane, you are my confidante, my helpmate, my friend. My lover. You are everything the word wife means to me. In my heart, we are wed. In my soul, you are mine.” - Charlotte Featherstone

14. “You make me want to suck a bruise on you just to kiss it better.--Luc to Jane--” - Rachel Gibson

15. “Tell you what, you let me go, and I’ll ask you plenty of questions about your race. Until then, I’m slightly distracted with how this little vacation on the good ship Holy Sh*t is going to pan out for me.” - J.R. Ward

16. “I love you. And I'm going to keep loving you even after you don't know I exist.” - J.R. Ward

17. “To be together is for us to be at once free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character - perfect concord is the result.” - Charlotte Brontë

18. “Written on the mirror, revealed by the steam, were the words, I love you, Jane.” - J.R. Ward

19. “Vishous screamed.The only thing that was louder was the pop as the hip was relocated, as it were. And the last thing he saw before he checked out of the Conscious Inn & Suites was Jane's head whipping around in a panic. In her eyes was stark terror, as if the single worst thing that she could imagine was him in agony...And that was when he knew that he still loved her.” - J.R. Ward

20. “I don’t think my sister is old enough to have sex.”“V, she’s the same age you are.”He frowned for a moment. Was she? Or had he been born first?” - J.R. Ward

21. “It's the most charming thing about humans. You are all so sure that the lesser animals are bleeding with envy because they didn't have the good fortune to be born Homo sapiens.” - Orson Scott Card

22. “This is the Speaker for the Dead? Judging someone by appearances?" "Maybe I've fallen in love with Grego." "You've always been a sucker for people who pee on you.” - Orson Scott Card

23. “But this night is not through. We’ve made love. And now, to the bed, where the f*cking will commence.” - Charlotte Featherstone

24. “It gave Jane a wicked sense of satisfaction that he’d noticed that aspect of her sister’s personality, but she tried not to sound too arrogant. “Savannah doesn’t worry about homework. Apparently they don’t care about your GPA when you apply for beauty school.”“Beauty school, huh? I would have thought she’d already graduated valedictorian from there.”Jane blinked at him in frustration.Fairy’s side note: Adults are constantly telling teenagers that it’s what’s on the inside that matters. It’s always painful to find out that adults have lied to you.Hunter shrugged. “I guess I shouldn’t have assumed you’d be like Savannah where math is concerned.”Meaning: After all, you aren’t pretty like she is.” - Janette Rallison

25. “I love your taste, my shundori," he murmured, and she felt his body tense beneath her. "I can't get enough of it. I can't get enough of you.” - Charlotte Featherstone

26. “Matty,” Jane whispered, “what are you thinking?”He smiled, kissed her navel before glancing up at her. “Barbaric thoughts.”“You’re very pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”He laughed and slid up the length of her body. “I am. It’s such a powerfulvisual to know that my seed is responsible for the life within you and theincredibly arousing changes in your body.“And, I, of course, have nothing to do with it?”“Jane,” he whispered, “let me have my moment of male glory.” - Charlotte Featherstone

27. “Matthew,” she murmured, her voice breaking. “How can I save you?” - Charlotte Featherstone

28. “I do not know what to say, how to tempt you. If you had a price, I would pay it. If you desired particular words, I would say them. I would be anything you want, Jane. Just come back. Please come back.- Matthew in a letter to Jane.” - Charlotte Featherstone

29. “Pressing his forehead to the cool glass, he held her gaze, her palm, his eyes pleading with her. Don’t go. Don’t leave me.” - Charlotte Featherstone

30. “As I said, you have mistaken me for another. London is full of drab little peahens, sir. Now, then, I’m leaving,” she said in a huff.“To change?” he asked, unable to stop from goading her.“To write a poem for my toast,” she snapped. “And you may suffer, for I will not help you with yours.”“No need, darling,” Matthew drawled, his words intending to push her away.“I doubt you know a suitable word that will rhyme with fuck. ”“Stuck,” she said, turning to face him. “For two days, my lord. We are stuck with one another. Let us make the best of it.”“And how do you propose we do that?”“By giving each other wide berth. We will not stand together, we will not talk to one another and we will most certainly not look at one another.”“No problem from this quarter.”“Good. You may be assured that it will be no difficulty for me, either.”-Matthew and Jane” - Charlotte Featherstone

31. “Wow," she breathed."I know, right? Hung like a horse.""If you're really nice-and you live through this-I'll promise not to tell V.""About my size."She laughed a little, "No, that you assumed I'd look at you in any fashion other than professionally.” - J.R. Ward

32. “And we'd look at each other the way you do when you see someone on the street you think you recognize, but not quite. Someone you wish with all your heart were there but who is actually just a stranger. And you feel a kind of deep longing that hurts like a huge gash and your inability to fix it leaves you frustrated and angry and bone-deep lonely.” - Michele Jaffe

33. “I look like Barbara Bush in drag." Aunt Jettie” - Molly Harper

34. “Aunt Jettie: "yes, i'm wandering the earth seeking revenge on ben & jerry for giving me the fat a$$ and coronary & I give out love advice to the tragically lonely."jane: "Is that an ironic eternal punishment for the lady who died an eighty-one year old spinster." jettie: "single by choice you twirp."jane: "banshee."jettie: "bloodsucker.” - Molly Harper

35. “Jane: "Look, Dave Chandler left me on the ninth floor of our university research library without my panties after we lost our virginity together. He never called me again and actually turned on his heel and walked in the opposite direction whenever he saw me on campus. Unless you're going to do that, I don't think were gonna have a problem. Gabriel?"Gabriel: "Sorry. Something strange happened inside my head when you said the word "panties". The overwhelming urge to kill Dave Chandler combined with a simultaneous loss of blood to the brain.” - Molly Harper

36. “Jane: "Missy was not so subtly reminding me that she had done something nice for me and here i was being rude when all she was asking me to do was attend a nice party. This was the way southern women worked all peaches & cream laced with arsenic.” - Molly Harper

37. “And from the whole she deduced this useful lesson, that to go previously engaged to a ball, does not necessarily increase either the dignity or enjoyment of a young lady.” - Jane Austen

38. “I am so lonely without you, Aedan," Jane said simply."You truly want me?""More than anything. I'm only half without you.""Then you are my woman." His words were finality, a bond he would not permit broken. She had given herself to his keeping. He would never let her go."And you'll never leave me?" she pressed."I'll stay with you for all of ever, lass."Jane's eyes flared, and she looked at him strangely. "And then yet another day?" she asked breathlessly."Oh, aye.” - Karen Marie Moning

39. “...and I decide to stop inwardly composing the feminist world court's prosecutorial summation to the jury.” - Laurie Viera Rigler

40. “Carving?""Your name. My back. I can't fucking wait." Jane whistled under her breath. "Do I get to do it?" He barked a laugh. "No!" "Come on. I'm a surgeon, I'm good with knives.” - J.R. Ward