“Jane Austen, who is said to be Shakespearian, never reminds us of Shakespeare, I think, in her full-dress portraits, but she does so in characters such as Miss Bates and Mrs. Allen.”

“I pity, approve, respect, admire her, but I neither desire her company, nor am greatly concerned about her destiny, and she makes me impatient at moments when I doubt if she was meant to.”

“And Miss Ophelia?" he asked, getting round to her at last. "Miss Ophelia? Well, to tell you the truth, Ned, we're all rather worried about her." Ned recoiled as if a wasp had gone up his nose. "Oh? What's the trouble? Nothing serious, I hope." "She's gone all green," I said. "I think it's chlorosis. Dr. Darby thinks so too.”

“Finally, she'd found a group on Corellia that had helped her deal with her addiction, helped her realize why she felt so empty, so driven. "It took me months of hard digging into myself," she said. "Months to figure out why I wanted to hurt myself. I finally got it through my head that just because my mother hated and despised me for not being what she wanted me to be, I didn't have to hate myself. I didn't have to destroy myself in some twisted attempt to please her.”

“Clearing his throat, he rumbled, "Miss Darling, a word if you please.""Sesquipedalian," she said, keeping her back towards him.The strange response momentarily stunned him. "Pardon?"Turning around, she leaned against the counter and grinned at him, “You asked for a word and I gave you one. It means ‘many syllabled’ and while it’s exceedingly pretentious it is a lot of fun to say. Sesquipedalian; it tangles up the tongue and then just falls right off.“Or perhaps you would prefer a different word?” she continued guilelessly and he was completely charmed by her. “Tittle, which is the little dot over i’s and j’s; or Ornithopter, an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings; Tuatha De Danan Lora or Expector Patronum?”“Now you’re just making words up,” he grinned, and realized he had missed talking to her.”

“Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote, I thought, looking at Antony and Cleopatra; and when people compare Shakespeare and Jane Austen, they may mean that the minds of both had consumed all impediments; and for that reason we do not know Jane Austen and we do not know Shakespeare, and for that reason Jane Austen pervades every word that she wrote, and so does Shakespeare.”

“You have to stay safe, Scar. Maybe it's your bits in a dress and maybe it's just you, but I'm awful fond of something in there. So don't get killed.”