“How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!”

“But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.”

“There used to be two of us always on the look-out for life, talking to Miss Blossom at night, wondering, hoping; two Bronte-Jane Austen girls, poor but spirited, two Girls of Godsend Castle.”

“Ah, but you're the insidious type--Jane Eyre with of touch of Becky Sharp. A thoroughly dangerous girl.”

“We were restless for ages...After a while I heard an owl hooting and calmed myself by thinking of it flying over the dark fields – and then I remembered it would be pouncing on mice. I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian.”

“While I have been writing I have lived in the past, the light of it has been all around me...”

“I am surprised to see how much I have written; with stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down.”