“I have never understood why a woman must have a man to take her into dinner.”

“I have striven never to betray myself”

“...soon dinner will run into bed-time, and we shall all eat reclining like the ancient Romans--about whose digestion, you know, I have often wondered. Whether a dose of rhubabrb might have made a difference to Nero or Caligula is a question you might ponder, my dear, next time you go through your Tacitus.”

“Anne’s is a world very like this one, and you can move about in it with familiarity - but not freedom: it is a place of rigorous consequence, where the weak have to give way to the strong, where her governess heroine Agnes must walk as best she can in the cold shade of money and masculinity.”

“I do not say that I could never be persuaded to sacrifice my reputation to passion- only that it would take a great deal.”

“Matthew gave her such a hurt, wistful, nobly forbearing, and absolutely infuriating look that if Caroline had been a rich aunt she would have cut him out of her will on the spot.”

“Keats was getting a reputation just when he was too ill to appreciate it or build on it: his country was taking notice of him just when he would have to leave it.”