“The purpose of the latest series of intellectual meetings, which were held in various parlors in Concord, was to talk about Reconstruction with objectivity, sensibility, and a lack of prejudice. As everyone had expected, the meetings were far from objective, seldom sensible, and never unprejudiced.”

“It is quite impossible these days to assume anything about people's educational level from the way they talk or dress or from their taste in music. Safest to treat everyone you meet as a distinguished intellectual.”

“I had brought from Paris the national prejudice against Italian music; but I had also received from nature that acute sensibility against which prejudices are powerless. I soon contracted the passion it inspires in all those born to understand it.”

“Pride and Prejudice opens with one of the most famous sentences ever written: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." With these words, Jane Austen announced to her readers that they were about to meet such a man and the people eager to marry him off. What was more, they were going to have fun. The dark cynicism of Sense and Sensibility was largely gone, blown away by a clean, fresh wind.”

“That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal; from which it follows that irregularity—that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment, are an essential part and characteristic of beauty.”

“She had never expected anything special to just happen to her. Her plan for life was to get out there and make special things happen, which was a much more sensible plan from a probability point of view.”