“Besides, she had survived the searingly hot nights, when sleep was rendered impossible, by reading a miasma of English novels by Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. They had served to fire her belief that 'true love' would one day be found.”

“She had lolled about for three years at Girton with the kind of books she could equally have read at home--Jane Austen, Dickens, Conrad, all in the library downstairs, in complete sets. How had that pursuit, reading the novels that others took as their leisure, let her think she was superior to anyone else?”

“I continued past the door of the Pink Room to look round her door. She was propped on her pillows with The Sentimental Bloke and Persuasion beside her on the covers and a torrid bodice-ripper in her hands. Nice Marty Holden from the Book Exchange had been bringing romance novels by the boxful and she was getting through two a day, switching to Jane Austen when her brain needed decontaminating.”

“She remembered the heroines of novels she had read, and the lyrical legion of those adulterous women began to sing in her memory with sisterly voices that enchanted her. Now she saw herself as one of those amoureuses whom she had so envied: she was becoming, in reality, one of that gallery of fictional figures; the long dream of her youth was coming true.he remembered the heroines of novels she had read, and the lyrical legion of those adulterous women began to sing in her memory with sisterly voices that enchanted her. Now she saw herself as one of those amoureuses whom she had so envied: she was becoming, in reality, one of that gallery of fictional figures; the long dream of her youth was coming true.”

“For a bookworm like Mother, a Brontë novel sister was better than a biological one.”

“It was like being in a Jane Austen novel, but one with far less clothing.”