“Think of it! We could have gone on longing for one another and pretending not to notice forever. This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it.”

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.”

“Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.”

“I don't want to be married just to be married. I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with.”

“All my life I thought that the story was over when the hero and heroine were safely engaged -- after all, what's good enough for Jane Austen ought to be good enough for anyone. But it's a lie. The ...”

“What on earth did you say to Isola? She stopped in on her way to pick up Pride and Prejudice and to berate me for never telling her about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Why hadn't she known there ...”

“And I pray one prayer--I repeat it till my tongue stiffens--Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me, then!...Be with me always--take any form--d...”

“If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.”

“Listen. You will still only love me. And I will only love you. Its only that well have different names. Sometimes Ill be Augusta, queen of Gondal, and youll be a dangerous highwayman. Sometimes wel...”

“There are many things that make a man irritable when he arrives home from work in the evening and a sensible wife will usually notice the storm-signals and will leave him alone until he simmers down.”

“Oblivion, she thought. That was the world she lived in. It was what they should name some countries, towns, and places.”

“A lot of men wouldn't like being called a romantic. It's not macho enough.'Quite often men are fools.”

“No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much"...No woman has ever written enough.”

“When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women”

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”