Jun > Jun's Quotes

“Books. Cats. Life is good.”
― T.S. Eliot

“Now be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?"

"For the liveliness of your mind, I did.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.'
'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So, I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“You either choose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking;— if the first, I should be completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit by the fire.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“For [Jane Austen and the readers of Pride and Prejudice], as for Mr. Darcy, [Elizabeth Bennett's] solitary walks express the independence that literally takes the heroine out of the social sphere of the houses and their inhabitants, into a larger, lonelier world where she is free to think: walking articulates both physical and mental freedom.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

“I have the highest respect for your nerves, they are my old friends.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“My object then," replied Darcy, "was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you.”
― Jane Austen

“One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering. ”
― Jane Austen

“She was suddenly roused by the sound of the door-bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to inquire particularly after her. But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the room. In an hurried manner he immediately began an inquiry after her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better. She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up, walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began:

"In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
― Jane Austen

“They invent a howling theatrical language through which it becomes possible to express the grief of the whole world, a language understood by no one but the two of them.”
― Unica Zürn, Dark Spring

“What terrible shame overcomes me when I discover the male or female in myself!”
― Unica Zürn, The Man of Jasmine & Other Texts

“But luxury has never appealed to me, I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.”
― Daphne du Maurier

“If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“I wanted to go on sitting there, not talking, not listening to the others, keeping the moment precious for all time, because we were peaceful all of us, we were content and drowsy even as the bee who droned above our heads. In a little while it would be different, there would come tomorrow, and the next day and another year. And we would be changed perhaps, never sitting quite like this again. Some of us would go away, or suffer, or die, the future stretched away in front of us, unknown, unseen, not perhaps what we wanted, not what we planned. This moment was safe though, this could not be touched. Here we sat together, Maxim and I, hand-in-hand, and the past and the future mattered not at all. This was secure, this funny little fragment of time he would never remember, never think about again…For them it was just after lunch, quarter-past-three on a haphazard afternoon, like any hour, like any day. They did not want to hold it close, imprisoned and secure, as I did. They were not afraid.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is
alone.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone. How commonplace and stupid it would be if I had a friend now, sitting beside me, someone I had known at school, who would say: “By-the-way, I saw old Hilda the other day. You remember her, the one who was so good at tennis. She’s married, with two children.” And the bluebells beside us unnoticed, and the pigeons overhead unheard. I did not want anyone with me. Not even Maxim. If Maxim had been there I should not be lying as I was now, chewing a piece of grass, my eyes shut. I should have been watching him, watching his eyes, his expression. Wondering if he liked it, if he was bored. Wondering what he was thinking. Now I could relax, none of these things mattered. Maxim was in London. How lovely it was to be alone again.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Every moment was a precious thing, having in it the essence of finality.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.”
― Daphne duMaurier

“...the routine of life goes on, whatever happens, we do the same things, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing. No crisis can break through the crust of habit.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Sometimes it’s a sort of indulgence to think the worst of ourselves. We say, ‘Now I have reached the bottom of the pit, now I can fall no further,’ and it is almost a pleasure to wallow in the darkness. The trouble is, it’s not true. There is no end to the evil in ourselves, just as there is no end to the good. It’s a matter of choice. We struggle to climb, or we struggle to fall. The thing is to discover which way we’re going.”
― Daphne du Maurier

“The point is, life has to be endured, and lived. But how to live it is the problem.”
― Daphne du Maurier, My Cousin Rachel

“It wouldn't make for sanity would it, living with the devil.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Will you look into my eyes and tell me that you love me now?”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca