Jane Austen, much in advance of her day, was a mistress of the use of the dialogue. She used it as dialogue should be used-to advance the story; not only to show the characters, but to advance.

Pity the selfishness of lovers: it is brief, a forlorn hope; it is impossible.

There's something so showy about desperation, it takes hard wits to see it's a grandiose form of funk.

one should discuss one's difficulties only when they are over.

No one of the characters in my novels has originated, so far as I know, in real life. If anything, the contrary was the case: persons playing a part in my life--the first twenty years of it--had about them something semi-fictitious.

Have not all poetic truths been already stated? The essence of a poetic truth is that no statement of it can be final.

in my experience one thing you don't learn from is anything anyone set up to be a lesson; what you are to know you pick up as you go along.