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.

Silences can be as different as sounds.

If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.

No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye.

Intimacies between women often go backwards, beginning in revelations and ending in small talk.

Habit, of which passion must be wary, may all the same be the sweetest part of love.

the process of reading is reciprocal; the book is no more than a formula, to be furnished out with images out of the reader's mind.