I pay very little regard...to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me and be happy. I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage.

A single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else.

Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else.

A novel must show how the world truly is. Somehow, reveals the true source of our actions.

there is not one in a hundred of either sex, who is not taken in when they marry. ... it is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest themselves.