Friendship Jane Austen Quotes & Sayings

Much of the attraction of the cult has to do with the grace of an early and romantic death. George Orwell once observed that if Napoleon Bonaparte had been cut down by a musket ball as he entered Moscow, he would have been remembered as the greatest general since Alexander. And not only did Guevara die before his ideals did, he died in such a manner as to inspire something akin to superstition. He rode among the poor of the altiplano on a donkey. He repeatedly foresaw and predicted the circumstances of his own death. He was spurned and betrayed by those he claimed to set free. He was by calling a healer of the sick. The photographs of his corpse, bearded and half-naked and lacerated, make an irresistible comparison with paintings of the deposition from Calvary. There is a mystery about his last resting place. Alleged relics are in circulation. There have even been sightings ... . — Christopher Hitchens

It's a truth universally accepted that a single woman without romantic or professional prospects must be in want of a husband." Stella sneered, paraphrasing an ironic Jane Austen quote.
"Come one, Stells." David tried to console her. They sat across from each other in Riley's kitchen, each with a cup of coffee that was quickly going from lukewarm to cold. "You don't honestly believe you don't have prospects."
She just shrugged. "I guess part of me thought it was always going to be me with you. But as I see, fairy tale's over."
David reached a hand between them and held tight to hers. "I'm sorry."
She pulled her hand away, praying she could keep boundaries. "You did everything right. I'm a moronic tool."
"No, you're not. You're an amazing person-"
"Blah blah blah." Stella interrupted. "You don't have to try to sell me on myself. I might be broken, but I know what I am. — Rebekah Martin

The longer they were together the more doubtful seemed the nature of his regard, and sometimes for a few painful minutes she believed it to be no more than friendship — Jane Austen

He turned toward the bookshelf, his back to her, saying nothing. He held out one hand and she gave him the Eliot to shelve. His voice was rough. "'Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.'"
Caroline stepped back into her heels. "I always thought she stole that line from Homer. He was all about the 'winged words' in the Odyssey, and then Eliot comes along with that line and everyone falls all over it."
Brooks seemed to be examining the shelf again. "I thought you liked George Eliot."
"I do. I think she was brilliant. But what does that line mean, anyway? Is it about influence? Writing? Distance?" She shrugged, wishing he would step away from the books and turn around.
"Maybe it means that sometimes what we say doesn't come across the way we mean it to." He finally turned, his lips tilted up a bit at the corners. "I always liked 'nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.' I think that's the perfect Eliot quote for the moment we head off to a garden party. — Mary Jane Hathaway

She understood him. He could not forgive her,-but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjest resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impuse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed. — Jane Austen

She is probably by this time as tired of me, as I am of her; but as she is too Polite and I am too civil to say so, our letters are still as frequent and affectionate as ever, and our Attachment as firm and sincere as when it first commenced. — Jane Austen

Friendship between a person capable of it, and such an amiable man as Mr. Bingley, was incomprehensible. She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think without — Jane Austen

She had been a friend and companion such as few possessed: intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of hers
one to whom she could speak every thought as it arose, and who had such an affection for her as could never find fault. — Jane Austen

Ah! what could we do but what we did! We sighed and fainted on the Sofa. — Jane Austen

Good company requires only birth, education, and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and good manners are essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing in good company; on the contrary, it will do very well. — Jane Austen

And their marriage, instead of depriving her of one friend, secured her two. — Jane Austen

say: maybe not in these words; maybe not in words at all, but in the purer language of thought; but yes, certainly, this is what was at the bottom of it all; because children are the vessels into which adults pour their poison, and it was the poison of grown-ups which did for us. — Salman Rushdie

Our time was most delightfully spent, in mutual Protestations of Freindship, and in vows of unalterable Love, in which we were secure from being interrupted, by intruding and disagreeable Visistors, as Augustus and Sophia had on their first Entrance in the Neighbourhood, taken due care to inform the surrounding Families, that as their happiness centered wholly in themselves, they wished for no other society. — Jane Austen

To explore different parts of yourself and different emotional lives ... not to hide from who you are but to actually explore who you are. — Ian Somerhalder

Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does. — Jane Austen

I felt that I admired you, but I told myself it was only friendship; and till I began to make comparisons between yourself and Lucy, I did not know how far I was got. — Jane Austen

Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first? — Jane Austen

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love. — Jane Austen

My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, 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. Good company requires only birth, education, and manners ( ... ) — Jane Austen

Their resemblance in good principles and good sense, in disposition and manner of thinking, would probably have been sufficient to unite them in friendship, without any other attraction; but their being in love with two sisters, and two sisters fond of each other, made that mutual regard inevitable and immediate, which might otherwise have waited the effect of time and judgment. — Jane Austen

You feel, I suppose, that, in losing Isabella, you lose half yourself: you feel a void in your heart which nothing else can occupy. Society is becoming irksome; and as for the amusements in which you were wont to share at Bath, the very idea of which without her is abhorrent. You would not, for instance, now go to a ball for the world. You feel that you have no longer any friend to whom you can speak with unreserve; on whose regard you can place dependence; or whose counsel, in any difficult, you could rely on. — Jane Austen

The progress of the friendship between Catherine and Isabella was quick as its beginning had been warm ... and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together. — Jane Austen

Though she liked him for his attentions, and thought them all, whether in friendship, admiration, or playfulness, extremely judicious, they were not winning back her heart. — Jane Austen

The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm. — Albert Camus

For to be sunk, though but for an hour in your esteem is a humiliation to which I know not how to submit. -Susan — Jane Austen

She closed her eyes, not really hearing the rest of what he murmured against her ear. All she knew was that it echoed everything that was in her heart. He was a surprise. Love was a surprise. And a surprise love between friends was the best kind of all. — Mary Jane Hathaway

As a proof of friendship, and of deference for her judgement, a great pleasure; — Jane Austen

I think TV is the only place left where you can have a midsize something. — Cynthia Nixon

When bodies talk, a hand brushing across a face declares love the tongue never speaks. When bodies talk, eyes make promises and lips keep them in the silent transfer of vows of the heart.
When bodies talk, a steady stare and firm glance becomes a rod of correction.
When bodies talk, they speak to us all in quiet whispers, heart-to-heart, and soul-to-soul, in soundless conversations. — Stella Payton

General benevolence, but not general friendship, make a man what he ought to be. — Jane Austen

The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering with what self-denying, generous friendship — Jane Austen

And yet, though desirous to be gone, she could not quit the mansion-house, or look an adieu to the cottage, with its black, dripping and comfortless veranda, or even notice through the misty glasses the last humble tenements of the village, without a saddened heart. Scenes had passed in Uppercross which made it precious. It stood the record of many sensations of pain, once severe, but now softened; and of some instances of relenting feeling, some breathings of friendship and reconciliation, which could never be looked for again, and which could never cease to be dear. She left it all behind her, all but the recollection that such things had been. — Jane Austen

Fanny's friendship was all that he had to cling to. — Jane Austen

He felt so tired, so weary of holding on with an iron grip to something he knew was slipping away.
"You can't make someone love you," he said.
Her hand stilled for a moment, the dirty tissue between her fingers. "True."
"Even if you love them so much you'd do anything, anything, for them." The truth of his words sank in. Speaking about it wasn't helping. It felt worse, like probing an open wound.
"Even if," his grandmasaid, nodding.
"Sometimes they pick another person to love when you've been right in front of them the whole time."
"It does happen." Her voice was soft.
"And then there's nothing left but to keep going as you were, pretending you never felt anything more than . . ."
"Friendship?" Her eyes met his and there was the faintest glimmer of tears.
"But I don't think I can have even that, anymore. — Mary Jane Hathaway

Andy Stasiuk was a newsman of the old school of front-page journalism - tough, knowledgeable, cynical, single-minded and fun. He covered the news as a happy warrior in an era of cutthroat editorial competition. — Donald Newhouse