Jane Eyre What If Quotes & Sayings

I started reading seriously at seven or eight, books about myths and legends, the Narnia series. By the time I was 11, I had read all the children's books in my local library, so I moved on to 'Jane Eyre.' What I loved about Jane Eyre was that she didn't rely on her looks but her character. She had a spirit nobody could break. — Malorie Blackman

In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre? — Charlotte Bronte

I swung the door open and relaxed. She wasn't there. I stepped in and shut the door behind me. I had promised God I wouldn't touch anything. I'd just look at what was lying around. If Jane Eyre had only looked around a little, she might have saved herself a lot of heartache. — Annie Barrows

Though I no longer presumed to have a conscience, I have never once lacked feelings. — Lyndsay Faye

Courtship? Had I said courtship? What did I think, that this was Jane freakin' Eyre? — Terri Farley

Any heroine worth reading about will one day find herself on the moors of a devastating personal crisis. For the most part, we must traverse them alone.
Chapter 10 Steadfastness Jane Eyre — Erin Blakemore

The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived. — Emily Bronte

I told him then that I loved him.
"Because I've read Jane Eyre?" he asked incredulously. "Not because I realized the voice really was yours and ran down the hill to find you?"
"Both," I told him. "But mostly because of Jane Eyre. — Carol Goodman

One aspect of Samantha's personality that drove me nuts was her tendency to reveal herself via literary allusions. She called it a quirk, but it was more of a compulsion. Her mother was Lady Macbeth; her father, Big Daddy. An uncle she liked was Mr. Micawber, a favorite governess, Jane Eyre; a doting professor, Mr. Chips.
This curious habit of hers quickly made the voyage from eccentric to bizarre when she began to invoke the names of literary characters to describe moments in our relationship. When she thought I was treating her rudely, she called me Wolf Larsen; if I was standoffish, I was Mr. Darcy; when I dressed too shabbily, I was Tom Joad.
Once, in bed, she yelled out the name Victor as she approached orgasm. I assumed she was referring to Victor Hugo because she'd been reading 'Les Miserables.'. It didn't really bother me that much though it was a little odd being with a woman who thought she was having sex with a dead French author. — John Blumenthal

Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear. — Charlotte Bronte

As a kid, I really loved 'Jane Eyre,' I used to fantasise that the past was so much better and my lifetime was crap. — Romola Garai

I recognized myself in Jane Eyre. It amazes me how many white people can't read themselves in black characters. I didn't feel any separation between me and Jane. We were tight. — Alice Walker

Joan spoke kindly, explaining patiently, as he always patiently explained things to her. It's like in that book you gave me, Jane Eyre. Jane says she isn't a bird caught in a net. Instead she's a human being with an independent will and that she has a treasure inside her that will keep her alive, no matter if anything bad happens. — Cate Campbell Beatty

Charlotte Bronte borrowed liberally and sloppily from Joseph Sheridan le Fanu when penning Jane Eyre. The originality of this classic novel is tarnished as a result. — Andrew Barger

Of course I recognized it. How could I not, for I had read it goodness knows how many times. 'Jane Eyre,' I said wonderingly.
'You recognized it? Yes, it is. I asked a man in a library. It's by Charlotte someone. She had a lot of sisters, apparently. — Diane Setterfield

Yet there was always in me, even when I was very small, the sense that I ought to be somewhere else. And wander I did, although, in my everyday life, I had nowhere to go and no imaginable reason on earth why I should want to leave. The buses took to the interstate without me, the trains sped by. So I wandered the world through books. I went to Victorian England in the pages of 'Middlemarch' and 'A little Princess', and to Saint Petersburg before the fall of the tsar with 'Anna Karenina'. I went to Tara, and Manderley, and Thornfield Hall, all those great houses, with their high ceilings and high drama, as I read 'Gone with the Wind', 'Rebecca' and 'Jane Eyre'. — Anna Quindlen

Off course, if Steven had a wife in the attic, like Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre, that, I thought, would be another matter entirely. But the very idea made me laugh. His building had no attic, and his one small closet couldn't even hold a skeleton. It was too packed with clothes, his and mine. — Lisa Tucker

I love 'Jane Eyre,' and I love the Bronte sisters. I actually didn't read any of them until I was in college, so I don't have quite the same connection with them that I think a lot of women do. — Mallory Ortberg

But I tell you
and mark my words
you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current ... — Charlotte Bronte

Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look. — Charlotte Bronte

Growing up, I mostly read comic books and sci-fi. Then I discovered the book 'Jane Eyre' by Jane Austen. It introduced me to the world of romance, which I have since never left. Also, the world of the first-person narrative. — Meg Cabot

Then you and I should bid good-bye for a little while?"
I suppose so, sir."
And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach me; I'm not quite up to it."
They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer."
Then say it."
Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present."
What must I say?"
The same, if you like, sir."
Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?"
Yes."
It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I should like something else: a little addition to the rite. If one shook hands for instance; but no
that would not content me either. So you'll do nothing more than say Farwell, Jane?"
It is enough, sir; as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty word as in many."
Very likely; but it is blank and cool
'Farewell. — Charlotte Bronte

The case is very plain before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty land - Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, Yes - and yet I shudder. — Charlotte Bronte

She said she loved this place. This is the last she'll see of it. I'll watch for one tear, one human tear. Not that blank hating moonstruck face. I'll listen ... If she says good-bye perhaps adieu. Adieu
like those old-time songs she sang. Always adieu (and all the songs say it). If she too says it, or weeps, I'll take her in my arms, my lunatic. She's mad but mine, mine. What will I care for gods or devils or for Fate itself. If she smiles or weeps or both. For me.
Antoinetta
I can be gentle too. Hide your face. Hide yourself but in my arms. You'll soon see how gentle. My lunatic. My mad girl. — Jean Rhys

It's not all 'Jane Eyre' out there. In her sweet, honorable, slightly passive-aggressive way, Jane was as perfect as a protagonist can get while remaining interesting; in fact, she's one of my favorites. But most characters are more morally ambiguous. — Susan Isaacs

I loved him very much - more than I could trust myself to say - more than words had power to express.
- Jane Eyre — Charlotte Bronte

Just like in Jane Eyre, the moral of the story would be 'never forget that you're nothing but a sad sausage. — Fanny Britt

He saw nature - he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of the field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam - of the landscape before us; of the weather round us and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye. — Charlotte Bronte

Mr. Rochester : Your gaze is very direct, Miss Eyre. Do you think me handsome?
Jane Eyre: No, sir. — Charlotte Bronte

His presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire. — Charlotte Bronte

My hips bristle with totems and talismans, proof that I am not simply a character in a fixed book or film. I am no single narrative. As neither Rebecca de Winter nor Jane Eyre, I am free to revise my story, to reinvent myself, my world, at any given moment. Advancing beside Archer, I am resplendent in my savage finery of seized power. In my service charge the collected blackguards of a dozen tyrants now dispatched to a lesser oblivion. My fingers, stained crimson with the blood of despots, are not the fingers which paged through the paper lives of helpless romantic heroines. No more am I a passive damsel who waits for circumstance to decide her fate; now have I become the scalawag, the swashbuckler, the Heathcliff of my dreams bent on rescuing myself. For now do I embody all the traits I had so hoped to find in Goran. Meaning: No longer am I limited. — Chuck Palahniuk

I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give. — Charlotte Bronte

Strong features, firm, grim mouth, - all energy, decision, will, - were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite mastered me — Charlotte Bronte

I will attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her hair and I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil.'
'And then you won't know me, sir, and I shall not be your Jane Eyre any longer, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket, -a jay in borrowed plumes. I would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in stage-trappings, as myself clad in a court-lady's robe; and I don't call you handsome,sir, though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you. Don't flatter me. — Charlotte Bronte

Reading was such a formative part of my childhood (along with 'Loony Tunes'), that it is difficult to pin point the most influential book. But, under an interrogation light I would probably have to say 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

When I was a teenager, I used to love the Bronte books, 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Jane Eyre.' In those books, the women do usually manage to heal the men, but in life, I've found it's often the woman gets wounded. Instead of healing a man, she gets affected by his cruelty. — Jocelyn Moorhouse

'Jane Eyre' must have been something I read six or seven times as an early adolescent. And 'Kristin Lavransdatter,' and 'Lorna Doone' when I was younger. My parents had a pretty rich library, no jackets on any of the books, so no descriptions. You just pulled something off the shelf and started to read it. — Sue Miller

Let me hasten to add that I am not at all like Jane Eyre, who must have given hope to so many plain women who tell their stories in the first person, nor have I ever thought of myself as being like her. — Barbara Pym

'Sin Nombre' was almost like the adolescent version of 'Jane Eyre.' 'Jane Eyre' sort of picks up where 'Sin Nombre' ends. It's about this girl who starts off on her own at her lowest point of despair, and she figures out how she got there. — Cary Fukunaga

For I too liked reading, thought of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial. — Charlotte Bronte