Catherine Reef > Quotes

“Pride and Prejudice opens with one of the most famous sentences ever written: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." With these words, Jane Austen announced to her readers that they were about to meet such a man and the people eager to marry him off. What was more, they were going to have fun. The dark cynicism of Sense and Sensibility was largely gone, blown away by a clean, fresh wind.”
― Catherine Reef, Jane Austen: A Life Revealed

“So she asked herself two questions. First, 'Do I love him as much as a woman ought to love the man she married?' And second, 'Am I the person best qualified to make him happy?' The answer to both questions was no. She replied to Henry's letter, turning him down. 'You do not know me; I am not the serious, grave, cool-headed individual you suppose... I will never for the sake of attaining the distinction of matrimony and escaping the stigma of an old maid take a worthy man whom I am conscious I cannot render happy.”
― Catherine Reef, The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne

“The critic George Henry Lewes asked, 'Does it never strike these delightful creatures that their little fingers were meant to be kissed, not to be inked?”
― Catherine Reef, The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne