Regency Era Quotes

“You may be a bit presumptuous, Miss Woodhart, and may lack certain habits of good etiquette. But in dancing, you exceed many—and in loveliness, I have known no equal.”
― Hannah Linder, Beneath His Silence

“heir eyes met. They both smiled, aware that they were in public, where anyone could see them on the street and in the window. But the rest of the world did not matter. For that moment, everything else vanished. He was there, she was there, no trouble could touch them.”
― Jeanette Watts, My Dearest Miss Fairfax

“Nothing said family more than shared soap.”
― K. Lyn Smith, The Artist’s Redemption

“I love stepping back in time”
― Frances McCarthy, The Colonel's Secret Rendezvous

“No, my love, if we miss our opportunity to break into [his] residence tonight, the consequences will be grave, for I’m convinced you would never let me forget it was my fault. Then you won’t invite me to help the next time you break into a gentleman’s apartments and I will be forced to sneak up on you whilst you are hiding in a dark corner, and your shout of alarm will alert the butler, which will cause a great ruckus involving Runners and magistrates. And that must be avoided at all costs.”
― Lynn Messina, A Nefarious Engagement

“He’d almost redoubled his efforts to charm her. Prepared a wink and a smile and a glib response but stopped. Every time he tried to charm her, she stiffened, so he’d given her the truth instead. 'I’ve nowhere else to be.' Surprisingly, it had worked.”
― K. Lyn Smith, The Artist’s Redemption

“It felt odd to have Regina laundering his clothes.
'Oh. If you’d rather clean them yourself . . .'
No, that didn’t sound right, either.”
― K. Lyn Smith, The Artist’s Redemption

“In his letter, he’d written three different words. 'You’re not alone.' They swirled inside her head, solid and deep and resonant in a way that ethereal 'I love you' could never be.”
― K. Lyn Smith, The Artist’s Redemption

“The young ladies might behave like they were smooth and sealed as alabaster statues underneath their clothes, but then they would drop their soiled shifts on the bedchamber floor, to be whisked away and cleansed, and would thus reveal themselves to be the frail, leaking, forked bodily creatures that they really were. Perhaps that was why they spoke instructions at her from behind an embroidery hoop or over the top of a book: she had scrubbed away their sweat, their stains, their monthly blood; she knew they weren’t as rarefied as angels, and so they just couldn’t look her in the eye.”
― Jo Baker, Longbourn

“I learned of the cruelty of man to his fellow man, and it did not come as any great surprise.”
― Chris Priestley, Mister Creecher

“Right, I totally forgot. I can’t wait to taste the flummery.”
“I’m not sure if I want to know what that is,” Manning said.
“It’s a sort of jelly, but made into a mold that is shaped like a castle or a tower or just a”—Debbie Mae wiggled one hand—“big wobbly thing. The ragout of veal will be a hit, I’m sure. And the Roman punch will have to be changed a little bit. It’s usually lemon water and hot syrup with a lot of rum.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Chili-Slaw Dogs

“I’m not Janessa. I want to celebrate my wedding, with friends and family, while having a really good time. If someone spills punch on my dress, I’m not going to cry about it.”
Lucy raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, I may cry just a bit but it’s only because it’s an Austen-era reproduction and anybody would feel the pain of destroying something so lovely.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread

“My cousin Rebecca teaches comparative English literature at Midlands College. She’s always seeing Austen in the world around her.”
“Exactly.” Theresa beamed. “Life is easier to understand when you think of it in terms of Pride and Prejudice. And all the others.”
“I didn’t realize there were that many others.” She thought for a moment. “Wait, I think I saw a bit of Emma on the BBC one year.”
“Wasn’t it amazing?” Theresa gripped her hand, blue eyes bright with excitement. “What was your favorite part? The dance? Or the proposal?”
She searched her memory for any bit of the plot line but came up empty. “I… I liked the hats,” she said.
Theresa stared for a moment, then burst into laughter. Lucy felt her face warming as curious guests turned to watch.
“You liked the hats. Oh, girl.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread

“Lucy saw the delighted expressions of the guests and knew they looked like something out an Austen movie. Well, at least Jem did. She giggled a little and cleared her throat.
“Something funny?” he murmured out of the corner of his mouth.
“Just thinking how you’re just like Captain Wentworth and I’m just like Tina Turner.”
― Mary Jane Hathaway, Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread

“Here is an unbroken space in which a woman and a man may with the full sanction of society, practically make love to each other with their eyes, their fleeting touch, and the display of their bodies. Emblem of marriage, indeed.”
― Laurie Viera Rigler, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

“I shall tell you everything you need to know about Lavinia, and you will...teach me how to dance."
His grin was wicked again. "Among other things.”
― Valerie Bowman, The Untamed Earl

“His kiss was like being on the back of a runaway horse, soaring over hills and galloping through streams and flying over logs in one spectacular jump after another, heart pounding and hair flying, breathless, exhilarated, and terrified.”
― Anna Bradley, A Season of Ruin

“I would offer to share my knowledge of locks, which, despite your mockery, is actually quite considerable, in a private tutorial, but I fear your aunt would insist on joining that as well,” he said, taking her hand and raising it to his lips.”
― Lynn Messina, A Nefarious Engagement

“When taking a suitor to task for not demonstrating sufficient impatience to declare himself so as to scale the wall outside your bedchamber and enter your room through the window, which, you will recall, you did last night,” he said with conversational ease as if arriving to take tea in her sitting room, “it’s commonly accepted courtesy to have a window through which he may enter. In the absence of just such an aperture, I was forced to sneak into the house through the front door.”
― Lynn Messina, A Nefarious Engagement

“I don't think I could bear to say goodbye after I let you into my heart.
- John Easton from Rose Through Time”
― Harmke Buursma, Rose Through Time

“Above his head, the drip had spread, dark and blooming across the plaster. A spider watched him from a gauzy web above the washstand. Light from his shrinking candle reflected in the grime on the window. He was pretty sure there was something crawling in his mattress. His stomach growled its displeasure, and somewhere a pig slept on his nightshirt. But for some reason, he was pleased.”
― K. Lyn Smith, The Artist’s Redemption

“He was a river to her sandstone resolution. He flowed and she eroded.”
― K. Lyn Smith, The Artist’s Redemption

“What was the point of all that education if at the end of it you came out speaking such drivel?”
― Chris Priestley, Mister Creecher

“What must it be like? Billy thought. What must it be like to be happy?”
― Chris Priestley, Mister Creecher

“it strikes me that the whole world runs on theft of one kind or another.”
― Chris Priestley, Mister Creecher

“She wasn’t exactly sure what Lord Waverly saw in her work, but that was the beauty of art. Everyone saw something a little different.”
― Laura Rollins, A Pocket of Stars

“Annabella was like a light, a beam of pure joy. She radiated kindness and creativity. She helped him sort through his struggles, and she ignited something inside him no one else had.”
― Laura Rollins, A Pocket of Stars

“Die eine Hälfte der Welt begreift nicht, worüber sich die andere Hälfte freut.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“Oh, natürlich", rief Emma, "einem Mann ist es immer unverständlich, daß eine Frau einen Heiratsantrag ablehnt. Ein Mann bildet sich immer ein, daß eine Frau den ersten besten nimmt, der sie fragt.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“I realize we only met over a plate of lemon tarts and a pistol, but really, you ought to have written sooner.”
― Katelyn Rae, What Truth Reveals: A Pride & Prejudice Variation