Books Quote by Jane Austen

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." ~ Jane Austen”

— Lisa Lim

“Our great novelists, though experts on indignity and assault, on loneliness and terror, tend to avoid treating the passionate encounter of a man and…

— Leslie Fiedler

“When a woman reads a romance novel, she is putting her own pleasure first. That small act of rebellion is perceived as a threat…

— Maya Rodale

[Preface to second edition:] ... I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the…

— Anne Bronte

Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them-almost all women; a vast number of clever, hardheaded men.

— William Makepeace Thackeray

“and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut…

— Jane Austen

“...no mind ever grew fat on a diet of novels. The pleasure which they occasionally offer is far too heavily paid for: they undermine…

— Elias Canetti

I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels…

— Anne Bronte

“Why are heroines in romantic novels—despite their cleanliness and enviable lifestyles—so unlikeable? It’s like they’ve been hit with a vanilla ninny stick, devoid of…

— Penny Reid

The novel is just fine: It's novelists who aren't doing so well.

— Russell Smith

Anyone who reads advice books about romance has one problem to begin with: bad taste in literature.

— Roger Ebert

The novelist must be his own most harsh critic and also his own most loving admirer and about both he must say nothing.

— Angus Wilson