“It was like being in a Jane Austen novel, but one with far less clothing.”

— Terry Pratchett , book Nation

Source: Nation

Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

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Terry Pratchett 796

English author 1948–2015

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“Every housemaid expects at least once a week as much excitement as would have lasted a Jane Austen heroine throughout a whole novel.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Bertrand Russell, in The Conquest of Happiness (1930), Ch. 4: Boredom and excitement

“Which brings us again, after this long way about, to Jane Austen and her novels, and that troublesome question about them. She was great and they were beautiful, because she and they were honest, and dealt with nature nearly a hundred years ago as realism deals with it to-day. Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material, and Jane Austen was the first and the last of the English novelists to treat material with entire truthfulness. Because she did this, she remains the most artistic of the English novelists, and alone worthy to be matched with the great Scandinavian and Slavic and Latin artists.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

William Dean Howells, Criticism and Fiction (1891), Chapter 15

“The expression one wears on one's face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one's back.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

“Most works in realism tell a succession of such abject truths; they are deeply in earnest, every detail is true, and yet the whole finally tumbles to the ground — true but without significance. How did Jane Austen save her novels from that danger? They appear to be compact of abject truth. Their events are excruciatingly unimportant; and yet, with R. Crusoe, they will probably outlast all Fielding, Scott, George Elliot, Thackeray, and Dickens. The art is so consummate that the secret is hidden; peer at them as hard as one may; shake them; take them apart; one cannot see how it is done.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Thornton Wilder, A preface for Our Town (1938)

“I write about violence as naturally as Jane Austen wrote about manners. Violence shapes and obsesses our society, and if we do not stop being violent we have no future. People who do not want writers to write about violence want to stop them writing about us and our time. It would be immoral not to write about violence.”

Edward Bond (1934) English writer best known as a dramatist

Preface to Lear (1972; London: Methuen, 1983) p. lvii

“Before I came, I went to visit Jane Austen's grave in Winchester Cathedral to pay my respects, you know, and tell her about the grosses. [Laughter] I don't know how she would react to an evening like this, but I do hope -- I do hope she knows how big she is in Uruguay.”

Emma Thompson (1959) British actress and writer

68th Academy Awards speech (1996)

“The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous.
I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen. Being able to sit at home in the parsonage and your books would be very famous and occasionally you would correspond with the Prince of Wales's secretary.
You know I didn't think they'd rake through my bins, I didn't expect to be photographed on the beach through long lenses. I never dreamt it would impact my daughter's life negatively, which at times it has.”

Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series

As quoted in an interview with Jeremy Paxman, on Newsnight, as quoted in 'Harry is a lot, lot, lot angrier in this book' in The Telegraph (20 June 2003) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/fictionreviews/3596993/Harry-is-a-lot-lot-lot-angrier-in-this-book.html)
2000s

“I try to live with few rules, but one that I’ve adopted over the years is this: if it’s down to me being screwed up, or everybody else being screwed up, it is far, far, far more likely that I’m the one who’s screwed up.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 6, “You’re Wrong About Everything (But So Am I)” (pp. 145-146)

“It's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood.”

Lionel Shriver book We Need to Talk About Kevin

Source: We Need to Talk About Kevin

“It was like being in a Jane Austen novel, but one with far less clothing.”

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Terry Pratchett 796

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