I just finished Pride and Prejudice.

Dreamy Jennifer…now I know exactly why I fell in love with my John. Alas… I never knew my perfect romance was from a Jane Austen novel, where have I been hiding? And thank you for pointing this out to me.

How much do I love this book? This book catapulted itself off of the shelf and instantly became one of the most endearing, delightful novels I will ever read. An absolute favorite from now until the end of time. I must invest in my very own copy soon!

“We must not be so ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man to always be so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does.”

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“We do not suffer by accident. It does not often happen that the inference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune to think no more of a girl, whom he was violently in love with only a few days before.”

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“Where there is affection, young people are seldom withheld by immediate want of fortune, from entering into engagements with each other, how can I promise to be wiser than so many of my fellow creatures if I am tempted, or how am I even to know that it would be wisdom to resist?”

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“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

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“Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson; that loss of virtue in a female is irreversible- that one false step involves her in endless ruin- that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful- and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.”

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“She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man, who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both; by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved, and from his judgment, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.”

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“I often think that there is nothing so bad as parting with one’s friends. One seems so forlorn without them.”

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“If you will thank me, let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you, might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe, I thought only of you.”

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“Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

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“But for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretentious to please a woman worthy of being pleased.”

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“She wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. ‘How could you begin’ said she. ‘I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning, but what could set you off in the first place?”

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

‘The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them, Had you not been really amiable you would have hated me for it; but in spite of the pains you took to disguise yourself, your feelings were always noble and just; and in your heart, you thoroughly despised the persons who so assiduously courted you. There- I have saved you the trouble of accounting for it; and really all things considered, I begin to think it perfectly reasonable. To be sure, you knew no actual good of me- but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love.”