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“Sometimes she wished for someone she could tell about her problems, just to be able to say, ‘I’m in love with a man and I can’t have him.�� But that would only lead to questions she couldn’t answer, so she kept the secret and the pain inside, hoping someday she would no longer feel as if half of her were missing.”
― Abigail Reynolds, The Man Who Loved Pride & Prejudice: A Modern Love Story with a Jane Austen Twist

“In vain have I 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.”
― Jane Austen, Pride And Prejudice

“It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting "Cathy" and banging your head against a tree.”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

“I will not fall for any of the following: alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, people with girlfriends or wives, misogynists, megalomanics, chauvists, emotional fuckwits or freeloaders, perverts.”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

“Can officially confirm that the way to a man's heart these days is not through beauty, food, sex, or alluringness of character, but merely the ability to seem not very interested in him.”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

“She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“It starts so young, and I'm angry about that. The garbage we're taught. About love, about what's "romantic." Look at so many of the so-called romantic figures in books and movies. Do we ever stop and think how many of them would cause serious and drastic unhappiness after The End? Why are sick and dangerous personality types so often shown a passionate and tragic and something to be longed for when those are the very ones you should run for your life from? Think about it. Heathcliff. Romeo. Don Juan. Jay Gatsby. Rochester. Mr. Darcy. From the rigid control freak in The Sound of Music to all the bad boys some woman goes running to the airport to catch in the last minute of every romantic comedy. She should let him leave. Your time is so valuable, and look at these guys--depressive and moody and violent and immature and self-centered. And what about the big daddy of them all, Prince Charming? What was his secret life? We dont know anything about him, other then he looks good and comes to the rescue.”
― Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming

“That is such crap. How dare you be so fraudulently flirtatious, cowardly and dysfunctional? I am not interested in emotional fuckwittage. Goodbye.”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

“Tom has a theory that homosexuals and single women in their thirties have natural bonding: both being accustomed to disappointing their parents and being treated as freaks by society.”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

“I will not get upset over men, but instead be poised and cool ice-queen.”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary

“Junction nineteen! Una, she came off at Junction nineteen! You've added an hour to your journey before you even started. Come on, let's get you a drink. How's your love life, anyway?"

Oh GOD. Why can't married people understand that this is no longer a polite question to ask? We wouldn't rush up to THEM and roar, "How's your marriage going? Still having sex?" Everyone knows that dating in your thirties is not the happy-go-lucky free-for-it-all it was when you were twenty-two and that the honest answer is more likely to be, "Actually, last night my married lover appeared wearing suspenders and a darling little Angora crop-top, told me he was gay/a sex addict/a narcotic addict/a commitment phobic and beat me up with a dildo," than, "Super, thanks.”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

“Thank you, Daniel, that is very good to know. But if staying here means working within 10 yards of you, frankly, I'd rather have a job wiping Saddam Hussein's arse.”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

“Resolution number one: Obviously will lose twenty pounds. Number two: Always put last night's panties in the laundry basket. Equally important, will find sensible boyfriend to go out with and not continue to form romantic attachments to any of the following: alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobic's, peeping toms, megalomaniacs, emotional fuckwits or perverts. And especially will not fantasize about a particular person who embodies all these things”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

“Being a woman is worse than being a farmer there is so much harvesting and crop spraying to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms shaved, eyebrows plucked, feet pumiced, skin exfoliated and moisturised, spots cleansed, roots dyed, eyelashes tinted, nails filed, cellulite massaged, stomach muscles exercised.

The whole performance is so highly tuned you only need to neglect it for a few days for the whole thing to go to seed. Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if left to revert to nature �� with a full beard and handlebar moustache on each shin Dennis Healey eyebrows face a graveyard of dead skin cells spots erupting long curly fingernails like Struwelpeter blind as bat and stupid runt of species as no contact lenses flabby body flobbering around. Ugh ugh. Is it any wonder girls have no confidence?”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

“He had a dashing smile. It nearly dashed right off his face.”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“What are you doing?"
"Ya!" said Jane, whirling around, her hands held up menacingly.
It was Mr. Nobley with coat, hat, and cane, watching her with wide eyes. Jane took several quick (but oh so casual) steps away from Martin's window.
"Um, did I just say, 'Ya'?"
"You just said 'Ya,'" he confirmed. "If I am not mistaken, it was a battle cry, warning that you were about to attack me.
I, uh..." She stopped to laugh. "I wasn't aware until this precise and awkward moment that when startled in a startled in a strange place, my instincts would have me pretend to be a ninja.”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“Seriously, a thirty-something woman shouldn't be daydreaming about a fictional character in a two-hundred-year-old world to the point where it interfered with her very real and much more important life and relationships. Of course she shouldn't. ”
― Shannon Hale (Austenland)

“For Colin Firth:
You're a really great guy, but I'm married, so I think we should just be friends.”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“If you were a woman, all I'd have to say is 'Colin Firth in a wet shirt' and you'd say 'Ah.”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“Miss Erstwhile: “It is such a relief, Mr. Nobley, to already know that you find this exercise vulgar and your partner unworthy. It saves us the idle chitchat.��
Mr. Nobley: “And yet you chat away.”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“What are you doing?��
Ya!�� said Jane, whirling around, her hands held up menacingly.
It was Mr. Nobley with coat, hat, and cane, watching her with wide eyes. Jane took several quick (but oh so casual) steps away from Martin’s window.
Um, did I just say, ‘Ya��?��
You just said ‘Ya,”�� he confirmed. “If I am not mistaken, it was a battle cry, warning that you were about to attack me.��
I, uh. . .�� She stopped to laugh. “I wasn’t aware until this precise and awkward moment that when startled in a strange place, my instincts would have me pretend to be a ninja.��

***

Surely a young beauty like yourself is lonely, too. It can be part of the game, if you like.��
Get off,�� she said, thoroughly done with this.
His answer was to lean in closer. So she kneed him in groin. As hard as she could.
Aw, ow, dammit!�� He doubled over and thudded onto knees.
Jane brushed off her knee, feeling like it had touched son thing dirty. “Aw, ow, dammit indeed! What’re you thinking?��
Jane heard hurried footsteps coming down the stairs. It Mr. Nobley.
Miss Erstwhile!�� He was barefoot in his breeches, his shirt untucked. He glanced down at the groaning man. “Sir Templeton!��
Ow, she kicked me,�� said Sir Templeton.
Kneed him, I kneed him,�� Jane said. “I don’t kick. Not even when 1m a ninja.��
Mr. Nobley stood a moment in silence, looking over the scene. “I hope you
remembered to shout ‘Ya�� when taking him down. I hear that is very effective.��
I’m afraid I neglected that bit, but I’ll certainly ‘ya�� from here to London if he ever touches me again.”
― Shannon Hale

“Miss Hayes, have you stopped to consider that you might have this all backward? That in fact you are my fantasy?”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“Make haste�� Jane added, just because she always wanted to say that.”
― Shannon Hale

“I'm not hopeless, that's the problem. I'm too hopeful, if anything ... I'm so thick-headed it's taken me this long to give up on men, but I can't give up completely, you know? So I ... I channel all my hope into an idea, to someone who can't reject me because he isn't real!”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“I think you just complimented me," said Jane. "You should take better care next time."
The music had started, the couples had begun a promenade, but Mr. Nobley paused to hold Jane's arm and whisper, "Jane Erstwhile, if I never had to speak with another human being but you, I would die a happy man. I would that these people, the music, the food and foolishness all disappeared and left us alone. I would never tire of looking at you or listening to you." He took a breath. "There. That compliment was on purpose. I swear I will never idly compliment you again."
Jane's mouth was dry. All she could think to say was, "But... but surely you wouldn't banish all the food."
He considered, then nodded once. "Right. We will keep the food. We will have a picnic."
And he spun her into the middle of the dance.”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“Well do I remember the first night we met, how you questioned my opinion that first impressions are perfect. You were right to do so, of course, but even then I suspected what I've come to believe most passionately these past weeks: from that first moment, I knew you were a dangerous woman, and I was in great peril of falling in love."
She thought she should say something witty here. She said, "Really?”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“[Boyfriend #8] He left for an internship in Guatamala, a step towards his future career in international affairs. They both cried at the airport. He returned 6 months later and, didn't call. Last year, Jane heard that Bobby, 'Robert' now, was running for Congress. At a recent polling, he wasn't doing so hot in the 30-something-jilted-female demographic.”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“Colonel Andrews was fair-haired with a decent set of shoulders and a very ready smile. He could not seem more pleased to see her, bowing without removing his gaze from her face.
'What a pleasure. A very, pleasant pleasure, indeed.'
The way his tone slid over his words gave him a delightful, roguish appeal that made Jane want to kiss him on the spot. Or the lips. Whichever was closer.”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour could make all the difference.”
― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby

“Because you can never go from going out to being friends, just like that. It's a lie. It's just something that people say they'll do to take the permanence out of a breakup. And someone always takes it to mean more than it does, and then is hurt even more when, inevitably, said ‘friendly' relationship is still a major step down from the previous relationship, and it's like breaking up all over again. But messier.”
― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby