Top 160 Jane Quotes

If you look at my personal library, you will notice that it ranges from Henry James to Steig Larsson, from Margaret Atwood to Max Hastings. There’s Jane Austen and Tom Perrotta and volumes of letters from Civil War privates. It’s pretty eclectic.

‘Bridgerton’ is something a bit like if Jane Austen met Gossip Girl’ and maybe like 45 Shades of Grey.’

It’s a different thing to write a love story now than in the time of Jane Austen, Eliot, or Tolstoy. One of the problems is that once divorce is possible, once break-ups are possible, it can all become a little less momentous.

It was only when I saw films in my early 20s by Jane Campion, Mira Nair, Sally Potter and Kathryn Bigelow, I started to think, ‘Oh, it’s possible.’ I dared to suggest that I wanted to train to be a film director.

When Goldie Hawn wrote her memoirs, no one said Goldie Hawn was snitching. When Jane Fonda wrote her memoirs, no one said Jane Fonda was snitching.

When I filmed ‘Live And Let Die’ with Jane Seymour, I kept my socks on in bed, as it was such a cold set.

‘Jane Eyre’ was one of those films that I was familiar with as a kid, and I always enjoyed the story.

Jane Austen is very amusing.

A lot of the songs in ‘See Jane Sing!’ are pulled straight from the kitchen table and my parents harmonizing together.

No, I chose the name Jane Seymour because I was doing my first film, ‘Oh! What a Lovely War,’ and one of the top agents in England spotted me dancing in the chorus. I was a singer and dancer in that movie with Maggie Smith, um, and he told me he couldn’t sell me as Joyce Penelope Willomena Frankenburger.

Deep in my cortex, the year is divided into reading seasons. The period from mid-October to Christmas, for instance, is ‘ghost story’ time, while Jane Austen and P. G. Wodehouse pretty much own April and May.

Words change over time. ‘Condescending,’ for instance, was once a good thing to be. It meant that a person was willing to interact politely with people of lower social ranks. In Jane Austen’s world, a lady praised for her condescension was receiving a sincere compliment.

I’m named after Jane Austen’s Emma, and I’ve always been able to relate to her. She’s strong, confident but quite tactless.

Losing Jane was tragic and I thought I’d never get married again, or have more children, or would even ever want to.

I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.

I’m like Jane Austen – I work on the corner of the dining table.

I’ve always loved books by the Bronte sisters. I love Jane Austen, too. I’m more influenced by people like her than by pop culture.

I think it’s about as likely Jane Austen was gay as that she was found out to be a man.

I am devastated by the loss of my beautiful wife Jane. She was my best friend.

The family is the focal point of our existence. And up until Jane and Lucy’s death, there were always 16 of us together for Christmas.

To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a married man in possession of a vast fortune must be in want of a newer, younger wife.

I once rented the Georgian town house that Jane Austen lived in down by the Holburne Museum – so I lived in Jane Austen’s house, and slept in Jane Austen’s bedroom. You can walk along these Georgian streets and it’s like you’re in a Jane Austen period drama.

Well, every now and then I would hear the preposterous notion that that Jane Pauley sounds like Barbara Walters. Like I could if I tried?

You’re never safe in ‘Jane the Virgin;’ that’s what I’ll say. You’re never safe on a telenovela, that’s for darn sure, and you’re never safe on ‘Jane the Virgin.’

I grew up watching period dramas, as we all did in the 1980s and ’90s – endless adaptations of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens – and I loved them. But I never saw anyone like me in them, so I decided to find a story to erode the excuses for me not doing one.

From an early age, I was very interested in all things fashion… and the change from tomboy to ultrafeminine glamour in old films. There was a Doris Day film I loved: ‘Calamity Jane.’

I grew up on Jane Austen novels and was a massive literature fanatic when I was a kid – I read everything I could get my hands on.

I was born and brought up in Liverpool with my clever little sister Jemma, who is 14 and wants to be a vet. My mum Jane is an administrator and my dad Peter is a taxi driver.

Life’s short, so if you’re going to spend months doing something, it’s gotta be pretty special… But I’m very happy to enter my Baby Jane years, and hopefully segue into the Ruth Gordon years.

When I was in my twenties, I strongly identified with Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ – her human failings mixed with a desire to do good.

For me, the most exciting thing is that Jane Campion is a woman we can all really look up to. She doesn’t have the body of work that some other directors do – no woman director does – but her work is so consistently original, wonderful, masterful.

I’m a Jane Austen/Jane Eyre kind of girl.

‘Pride and Prejudice’ – perhaps more than any other Jane Austen book – is engrained in our literary consciousness.

I could never understand the attraction of Bette Davis. I always preferred Jane Russell.

I’m the ayatollah of the Jane Austen fan base! I want to lead the fan base, not be attacked and devoured by the fan base.

I love ‘Jane Eyre,’ and I love the Bronte sisters. I actually didn’t read any of them until I was in college, so I don’t have quite the same connection with them that I think a lot of women do.

Reading was such a formative part of my childhood (along with ‘Loony Tunes’), that it is difficult to pin point the most influential book. But, under an interrogation light I would probably have to say ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte.

I used the name Jane Roe because I didn’t want my personal name to be involved in it.

I’ve been fortunate in that I never actually read any Jane Austen until I was thirty, thus sparing myself several decades of the unhappiness of having no new Jane Austen novels to read.

I was in band that played mostly covers for a while, and the bands that we would cover were, like, the alternative rock bands of that day: we did a Jane’s Addiction song and a Faith No More song. All the kind of alternative radio of that time, the late ’80s, basically.

Jane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire.

I identify entirely with Jane Austen’s point of view, on everything.

I was really glad to meet Jane Clark because it did give me an insight. I couldn’t imagine what kind of woman she was. I was hugely impressed by her energy, straightforward nature and enthusiasm for life.

Jane Lynch is the nicest person I’ve ever worked with.

When my career started on daytime soaps, those characters usually didn’t have much depth to them. The main goal was to memorize my lines in order to film efficiently the next day. But with ‘Jane The Virgin,’ the writing is strong, and everything is intentional.

I’ve been having a 20-plus year conversation with black women, starting with ‘Girlfriends,’ moving through ‘The Game,’ ‘Being Mary Jane,’ even ‘Sparkle.’

I’ve never had a study in my life. I’m like Jane Austen – I work on the corner of the dining table.

My grandmother is bilingual, but she preferred to speak Spanish at home, so she would speak to us in Spanish, and everyone responded in English, sort of like what happens on ‘Jane.’

The web is just another stunning point in the two-hundred-thousand-year history of human beings on earth. The taming of fire; the discovery of penicillin; the publication of ‘Jane Eyre’ – add anything you like.

I wish I had gone to Cannes with a film, but I had gone there for L’Oreal Pakistan. I cannot tell you the people that I was around, from Helen Mirren to Jane Fonda. It was a proud moment on the red carpet when they announced my name and said ‘Mahira Khan from Pakistan.’

I would go in the university stacks and pull out books like ‘Jane’s Fighting Aircraft of World War II’ when I was 12 or something, and I’d spend hours reading about the engines in some of those planes.

I was influenced by big, strong voices – writers like Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, Jane Bowles; gay writers like Ed White, Michael Cunningham, Allen Hollinghurst; and contemporary lesbian writers, like Dorothy Allison.

I love ‘Modern Family.’ And I love ‘Glee’ – the singing, the music – Jane Lynch just kills me.

Fortunately… ‘With Fi and Jane’ features BBC veterans Fi Glover and Jane Garvey sitting in the BBC cafe, nattering about whatever interests them.

I’ve done my share of period stuff. I’m not sure why, but people say I have a period face. The bread and butter of British TV is Jane Austen adaptations and bridges and bonnets and boats and horses.

I do want to write about Jane Whitefield again, but only when I have a good enough idea – something I’ve figured out about her that’s news and that’s worth a reader’s time.

I love to direct my daughter, and act with her, and we both want to work with Jane again.

I learned so much from Jane Lynch. She was the funniest and most talented person. She taught me so much about being a performer.