You have two birth-places. You have the place where you were really born and then you have a place of predilection where you really wake up to reality.

Everyone loathes his own country and countrymen if he is any sort of artist.

It's only with great vulgarity that you can achieve real refinement, only out of bawdy that you can get tenderness.

Old age is an insult. It's like being smacked.

Lawrence Durrell

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn?

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.

One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.

One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound.

To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.

Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.

Jane Austen |