I pay very little regard...to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.
Jane AustenRead
Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of the mouths of other people.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Jane Austen humorously critiques Walter Scott's success as a novelist, suggesting he monopolizes literary fame.
In this quote, Jane Austen expresses a tongue-in-cheek concern about Walter Scott's prowess in writing novels, highlighting how his achievements in poetry seem abundant, yet he encroaches upon the territory of other writers. She humorously complains that by succeeding in yet another genre, Scott is unfairly depriving other authors of the opportunity to gain recognition and success in the field of novel writing.
Themes
LiteratureSuccessHumorMonopolyOpportunity
In practice
Example use cases
In a literary discussion about the impact of famous authors on emerging writers.
More from Jane Austen
All quotes →Nobody could catch cold by the sea; nobody wanted appetite by the sea; nobody wanted spirits; nobody wanted strength. Sea air was healing, softening, relaxing - fortifying and bracing - seemingly just as was wanted - sometimes one, sometimes the other. If the sea breeze failed, the seabath was the certain corrective; and where bathing disagreed, the sea air alone was evidently designed by nature for the cure.
Jane AustenRead
He certainly is very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person.
Jane AustenRead
A person who is knowingly bent on bad behavior, gets upset when better behavior is expected of them.
Jane AustenRead
You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.
Jane AustenRead
She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.
Jane AustenRead
Similar quotes
All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
Michel De MontaigneRead
In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel - that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little... But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so close-knit a group of people, nor within so narrow a frame of logic. This was inevitable because the demand was for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Raymond ChandlerRead
Size matters in fiction, but so does lack of size. Everything else being equal, fat novels tend to be perceived as serious, very thin ones as more honest, more real. Writers address these age-old expectations by filling their big books with philosophy and cramming their little ones with feeling.
Walter KirnRead
In novels, and American novels in particular, it's not just about redemption, it's about forward movement and healing oneself. Americans are very big on getting better.
Hanya YanagiharaRead
I believe that all novels, ... deal with character, and that it is to express character – not to preach doctrines, sing songs, or celebrate the glories of the British Empire, that the form of the novel, so clumsy, verbose, and undramatic, so rich, elastic, and alive, has been evolved ... The great novelists have brought us to see whatever they wish us to see through some character. Otherwise they would not be novelists, but poet, historians, or pamphleteers.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead