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
Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
After I had my son I looked everywhere for a book that might serve as some kind of mirror. I bought so many silly books. Now I see what the problem was: I wanted a book about time-about mortality. I can't think of a writer who is at once so experimentally daring and so rigorously uncompromising as Sarah Manguso. Ongoingness is an incredibly elegant, wise book, and I loved it.
Miranda JulyRead
Reduced... to a crude formula, the Russian tragedy is precisely the tragedy of a society in which literature turned out to be the prerogative of the minority.
Joseph BrodskyRead
My mother, Southern to the bone, once told me, “All Southern literature can be summed up in these words: ‘On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister.’” She raised me up to be a Southern writer, but it wasn’t easy.
Pat ConroyRead
Browse Amazon reviews, and you'll see a surprising number of readers who believe one novel can summarize a country, its culture, and its people.
Celeste NgRead
It infuriates me that the work of white American writers can be universal and lay claim to classic texts, while black and female authors are ghetto-ized as 'other.'
Jesmyn WardRead