"I have just finished the first volume of 'Mansfield Park,' and am very much pleased with it. I think it is a very clever book."

"I am not at all a lover of fine speeches."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

"I am tired of great men and great women, who are always good, and always doing good, and always saying good things."

"My style is too light and unpretending to suit the pen of a great author."