I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my l… - Jane Austen

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Engraved portrait of Jane Austen, facing left

I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.

English
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About Jane Austen

Jane Austen (December 16 1775 – July 18 1817) was an English novelist who recorded the domestic manners of the landed gentry. She is known for her classically understated style and sly, ironic humour.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Cassandra Austen (Public domain / CC0)

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She understood him. He could not forgive her,-but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjest resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impuse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed.

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They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.

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