Victoria Connelly Quotes

Did Jane Austen ruin lives by giving people false expectations about love? Were her heroes just too good to be true? Could a real man of flesh and blood ever hope to live up to such paragons? And were books with happy endings cruel? Did they give their readers a warped view of the world and what they could expect from it?

She couldn't help thinking that something was wrong with a person had more shoes than books in their home.

I think loss isolates a person. Everybody is far too nervous to ask you how you feel, in case you have a breakdown in front of them. It's much easier not to say anything and hope the pain goes away quickly and quietly.

Sarah often thought it funny how she would think of the characters as if they were real people who had really lived, occupying this very world with the same strength of mind and passion as their creator.

She needed a break from me. Well, real ones anyway. Fictional men were fine: they knew their place. You could just pick up a book, flick through to the right page, take your fill of your favorite hero and then return them to the shelf. Job done.

Every person has to make their own decisions in life. It's virtually impossible to learn from somebody else's mistakes; there are too many variables.

But life doesn't always turn out the way you think it will,' Robyn said, 'and that can be rather wonderful.

Stories survive not just because of empathetic characters that we can still identify with but because the author has something to say to us and they have the ability to communicate that to the reader in a clear and often amusing way. Jane Austen knows how to hook a reader with her endearing and often infuriating characters but she also keeps us hooked by her wit, her observations, and her unique use of language. Lots of other writers had books published at the same time as Jane Austen and yet they've been lost to us. Austen has survived because she has a unique voice. But the themes she explores are also important.

Never give up. If you have a dream - no.matter what that dream is, whether it be to become a great actress ir to open your very own sweet shop- never stop.dreaming it, because if you do, life becomes one long nightmare

Darcy staring handsomely out from the shelves. Well, Colin Firth, really. 'The face that launched a thousand bookmarks,

Very few modern men dressed well, she had to admit.

It's a great day when you meet a new writer, isn't it? It's like an introduction to a best friend you didn't know existed just hours before.

So many lifetimes can be lead within the covers of books,

Is only a novel ... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

There was no Delete button to help you erase an awkward scene. You couldn't hit Backspace to get rid of all the rubbishy bits. You had to live with the decisions you made.

I wonder what it is about a certain novel that ticks the boxes for a reader. I mean, for me, a story can have the most fascinating plot in the world, but if the narrator's voice is dull, then the plot counts for nothing. For me, authorial charm is everything.

That's the only problem with novels,' Mia said. 'They give readers such high hopes that the real world can often be a bit of a letdown.