Jane Borodale Quotes

Clarity! Accuracy! Think of your words as a key to fit into the lock of your meaning. Cast them with precision. That key should then be swift and perfect in achieving its aim. Well shaped talk is a release from the indefinite. It is explanation. Preparation. Nothing more. ~ Jane Borodale

The only certain way to forge new understanding it to carry out investigations for oneself. ~ Jane Borodale

While he digs he is free to let his mind wander, and he dreams his kingdom of pear trees in the orchard across to his left, growing skywards, gnarling, putting forth fat green soft fruits with ease each year. The trees that already grow in the orchards he loves almost as women in his life; the Catherine pear, the Chesil or pear Nouglas, the great Kentish pear, the Ruddick, the Red Garnet, the Norwich, the Windsor, the little green pear ripe at Kingsdon Feast; all thriving where they were planted in his father's ground at Lytes Cary before the management of the estate became his own responsibility as the eldest son. So much has happened these last six years since his father handed over and left for his house in Sherborne: there have been births and deaths - Anys herself was taken from him only last year. But the pear trees live on, reliably flowering and yielding variable quantities as an annual crop that defines the estate, and he has plans to add more. ~ Jane Borodale

When I am out in my garden or in the fields ... , I think if anything, we are just earth ... We are earth, walking about, eating it. We are composed of the soil, but free to wander. When we dig, we dig at ourselves. ~ Jane Borodale

I do not need the debris of your mind to furnish mine. ~ Jane Borodale

What a waste of beauty, what a waste of knowledge a sudden death can inflict, like spilling something vital away into dry soil. ~ Jane Borodale

So much of what we do in life stays unexplained ~ Jane Borodale

She could still be. She could still be a mom and a wife, and there were still things she could be from bed. She could still find joy in her children. She could study and learn. ~ Jane Clayson Johnson

We've been playing games since humanity had civilization - there is something primal about our desire and our ability to play games. It's so deep-seated that it can bypass latter-day cultural norms and biases. ~ Jane McGonigal

A debt-free bachelor's degree is, as it turns out, priceless: As Jane Austen puts it, it sets you up forever. My friends were still paying off their school loans in their forties. I never had any school debt at all. Because I had no debt, I could choose my life, and choose my adventure. ~ Susan Wise Bauer

reject the bangles, Marie capitulated. 'Thank you, Alex,' she ~ Sarah-Jane Steele

I had never understood quite so clearly the effective power of Jane Jacob's writing - no, her clear-headed observation - as I did reading "What We See". Maybe that's really the point of writing. That if you take the time to look, to really observe, then you see what is happening, and, with the clarity of that vision, you can act to save neighborhoods. ~ Nancy Milford

Jane Austen can in fact get more drama out of morality than most other writers can get from shipwreck, battle, murder, or mayhem. ~ Ronald Blythe

Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will have the advantage over negligent superiority. ~ Jane Austen

Upon my word, you five your opinion very decidedly for so young a person. ~ Jane Austen

Games are providing rewards that reality is not. ~ Jane McGonigal

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in it. But the feelings which made such composure a disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with an head-ache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough! ~ Jane Austen

Of course I want you," she said right in his ear. "I love you." He let loose some kind of hoarse word, and his arms crushed her to him. As she found herself not being able to breathe because he was squeezing her so tight, she thought, Yup, this really was him. And he wasn't going to let her go this time. Thank. God. As he held Jane up off the ground, Vishous was wholly happy. Complete in a way that having all your fingers and toes couldn't hold a candle to. With a shout of triumph, he carried her into her condo, pausing only to put the garage door down. ~ J.R. Ward

The post-office is a wonderful establishment! The regularity and dispatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do, and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing! ~ Jane Austen

A city is in many respects a great business corporation, but in other respects it is enlarged housekeeping ... may we not say that city housekeeping has failed partly because women, the traditional housekeepers, have not been consulted as to its multiform activities? ~ Jane Addams

Love isn't something you can just unlearn ... no matter who you are, or who you're born to, or how much it's not returned - - Elephant Girl ~ Jane Devin

Do not speak unflatteringly of Jane," Flora said, walking beside Chad. "She is the greatest writer to have ever lived." "I thought that was Shakespeare." "William was, or course, quite good," Flora said. "But no one can compare to Jane Austen. ~ Krista McGee

It was my time to assume ascendency. My powers were in-play and in force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to leave me: I must and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is energy to command well enough, obedience never fails. ~ Charlotte Bronte

My father always told me, you can only be your own best. In other words, if you feel you've done your best, you've done well enough. ~ Jane Seymour

We Let the Boat Drift

I set out for the pond, crossing the ravine
where seedling pines start up like sparks
between the disused rails of the Boston and Maine.

The grass in the field would make a second crop
if early autumn rains hadn't washed
the goodness out. After the night's hard frost
it makes a brittle rustling as I walk.

The water is utterly still. Here and there
a black twig sticks up. It's five years today,
and even now I can't accept what cancer did
to him -- not death so much as the annihilation
of the whole man, sense by sense, thought
by thought, hope by hope.

Once we talked about the life to come.
I took the Bible from the nightstand
and offered John 14: "I go to prepare
a place for you.""Fine. Good," he said.
"But what about Matthew? 'You, therefore,
must be perfect, as your heavenly Father
is perfect.'" And he wept.

My neighbor honks and waves driving by.
She counsels troubled students; keeps bees;
her goats follow her to the mailbox.

Last Sunday afternoon we went canoeing on the pond. Something terrible at school had shaken her. We talked quietly far from shore. The paddles
rested across our laps; glittering drops
fell randomly from their tips. The light
around us seemed alive. A loon-itinerant-
let us get quite close before it dove, coming up
after a long time, and ~ Jane Kenyon

But if you read Jane Austen, you know that she had a wicked sense of humor. Not only was she funny, but her early writing was very dark and had a gothic tone to it. ~ Seth Grahame-Smith

Having someone else to blame when there is a rude smell in the air. ~ Jane Horrocks

Shame is a distinct feeling. I couldn't look at my hands around the coffee cup or hear my own laments without feeling appalled, wanting desperately to fall silent, grow smaller. More than that, I was uncomfortably conscious of my whole body, from the awkward way that the shafts of my hair were thrusting out of my scalp to my feet, which felt dirty as well as cold. Everywhere, I seemed to feel my skin from the inside, as if it now stood away from my flesh, separated by a millimeter of mortified space. ~ Jane Smiley

But, for those who love, Time does not exist. ~ Jane Odiwe

To deny women directors, as I suspect is happening in the States, is to deny the feminine vision. ~ Jane Campion

I feel it's like being a kid and dressing up, because that's what Baby Jane is. ~ Millicent Martin

You cannot will yourself to be happy while believing that you have no right to happiness, or that you are unworthy of it. You cannot tell yourself to release aggressive thoughts if you think it is wrong to free them, so you must come to grips with your beliefs in all instances. ~ Jane Roberts

I really want to kiss you right now. ~ Jane Harvey-Berrick

Turn your midlife crisis to your own advantage by making it a time for renewal of your body and mind, rather than stand by helplessly and watch them decline. ~ Jane Brody

I know Jane is dear to you," Bess said. "I also know that she's in danger. But Jane is one person, Edward. There are thousands of lives at stake. There's a kingdom on the edge of a knife. We must tread carefully. ~ Cynthia Hand

He considered his disposition as of the sort which must suffer heavily, uniting very strong feelings with quiet,serious, and retiring manners, and a decided taste for reading and sedentary pursuits. ~ Jane Austen

...I started getting back what I was putting in. I began to see how important good relationships are in this business. I've always been naturally thorough and well prepared, and by my mid-thirties I had worked out the worst kinks in my personality. I might have even become someone who was nice to have around. ~ Jane Lynch

You should have married a nice girl in her twenties so you can have dozens of babies,'Jane Louise said. 'Instead of the president of the Withered Crone Society. ~ Laurie Colwin

For the first time in a long time, I drive with no music. I'm not happy-not happy about Jane and Mr. Randall Water Polo Doucheface IV, not happy about Tiny abandoning me without so much as a phone call, not happy about my insufficiently fake fake ID-but in the dark on Lake Shore with the car eating up all the sound, there's something about the numbness in my lips after having kissed her that I want to keep and hold onto, something in it that seems pure, that seems like the singular truth. ~ John Green

The cheapest and most efficient way of slowing down global warming is to protect and restore the forests, particularly the tropical forests ~ Jane Goodall

There were, of course, compensatory advantages to growing older. 'As I must leave off being young,' Jane admitted, 'I find many Douceurs … I am put on the Sofa near the Fire & can drink as much wine as I like. ~ Lucy Worsley

Sisterly love is one of the few boons in this life. ~ Jane Bowles

It is a long way off, sir"
"From what Jane?"
"From England and from Thornfield: and ___"
"Well?"
"From you, sir ~ Charlotte Bronte

the ladies, young or old. There is no resisting a cockade, ~ Jane Austen

So your theory is that Nancy plans to marry Samuel, pass off as her own the child he fathered on her maid, and then raise it, assuming it's a boy, to be heir to the title. That doesn't gain Nancy much, does it? It's not her son, and she's not Samuel's only lover. He and his mistress and the son get everything; she gets only the privilege of knowing she's married to a seducer."
Dom ignored the fact that some of what she said made sense. "She gains an exalted rank as mother to the new viscount. She gains a husband she's always coveted. And she might not even care if Samuel was having an affair with her maid--you said yourself that Nancy wasn't fond of the intimate side of marriage."
The moment Jane paled, he realized what he'd said. Something highly inappropriate. Something that revealed just how frank he and Jane had been in their conversations. God only knew what Blakeborough would make of that.
Bloody hell. Whatever it was, it wouldn't help Dom's situation with Jane any. Not that any of this would. Damn Nancy for coming between them yet again.
Jane's gaze turned stormy as she poked him in the chest. "You've got it all figured out, don't you? But as usual, you ignore all the ways that your theory doesn't fit."
He stared her down. "Such as what?"
Again she poked him in the chest. "Why did Samuel mention coming to London to see a doctor if they were sure that Nancy had lost the baby?" Another poke. "Why did she leave York in such strange circumstan ~ Sabrina Jeffries

They have none of them much to recommend them", replied he: "they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters." "Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves." "You mistake me my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least. ~ Jane Austen

Dating is like campaigning: you don't reveal who you really are or what you're really up to until you get elected. ~ Jane Stanton Hitchcock

Yes and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to marry Miss de Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour or inclination confined to his cousin, why not is he to make another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him? ~ Jane Austen

And Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in general, soon procured herself a book. ~ Jane Austen

As long as you need time to think my affections and wishes are unchanged, and one word from you will silence me forever on this subject . ~ Jane Austen

What I've come to learn with self-publishing is that if you want to provide readers with something of equal quality, it requires the same amount of time and expense. ~ Jane Green

I know I'm not inspiring much confidence at this point, but there's something else I thought I'd bring up." She lifted her eyes to him. "I love you more than I love books. ~ Cynthia Hand