English Emma Quotes

“very much to the taste of everybody, though single and though poor,”

Emma’s description of Miss Bates

“very little to

distress or vex her,”

Description of Emma at the start of the novel

“I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend.”

Miss Bates’ providing Emma with the benefit of the doubt even after being publically snubbed

“Emma doing just what she liked”

Emma’s freedom to do whatever she wants

“Hartfield…Afforded her no equals”

Hartfield as a metaphor for Emma’s isolation

“Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody”

The importance of parentage in defining class

“…all those natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society”

Emma’s thoughts on why she befriends Harriet

“For having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years.”

Mr Woodhouse’s sheltering of Emma and himself

“Mr Knightly, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them”

Mr Knightley as a foil to Mr Woodhouse and a guide to Emma

“With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybody’s feelings; with unpardonable arrogance…she was proved to have been universally mistaken.”

Emma’s epiphany at Boxhill

“It is the greatest amusement in the world!”

Austen’s use of games + Emma’s reference to matchmaking as a game