My Favorite Book = Jane Eyre

This is one of my favorite books of all time! Jane Eyre is such a great heroine! And I fell in love with Mr. Rochester in all of his lack-luster glory. When comparing hero's of nineteenth century literature, Mr. Rochester beats Mr. Darcy, Heathcliff and the like, no contest! This book made Charlotte my favorite Bronte.

I like quoting novels so much, I think I'll do it again. It's the idea of sharing my favorite parts of novels with anyone who will listen. It's like sampling ice cream, only more rewarding and less fattening. I'm only going to share what I underlined/highlited, rather than finding better and no doubt more interesting quotes on the internet. Sorry if they don't make much sense. All the more reason to read the book, if you haven't.

Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win anyone's favour?
-Jane

(singing a gypsy song)
"Men are hardearted, and kind angels only
Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child."
-Bessie

"I cry because I am miserable."
-Jane

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.
-Jane

"You think too much of the love of human beings."
-Helen

"Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness-to glory?"
-Helen

"We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child."
-Miss Temple

(about Helen)
Some years older than I, she knew more of the world, and could tell me many things I liked to hear: with her my curiosity found gratification: to my faults also she gave ample indulgence, never imposing curb or rein on anything I said. She had a turn for narrative, I for analysis; she liked to inform, I to question; so we got on swimmingly together, deriving much entertainment, if not much improvement, from our mutual intercourse.
-Jane

I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.
-Jane

I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing.
-Jane

A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play.
-Charlotte Bronte

It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world....The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half an hour elapsed and still I was alone.
-Jane

Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented.
-Jane

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
-Jane

I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry, fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape, I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have sympathy with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would fire, lightning, or anything else that is bright but antipathetic.
-Jane

"Excuse me," he continued: "necessity compels me to make you useful."
-Mr. Rochester

(to Jane concerning her occupation as governess)
"Oh, don't fall back on over-modesty!"
-Mr. Rochester

(to Mrs. Fairfax when she tries to compliment Jane)
"Don't trouble yourself to give her a character,"..."eulogiums will not bias me; I shall judge for myself. She began by felling my horse."
-Mr. Rochester

(to and about Jane)
"I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm it: but if I did, it would not take harm from me."
-Mr. Rochester

(about Mr. Rochester)
Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could not, for he brought them frequently before me....But I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say former, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some curel cross of fate.
-Jane

"I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not-did not-strike (he proceeded hastily) strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, good-night!"
-Mr. Rochester

I had not intended to love him.
-Jane

"Do you think that I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?-A machine without feelings?....Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!-I have as much soul as you-and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you."
-Jane
(My favorite lines come after this passage, but I think that you have to read it for yourself to understand just how wonderful and emotional her words are, and Mr. Rochester's following.)

Mr. Rochester: "You have no faith in me?"
Jane: "Not a whit."

"Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to render you as madly in love with me as I was with you; and I knew jealousy would be the best ally I could call in for the furtherance of that end."
-Mr. Rochester

"Well, for cool native impudence and pure innate pride, you haven't your equal."
-Mr. Rochester

My hopes were all dead-struck with a subtle doom.
-Jane

"You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?"
-Mr. Rochester

"I was dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited; and being ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission."
-Mr. Rochester

(about Jane)
"I was for a while troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its bloom would fade-the sweet charm of freshness would leave it."
-Mr. Rochester

St John: "And what does your heart say?"
Jane: "My heart is mute-my heart is mute,"
St John: "Then I must speak for it,"

(to St John)
"I scorn your idea of love...I scorn you when you offer it."

(to St John)
"You are not really shocked: for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand my meaning."
-Jane

(to Mr. Rochester)
"But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much I do love you, you whould be proud and content. All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence for ever."
-Jane

Reader, I married him.
-Jane

Ha ha, I love Jane! She's so wonderful!