Jane Austin quotes about writing?

Question

I would like a pearl of wisdom from Jane Austin about being a writer and I'm not having much luck, despite the fact that she doesn't half go on about everything else under the sun :(

Answer 1

"I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth. I have been talking to you almost as fast as I could the whole of this letter."

Poetry:

This morning I woke from a quiet repose,

I first rubb'd my eyes, and I next blew my nose;

With my stockings and shoes I then covered my toes,

And proceeded to put on the rest of my clothes.

This was finished in less than an hour, I suppose.

I employ'd myself next in repairing my hose.

'Twas a work of necessity not what I chose;

Of my sock I'd much rather have knit twenty rows.

My work being done, I look'd through the windows,

And with pleasure beheld all the bucks and the does,

The cows and the bullocks, the wethers and ewes.

To the library each morning the family goes,

So I went with the rest though I felt rather froze.

My flesh is much warmer, my blood freer flows,

When I work in the garden with rakes and with hoes.

And now I believe I must come to a close,

For I find I grow stupid e'en while I compose.

If I write any longer my verse will be prose.

a letter of Jane Austen's written backwards, addressed to her niece "Cassy," daughter of Captain Charles Austen (afterwards Admiral), when a little girl.:

XCIV

YM RAED YSSAC,

I hsiw uoy a yppah wen raey. Ruoy xis snisuoc emac ereh yadretsey, dna dah hcae a eceip of ekac. Siht si elttil Yssac's yadhtrib, dna ehs si eerht sraey dlo. Knarf sah nugeb gninrael Nital. Ew deef eht Nibor yreve gninrom. Yllas netfo seriuqne retfa uoy. Yllas Mahneb sah tog a wen neerg nwog. Teirrah Thgink semoc yreve yad ot daer ot Tnua Ardnassac. Doog eyb, ym raed Yssac.

Tnua Ardnassac sdnes reh tseb evol, dna os ew od lla.

Ruoy etanoitceffa Tnua, ENAJ NETSUA.

http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/brablt...

Answer 2

The best-known is the sentence that concludes this paragraph:

By the bye, my dear Edward, I am quite concerned for the loss your mother mentions in her letter; two Chapters & a half to be missing is monstrous!  It is well that I have not been at Steventon lately, & therefore cannot be suspected of purloining them;--two strong twigs & a half towards a Nest of my own, would have been something.--I do not think however that any theft of that sort would be really useful to me.  What could I do with your strong, manly, spirited Sketches, full of Variety and Glow?--How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour? -- letter to James Edward Austen; Chawton, Monday Dec. 16, 1816.

There is also her spirited defence of novels in Chapter V of "Northanger Abbey," a passage too long to be duplicated here.