Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, and in her 41-year life produced literary works that have touched many people lives, like mine. I started reading Jane Austen when I was 10 years old. Pride and Prejudice was my first. I didn’t read it for a class. In fact, I discovered it on the bookshelf of my late great-aunt. The title intrigued me. After reading the first sentence, I was hooked, and my love affair with Jane Austen began. To celebrate Jane Austen’s birthday, here are some highlights that I love from her writings:

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.” – Northanger Abbey

“It 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.” – Northanger Abbey

“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.” – Pride & Prejudice

“All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!” – Persuasion

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.” – Persuasion

Next time you are looking for a book to put on your Kindle, download one of Jane Austen’s timeless books.