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Jane Austen was an extraordinary woman; to actually be able to survive as a novelist in those days - unmarried - was just unheard of.

Jane Austen was writing about boring people with desperately limited lives. We forget this because we've seen too many of her books on screen.

Charlotte Bronte was writing about sex. I supposed Jane Austen was, too. Where do you get a hero like Darcy unless you are writing about sex?

'Pride and Prejudice' - perhaps more than any other Jane Austen book - is engrained in our literary consciousness.

I identify entirely with Jane Austen's point of view, on everything.

One of the reasons we all still read Jane Austen is because her books are about universal things which still matter today - love, money, family. They haven't gone out of fashion, so it's not throwing the baby out with the bathwater to rework her in a contemporary style.

Jane Austen is very amusing.

I'm a Jane Austen/Jane Eyre kind of girl.

I don't think there's anything cliche feminine about Jane Austen. And, anyway, her earliest champions were Sir Walter Scott and the Prince Regent.

I actually didn't like Jane Austen. I was more into the Brontes. They were so wild and passionate. I thought there was something a bit tame about Austen.