Have you ever been in a position where you find yourself in need of a suitable response during conversation? On the search for clever, silly, or perhaps somewhat unusual replies, look no further. Jane Austen is your solution. Well-known for her witty novels, she has a wealth of superb utterances from which to draw. These are several appropriate remarks from the Jane Austen movies “Emma” and “Pride and Prejudice”, and “Sense and Sensibility for your express benefit. Peruse to your delight and prepare to both delight (and confuse ) your fellow conversationalists.

• When those around you are not speaking: “I believe we must have some conversation…a very little will suffice.”
• When you are asked of your hobbies: “I take pleasure in many things.”
• When someone asks what you think of them: “I hear such different accounts of you as to puzzle me exceedingly.”
• When a friend announces her engagement: “Strawberries! You must have strawberries at your wedding!”
• When someone inquires if you are too hot or too cold: “I am in the perfect state of…warmness.”
• When someone is acting particularly hard to please: “I wouldn’t be as fastidious as you are for a kingdom.”
• When there is an awkward gap in a conversation: “Allow me to interpret the silence.”
• When your advice is sought about a certain action: “I think it would be a wise and relieving thing to do.”
• When you are in want of exercise and there is another near you: “Do take a turn about the room with me. It is so refreshing.”
• When asked what you thought of a phenomenal happening: “We were quite speechless, I tell you, and we have not stopped talking of it since.”
• And when one is uncertain how to answer a statement, the most convenient response is: “Indeed!”
• When asked your opinion of another person on whom you have not given much thought, “Very elegant.”
• When in an especially good mood: “Is there any felicity in the world superior to this?”

Aren’t these the very soul of wit?

Indeed!

-Miss Angela Willis