How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"But you never read novels, I dare say?"
"Why not?"
"Because they are not clever enough for you - gentleman read better books."
"The person, be it a gentleman or a lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." (14.4-7)
Henry makes a statement about the book's sentiments about novels here. Interestingly, Henry notes that novels cross gender lines and are enjoyed by both women and men. Only obnoxious or stupid people would dislike them.
Quote #8
"I wish I were too. I read [history] a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all - it is very tiresome; and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention [...] and invention is what delights me in other books." (14.22)
This passage is unusual in that it is Catherine, and not Henry, expressing these sentiments. Henry usually serves as the narrator's mouthpiece, but in this case Catherine does with her hilarious observations on male-dominated history. Catherine also reemphasizes her love of invention and imagination here as well.
Quote #9
Her passion for ancient edifices was next in degree to her passion for Henry Tilney - and castles and abbeys made usually the charm of those reveries which his image did not fill [....] Northanger turned up an abbey, and she was to be its inhabitant. Its long, damp passages, its narrow cells and ruined chapel, were to be in daily reach. (17.11)
Catherine's obsession with "Gothic" abbeys and castles has reached a fever pitch here. Her expectations for Northanger Abbey are largely colored by what she has read