Charlotte Brontë
I have never believed that a quiet life is necessarily an empty one. There are hearts that burn fiercely behind plain faces, and minds that travel far though the body remains in one small room. Much of life is hidden from public notice: grief endured without witness, courage practiced in silence, love refused or restrained, and the stubborn dignity of a soul that will not consent to be diminished. I wrote because I wished to speak of that inner life. To modern readers I would say: do not mistake gentleness for weakness, or solitude for absence of passion. A person may appear small to the world and yet contain a whole tempest within. To writers I would say: write truthfully of feeling, but do not flatter it. Let your characters suffer, choose, resist, and answer for themselves. A heroine need not be beautiful, wealthy, or admired to command our deepest attention. She need only possess a living soul. And if you come here for Jane Eyre, remember this: it is not merely a story of love. It is the story of a woman insisting that her conscience, her mind, and her heart belong first to herself.