When Jane Austen Meets Dwight Schrute; A Mashup

Little delicate compliments which are so agreeable to ladies? That’s what she said.

Remixed in Canva

Pop culture has been quoting The Office since 2005. There’s an Office quote for every occasion, if gift shops and Bonfire merchandise options are to be believed. But what would it look like if you could distill the essence of Jane Austen’s most memorable characters into a single Office quote? Few have asked this ridiculous question, and even fewer have answered it. I, dearest gentle reader, am one of the latter. Are the shades of Dunder Mifflin to be thus polluted? Yes. Read on.

(I do not own any of the images used in this story; they are reproduced here for parody purposes only.)

Elinor Dashwood: “Before I do anything I ask myself, ‘Would an idiot do that?’ And if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing.”

Lydia Bennet: “I don’t talk trash, I talk smack. They’re totally different. Trash talk is hypothetical, like: ‘Your mom is so fat she can eat the internet.’ But smack talk is happening like right now. Like: ‘You’re ugly and I know it for a fact ’cause I got the evidence right there.’”

Marianne Dashwood: “When you’re a kid, you assume your parents are soulmates. My kids are going to be right about that.”

Mr. Rushworth: “You cheated on me? When I specifically asked you not to?”

Mr. Elton: “This one has sort of an oaky afterbirth.”

George Wickham: “I was never in this for the money, but it turns out the money was an absolute necessity for me.”

Mrs. Jennings: “Sometimes I’ll start a sentence and I don’t even know where it’s going. I just hope I find it along the way.”

Henry Crawford: “People underestimate the power of nostalgia. Nostalgia is truly one of the greatest human weaknesses, second only to the neck.”

Miss Bates: “I love inside jokes. Love to be a part of one someday.”

Mr. Palmer: “There’s too many people on this earth. We need a new plague.”

Robert Martin: “Those who can’t farm, farm celery.”

John Thorpe: “I am fast. To give you a reference point, I’m somewhere between a snake and a mongoose. And a panther.”

Emma Woodhouse: “Do I need to be liked? Absolutely not. I like to be liked. I enjoy being liked. I have to be liked, but it’s not like this compulsive need to be liked, like my need to be praised.”

Caroline Bingley: I would not miss it for the world. But if something else came up, I would definitely not go.”

Louisa Musgrove: “Parkour!”

Mr. Gardiner: “Oh you’re paying too much for worms. Who’s your worm guy?”

Mary Musgrove: “Ultimatums are key. Basically, nobody does anything for me anymore unless I threaten to kill myself.”

Mr. Woodhouse on the dangers of sea-bathing: “He was decapitated! Do you know what that means?! His CAPPA was DETATED from his head!”

Jane Bennet: “I hate the idea that someone out there hates me. I even hate thinking that al-Qaeda hates me. I think if they got to know me, they wouldn’t hate me.”

Mr. Elliot: “We’re third cousins, which is great for bloodlines and isn’t technically incest.”

Mary Bennet after being told she has delighted the company long enough: “You all took a life today. The life of the party.”

Mr. Knightley watching Mrs. Elton boss around the strawberry-picking: “This is the smallest amount of power I’ve ever seen go to someone’s head.”

Isabella Thorpe: “I am one of the few people who looks hot eating a cupcake.”

Mr. Darcy, watching Jane and Bingley: “Put your heart out there like that, it’s liable to just turn into this blackened carbon brick where it has barbecue sauce of shame and rage and two hot people with a perfect relationship would not understand that!”

Frank Churchill: “Women cannot resist a man singing show tunes. It’s so powerful, even a lot of men can’t resist a man singing show tunes.”

Anne Elliot coordinating an emergency response: “I knew exactly what to do, but in a much more real sense I had no idea what to do.”

Colonel Brandon: “If you break that girl’s heart, I will kill you. That’s just a figure of speech. But seriously, if you break that girl’s heart, I will literally kill you and your entire family.”

Mr. Collins: “I would say I kind of have an unfair advantage because I watch reality dating shows like a hawk, and I learn. I absorb information from the strategies of the winners and the losers. Actually, I probably learn more from the losers.”

Mrs. Norris: “Fanny, you ignorant slut.”

Fordyce, of the Sermons: “Don’t ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone for any reason ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you’ve been… ever, for any reason whatsoever…”

Catherine Morland: “I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.”

Mrs. Bennet: “I feel like all my kids grew up and then they married each other. It’s every parent’s dream.”

What Dunder Mifflin quote would you pair with an Austen character?

This piece was originally published at my Substack, Reading in the Margins.