The ‘Sanditon’ cast: All the most iconic quotes we can’t stop repeating

Are you starting to miss Sanditon right about now? We are too.

Sanditon, the eight-part TV show based on Jane Austen’s final novel, fell into our hearts during the summer of 2019. And with recent, disappointing news of season 2 being unlikely to happen, we miss it more than ever.

Organized by character, here are our favorite Sanditon quotes we can’t stop repeating.

Mr. Heywood

“I am afraid you will find no surgeon at hand here, but I dare say we shall do very well without him.”

“Every five years, one hears of some new place or other starting up by the sea and growing the fashion. How they can half of them be filled is the wonder! Where people can be found with money and time to go to them! Bad things for a country – sure to raise the of provisions and make the poor good for nothing.”

Mr. Parker

“One is never able to complete anything in the way of business, you know, till the carriage is at the door.”

“A little of our own bracing sea air will soon set me on my feet again. Depend upon it, my dear, it is exactly a case for the sea. Saline air and immersion will be the very thing. My sensations tell me so already.”

“But Sanditon itself – everybody has heard of Sanditon. The favorite – for a young and rising bathing-place – certainly the favorite spot of all that are to be found along the coast of Sussex; the most favored by nature, and promising to be the most chosen by man.”

“Such a place as Sanditon, sir, I may say was wanted, was called for. Nature had marked it out, had spoken in most intelligible characters. The finest, purest sea breeze on the coast – acknowledged to be so – excellent bathing – fine hard sand – deep water ten yards from the shore – no mud – no weeds – no slimy rocks. 

“Never was there a place more palpably designed by nature for the resort of the invalid – the very spot which thousands seemed in need of!”

“There is at times,” said he, “a little self-importance – but it is not offensive – and there are moments, there are points when her love of money is carried greatly too far. But she (Lady Denham) is a good-natured woman, a very good-natured woman – a very obliging, friendly neighbor; a cheerful, independent, valuable character – and her faults may be entirely imputed to her want of education.”

“Those who tell their own story, you know, must be listened to with caution. When you see us in contact, you will judge for yourself.” 

“One other hill brings us to Sanditon – modern Sanditon – a beautiful spot. Our ancestors, you know, always built in a hole, Here were we, pent down in this little contracted nook, without air or view, only one mile and three quarters from the noblest expanse of ocean between the South Foreland and Land’s End, and without the smallest advantage from it.”

“You will not think I have made a bad exchange when we reach Trafalgar House – which by the bye, I almost wish I had not named Trafalgar – for Waterloo is more the thing now.”

“There is someone in most families privileged by superior abilities or spirits to say anything. In ours, it is Sidney, who is a very clever young man and with great powers of pleasing. He lives too much in the world to be settled; that is his only fault.”

“Civilization, civilization indeed!” cried Mr. Parker, delighted. “Look, my dear Mary, look at William Heeley’s windows. Blue shoes, and nankin boots! Who would have expected such a sight at a shoemaker”s in old Sanditon! This is new within the month. There was no blue shoe when we passed this way a month ago. Glorious indeed!”

The Narrator

“By such he (Mr. Parker) was perceived to be an enthusiast – on the subject of Sanditon, a complete enthusiast. Sanditon, the success of Sanditon as a small, fashionable bathing place, was the object for which he seemed to live.”

“Mrs. Parker was as evidently a gentle, amiable, sweet-tempered woman, the properest wife in the world for a man of strong understanding but not of a capacity to supply the cooler reflection which her own husband sometimes needed; and so entirely waiting to be guided on every occasion that whether he was risking his fortune or spraining his ankle, she remained equally useless.”

“Sanditon was a second wife and four children to him, hardly less dear, and certainly more engrossing. He could talk of it forever. it had indeed the highest claims; not only those of birthplace, property, and home; it was his mine, his lottery, his speculation and his hobby horse; his occupation, his hope, and his futurity.”

“The sea air and sea bathing together were nearly infallible, one or the other of them being a match for every disorder of the stomach, the lungs, or the blood. They were anti-spasmodic, anti-pulmonary, anti-septic, anti-bilious, and anti-rheumatic. Nobody could catch cold by the sea; nobody wanted appetite by the sea; nobody wanted spirits; nobody wanted strength.”

“But the maintenance, education and fitting out of fourteen children demanded a very quiet, settled, careful course of life, and obliged them to be stationary and healthy at Willingdon. What prudence had at first enjoined was now rendered pleasant by habit. They (Mr.& Mrs. Heywood) never left home and they had gratification in saying so.”

“Every neighborhood should have a great lady. The great lady of Sanditon was Lady Denham.”

“Beauty, sweetness, poverty, and dependence do not want the imagination of a man to operate upon; with due exceptions, woman feels for woman very promptly and compassionately.”

“but it was a most valuable proof of the increasing fashion of the place altogether. If the village could attract, the hill might be nearly full. He anticipated an amazing season.”

“Here began the descent to the beach and to the bathing machines. And this was therefore the favorite spot for beauty and fashion.”