L.M. Montgomery

“...“Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,” exclaimed Anne. “You mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynde says, ‘Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.’ But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed.”...”

“And two years ago this morning I woke wondering what delightful gift the new day would give me. These are the two years I thought would be filled with fun." "Would you exchange them - now - for two years filled with fun " "No " said Rilla slowly. "I wouldn't. It's strange - isn't it - They have been two terrible years - and yet I have a queer feeling of thankfulness for them - as if they had brought me something very precious in all their pain. I wouldn't want to go back and be the girl I was two years ago not even if I could. Not that I think I've made any wonderful progress - but I'm not quite the selfish frivolous little doll I was then. I suppose I had a soul then Miss Oliver - but I didn't know it. I know it now - and that is worth a great deal - worth all the suffering of the past few years.”

“I doubted God last Sunday " said Rilla "but I don't doubt Him today. Evil cannot win. Spirit is on our side and it is bound to outlast flesh.”

“It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other.”

“Never be silent with persons you love and distrust," Mr. Carpenter had said once. "Silence betrays.”

“If the bards of old the true has toldThe sirens have raven hair.But over the earth since art had birth,They paint the angels fair.”

“I don't know which is worse - to have somebody you DON'T like ask you to marry him or NOT have some one you DO like. Both are rather unpleasant.”

“I know you're a fool, Jim Hardy, but for heaven's sake pretend you're not for five minutes.”

“Houses are like people - some you like and some you don't like - and once in a while there is one you love.”

“No one can be free who has a thousand ancestors.”

“Don't try to write anything you can't feel - it will be a failure - 'echoes nothing worth”

“Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk like that, but I didn’t mean to be wicked. It’s so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn’t it?”

“When will the others come?"And there is one who will never come. At least we will not see him if he does. But, oh, when I think he will be there--when our Canadian soldiers return there will be a shadow army with them--the army of the fallen. We will not *see* them--but they will be there!”

“It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside-- but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond-- only a glimpse-- and heard a note of unearthly music.”

“Anne’s horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there after coming home from Queen’s; but if the path set before her feet was to be narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. The joys of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road!”

“If a kiss could be seen it would look like a violet.”

“Really, Nan could be very odious when she liked. Yet somehow she [Gay] didn't hate her as before. She felt very indifferent to her. She found herself looking at her with cool, appraising eyes, seeing her as she had never seen her before. An empty, selfish little creature, who had always to be amused like a child. ...A girl who posed as a sophisticate before her country cousins but who was really more provincial than they were, knowing nothing of real life or real love or real emotion of any kind. Gay wondered, as she looked, how she could ever have hated this girl—ever been jealous of her. She was not worth hating. Gay spoke at last. She stood up and looked levelly at Nan. There was contempt in her quiet voice."I suppose you came here to hurt me, Nan. You haven't—you can never hurt me again. You've lost the power. I think I even feel a little sorry for you. You've always been a taker, Nan. All through your life you've taken whatever you wanted. But you've never been a giver—you couldn't be because you've nothing to give. Neither love nor truth nor understanding nor kindness nor loyalty. Just taking all the time and giving nothing—oh, it has made you very poor. So poor that nobody need envy you.”

“It must be admitted frankly that Aunt Becky was not particularly beloved by her clan. She was too fond of telling them what she called the plain truth. And, as Uncle Pippin said, while the truth was all right, in its place, there was no sense in pouring out great gobs of it around where it wasn't wanted. To Aunt Becky, however, tact and diplomacy and discretion, never to mention any consideration for any one's feelings, were things unknown.”

“We have come to a parting of the ways, I suppose", said Anne thoughtfully." we had to come to it, do you think, Diana, that being grown up is really as nice as we used to imagine it would be when we were children?""I don't know-there are SOME nice things about it," answered Diana, again caressing her ring with that little smile which always had the effect of making Anne feel suddenly left out and inexperienced." But there are so many puzzling things, too. Sometimes I feel as if being grown-up just frightened me-and then I would give anything to be a little girl again.”

“It was not, of course, a proper thing to do. But then I have never pretended, nor will ever pretend, that Emily was a proper child. Books are not written about proper children. They would be so dull nobody would read them.”

“Fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world.”

“Steal not this book for fear of shameFor on it is the owners nameAnd when you die the Lord will sayWhere is the book you stole awayAnd when you say you do not knowThe Lord will say go down below.”

“There is no such thing as freedom on earth," he said. "Only different kinds of bondages. And comparative bondages. YOU think you are free now because you've escaped from a peculiarly unbreakable kind of bondage. But are you? You love me - THAT'S a bondage.”

“It never rains but it pours”

“Who would endure life if it were not for the hope of death?”

“Since ever the world was spinningAnd till the world shall endYou've your man in the beginningOr you have him in the end,But to have him from start to finishAnd neither nor borrow nor lendIs what all of the girls are wantingAnd none of the gods can send”

“If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you'll never be and you need not waste time in trying.”

“Out of your world perhaps, Susan — but not out of mine,' said Anne with a faint smile.”

“Changes come all the time. Just as soon as things get really nice they change,' she said with a sigh.”

“Gilbert put his arm about them. 'Oh, you mothers!' he said. 'You mothers! God knew what He was about when He made you.”

“I feel as if something has been torn suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole. I feel as if I couldn't be I — as if I must have changed into somebody else and couldn't get used to it. It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed, helpless feeling. It's good to see you again — it seems as if you were a sort of anchor for my drifting soul.”

“Leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it possible to go on with life after all, as most of us do, no matter what our particular form of torment has been. It is even possible that she enjoyed moments of it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little house of dreams.”

“She'd been real melancholy in the fall — religious melancholy — it ran in her family. Her father worried so much over believing that he had committed the unpardonable sin that he died in the asylum.”

“…always felt the pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent words of comforting. Besides, she remembered how well-meant speeches had hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid.”

“It's so beautiful that it hurts me,' said Anne softly. 'Perfect things like that always did hurt me — I remember I called it "the queer ache" when I was a child. What is the reason that pain like this seems inseparable from perfection? Is it the pain of finality — when we realise that there can be nothing beyond but retrogression?''Perhaps,' said Owen dreamily, 'it is the prisoned infinite in us calling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visible perfection.”

“I suppose all this sounds very crazy — all these terrible emotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequate words. They are not meant to be spoken — only felt and endured.”

“All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.”

“The p'int of good writing is to know when to stop.”

“I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into a magnificent moth of fulfilment…”

“…it's so dreadful to have nothing to love — life is so empty — and there's nothing worse than emptiness…”

“She had never before minded being alone. Now she dreaded it. When she was alone now she felt so dreadfully alone.”

“Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before. Now I know that I just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness. This is the reality.”

“Life may be a vale of tears, all right, but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon.”

“…but youth yearned to youth.”

“Isn't it terrible the way some unworthy folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you'd think, never get much affection?”

“Even when I'm alone I have real good company — dreams and imaginations and pretendings. I like to be alone now and then, just to think over things and taste them. But I love friendships — and nice, jolly little times with people.”

“It's the worst kind of cruelty — the thoughtless kind. You can't cope with it.”

“The woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one only — a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of the archangels.”

“Thank goodness, we can choose our friends. We have to take our relatives as they are, and be thankful…”

“But just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was sensible,' pleaded Anne.”