L.M. Montgomery

“It's rather hard to decide just when people are grown up,' laughed Anne.'That's a true word, dearie. Some are grown up when they're born, and others ain't grown up when they're eighty, believe me. That same Mrs. Roderick I was speaking of never grew up. She was as foolish when she was hundred as when she was ten.''Perhaps that was why she lived so long,' suggested Anne.”

“Strange, ain't it, how folks seem to resent anyone being born a mite cleverer than they be.”

“The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy mortals. It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.”

“…could not have understood what perverted shaped thwarted love can take.”

“Why should one hate you when you were so small? Could you be worth hating?”

“But is there not something strange about any room that has been occupied through generations? Death has lurked in it…love has been rosy red in it…births have been here…all the passions…all the hopes. It is full of wraths.”

“Life owes me something more than it has paid me and I’m going out to collect it…”

“You can't have many exclamation points left,' thought Anne, 'but no doubt the supply of italics is inexhaustible.”

“It was really dreadful to be so different from other people…and yet rather wonderful, too, as if you were a being strayed from another star.”

“…I'm afraid Katherine likes me so much now that she can't always like me as much…”

“…you'll be spared an awful lot of trouble if you die young.”

“I'm afraid you'll find out all too soon that life's a melancholy business.”

“She suddenly found herself laughing without bitterness.”

“And it seemed to me, too, that I've always been afraid when I was in the company of people…afraid of saying something stupid…afraid of being laughed at.”

“One can always find something lovely to look at or listen to,' said Anne.”

“But the trouble is there aren't any bends in my road. I can see it stretching straight out before me to the sky-line…endless monotony. Oh, does life ever frighten you, Anne, with its blankness…its swarms of cold, uninteresting people?”

“…hate's got to be a disease with me.”

“I hope you don't think I'm one of those terrible people who make you feel that you have to talk to them all the time.”

“Don't be ridiculous, please.'The most insulting words in the world!”

“We always hate people who surprise our secrets…”

“It isn't fair she should have everything and I nothing. She isn't better or cleverer or much prettier than me…only luckier.”

“Of course we have a Tomorrow on the map…located east of Today and west of Yesterday…and we have no end of "times" in fairyland. Spring-time, long time, short time, new-moon time, good-night time, next time…but no last time, because that is too sad a time for fairyland; old time, young time…because if there is an old time there ought to be a young time, too; mountain time…because that has such a fascinating sound; night-time and day-time…but no bed-time or school-time; Christmas-time; no only time, because that also is too sad…but lost time, because it is so nice to find it; some time, good time, fast time, slow time, half-past kissing-time, going-home time, and time immemorial…which is one of the most beautiful phrases in the world.”

“I hate to lend a book I love…it never seems quite the same when it comes back to me…”

“…there was something about her that made you feel it was safe to tell her secrets.”

“You are the only person who loves me in the world," said Elizabeth. "When you talk to me I smell violets.”

“…and he wasn't reconciled to dying. Dora told him he was going to a better world. "Mebbe, mebbe," says poor Ben, "but I'm sorter used to the imperfections of this one.”

“But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.”

“Wouldn't it be a rather drab world if everybody was wise and sensible…and good? What would we find to talk about?”

“Or she may find out what is at the end of the harbor road…that wandering, twisting road like a nice red snake, that leads, so Elizabeth thinks, to the end of the world. Perhaps the Island of Happiness is there.”

“The Woman had told her that Tomorrow never comes, but Elizabeth knows better. It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is Tomorrow. Not Today but Tomorrow. And then things will happen…wonderful things.”

“Isn't it queer that the things we writhe over at night are seldom wicked things? Just humiliating ones.”

“Kindred spirits alone do not change with the changing years.”

“Anne looked at the white young mother with a certain awe that had never entered into her feelings for Diana before. Could this pale woman with the rapture in her eyes be the little black-curled, rosy-cheeked Diana she had played with in vanished schooldays? It gave her a queer desolate feeling that she herself somehow belonged only in those past years and had no business in the present at all.”

“Anne was always glad in the happiness of her friends; but it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by happiness that is not your own.”

“She had dreamed some brilliant dreams during the past winter and now they lay in the dust around her. In her present mood of self-disgust, she could not immediately begin dreaming again. And she discovered that, while solitude with dreams is glorious, solitude without them has few charms.”

“I do know my own mind,' protested Anne. 'The trouble is, my mind changes and then I have to get acquainted with it all over again.”

“But was anything in life, Anne asked herself wearily, like one's imagination of it?”

“Words aren't made — they grow,' said Anne.”

“I wish I were dead, or that it were tomorrow night,' groaned Phil.”

“Nothing seems worthwhile. My very thoughts are old. I've thought them all before. What is the use of living after all, Anne?”

“We've had a beautiful friendship, Diana. We've never marred it by one quarrel or coolness or unkind word; and I hope it will always be so. But things can't be quite the same after this. You'll have other interests. I'll just be on the outside.”

“Poor soul, she always knew everything about her neighbors, but she never was very well acquainted with herself.”

“It seems to me a most dreadful thing to go out of the world and not leave one person behind you who is sorry you are gone,' said Anne, shuddering.”

“That doesn't sound very attractive," laughed Anne. "I like people to have a little nonsense about them.”

“I know I haven't much sense or sobriety, but I've got what is ever so much better — the knack of making people like me.”

“Anybody is liable to rheumatism in her legs, Anne. It's only old people who should have rheumatism in their souls, though. Thanks goodness, I never have. When you get rheumatism in your soul you might as well go and pick out your coffin.”

“We are never half so interesting when we have learned that language is given us to enable us to conceal our thoughts.”

“You must pay the penalty of growing-up, Paul. You must leave fairyland behind you.”

“…I'm sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be formed, for good or evil. I don't feel that it's what it should be. It's full of flaws.' 'So's everybody's,' said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully. 'Mine's cracked in a hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or 'tother, and would go on developing in that line.”

“Mrs. Lynde says Mrs. Wrights grandfather stole a sheep but Marilla says we mustent speak ill of the dead. Why mustent we, Anne? I want to know. It's pretty safe ain't it?”