L.M. Montgomery

“Oh, it was almost too much to bear! And everything was going on as before - the dancers were spinning around, the boys who couldn't get partners were hanging about the pavilion, canoodling couples were sitting out on the rocks - nobody seemed to realize what a stupendous thing had happened.”

“Rilla's heart skipped a beat - or, if that be a pysiological impossibility, she thought it did.”

“Rilla was not fond of Mary Vance. She had never forgotten the humiliating day when Mary had chased her through the village with a dried codfish.”

“War was a hellish, horrible hideous thing - too horrible and hideous to happen in the twentieth century between civilised nations.”

“Don't look at me so sorrowfully and so disapprovingly, dearest. I can't be sober and serious - everything looks so rosy and rainbowy to me.”

“I heard someone once say that the years from fifteen to nineteen are the best years in a girl's life.”

“Rilla was fond of italics, as most girls of fifteen are.”

“There was something in her movements that made you think she never walked but always danced.”

“Well, that is all the notes and there is not much else in the paper of any importance. I never take much interest in foreign parts. Who's this Archduke man who has been murdered?""What does it matter to us?" asked Miss Cornelia, unaware of the hideous answer to her question, which destiny was even then preparing. "Someone is always murdering or being murdered in those Balkan States. It's their normal condition and I don't really think that our papers ought to publish such shocking things.”

“The only thing I envy about a cat is its purr," remarked Dr. Blythe once, listening to Doc's resonant melody. "It is the most contented sound in the world.”

“He was a cat of double personality - or else, as Susan vowed, he was possessed by the devil.”

“There was another occupant of the living-room, curled up on a couch, who must not be overlooked, since he was a creature of marked individuality, and, moreover, had the distinction of being the only living thing whom Susan really hated.”

“Their happiness was in each others keeping, and both were unafraid.”

“There must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I'll be through with them. That's a comforting thought”

“One June evening, when the orchards were pink-blossomed again, when the frogs were singing silverly sweet in the marshes about the head of the Lake of Shining Waters, and the air was full of the savor of clover fields and balsamic fir woods, Anne was sitting by her gable window. She had been studying her lessons, but it had grown too dark to see the book, so she had fallen into wide-eyed reverie, looking out past the boughs of the Snow Queen, once more bestarred with its tufts of blossom.”

“Oh, Charlotta dear, I'd have told you all about it if it were my secret...but it's Miss Lavendar's, you see. However, I'll tell you this much...and if nothing comes of it you must never breathe a word about it to a living soul. You see, Prince Charming is coming tonight. He came long ago, but in a foolish moment went away and wandered afar and forgot the secret of the magic pathway to the enchanted castle, where the princess was weeping her faithful heart out for me. But at last he remembered it again and the princess is waiting still...because nobody but her own dear prince could carry her off."Oh, Miss Shirley, ma'am, what is that is prose?" gasped the mystified Charlotta.”

“Behind them in the garden the little stone house brooded among the shadows. It was lonely but not forsaken. It had not yet done with dreams and laughter and the joy of life; there were to be future summers for the little stone house; meanwhile, it could wait. And over the river in purple durance the echoes bided their time.”

“You have the itch for writing born in you. It's quite incurable. What are you going to do with it?”

“Grandmother's voice was ice. "They do not. Your mother has been happy all these years, till you began stirring up old memories. Leave her alone. She is my daughter... no outsider shall ever come between us again... neither Andrew Stuart nor you nor anyone. And you will be good enough to remember that.”

“Anne?" said Dacy sitting up in bed and propping his chin on his hands, "Anne, where is sleep? People go to sleep every night, and of course I know it's a place where I do things I dream, but I want to know where it is and how to get there and back without knowing anything about it . . . and in my nighty too. Where is it?”

“Wilson has some fancy name for it, butI call lit macanaccady. Anything I can't analyze in the eatingline I call macanaccady and anything wet that puzzles me I callshallamagouslem. ”

“I've a pocket full of dreams to sell," said Teddy, whimsically,... "What d'ye lack? What d'ye lack? A dream of success--a dream of adventure--a dream of the sea--a dream of the woodland--any kind of a dream you want at reasonable prices, including one or two unique little nightmares. What will you give me for a dream?”

“If it's IN you to climb you must -- there are those who MUST lift their eyes to the hills -- they can't breathe properly in the valleys.”

“I am quite likely to re-act to the opposite extreme - to feel rapturously that the world is beautiful and mere existence something to thank God for. I suppose our 'blues' are the price we have to pay for our temperament. 'The gods don't allow us to be in their debt.' They give us sensitiveness to beauty in all its forms but the shadow of the gift goes with it.”

“A girl who would fall in love so easily or want a man to love her so easily would probably get over it just as quickly, very little the worse for wear. On the contrary, a girl who would take love seriously would probably be a good while finding herself in love and would require something beyond mere friendly attentions from a man before she would think of him in that light.”

“[...] I grew up out of that strange, dreamy childhood of mine and went into the world of reality. I met with experiences that bruised my spirit - but they never harmed my ideal world. That was always mine to retreat into at will. I learned that that world and the real world clashed hopelessly and irreconcilably; and I learned to keep them apart so that the former might remain for me unspoiled. I learned to meet other people on their own ground since there seemed to be no meeting place on mine. I learned to hide the thoughts and dreams and fancies that had no place in the strife and clash of the market place. I found that it was useless to look for kindred souls in the multitude; one might stumble on such here and there, but as a rule it seemed to me that the majority of people lived for the things of time and sense alone and could not understand my other life. So I piped and danced to other people's piping - and held fast to my own soul as best I could.”

“It's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it?”

“I feel as if I had opened a book and found roses of yesterday sweet and fragrant, between its leaves.”

“You can never tell about those Yankees!”

“Anne: "But have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice".Marilla: "I don't know as that's much benefit when you're always making new ones".”

“There isn't any such thing as an ordinary life.”

“Nobody with any real sense of humor *can* write a love story. . . . Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule. (90-91)”

“The world looks like something God had just imaged for his own pleasure, doesn't it?”

“For a moment Anne's heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert's gaze and a rosy flush stained the paleness of her face. It was as if a veil that had hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation of unsuspected feelings and realities. Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps. . . perhaps. . .love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath. ”

“Secrets are generally terrible. Beauty is not hidden--only ugliness and deformity.”

“Nobody can keep on being angry if she looks into the heart of a pansy for a little while.”

“All i want is a dress with puffy sleaves”

“Plum puffs can't minister to a mind diseased or a world that's crumbling to pieces”

“Don't be very frightened, Marilla. I was walking the ridge-pole and I fell off. I suspect I have sprained my ankle. But, Marilla, I might have broken my neck. Let us look on the bright side of things.”

“I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.”

“I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "You get hold of their soul then.”

“Anne always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night. It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it.”

“But it ain't our feelings we have to steer by through life--no, no, we'd make shipwreck mighty often if we did that. There's only the one safe compass and we've got to set our course by that--what it's right to do.”

“We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them. With them it's grand and great.”

“We ought always to try to influence others for good.”

“Some people go through life trying to find out what the world holds for them only to find out too late that it's what they bring to the world that really counts.”

“In imagination she sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of "faëry lands forlorn," where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie, with the evening star for pilot, to the land of Heart's Desire. And she was richer in those dreams than in realities; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

“The body grows slowly and steadily but the soul grows by leaps and bounds. It may come to its full stature in an hour.”

“There is so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it, and the heart to love it, and the hand to gather it to ourselves--so much in men and women, so much in art and literature, so much everywhere in which to delight, and for which to be thankful.”

“But I believe I rather like superstitious people. They lend color to life. Wouldn't it be a rather drab world if everybody was wise and sensible . . . and good? What would we find to talk about?”