“Mrs. Lynde says, 'Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.”

“Few things in Avonlea ever escaped Mrs. Lynde. It was only that morning Anne had said, "If you went to your own room at midnight, locked the door, pulled down the blind, and sneezed, Mrs. Lynde would ask you the next day how your cold was!”

“...“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.”...”

“Anyhow, there'll be plenty of jam in heaven, that's one comfort, he said complacently.Perhaps there will...if we want it, she said, But what makes you think so?Why, it's in the catechism, said Davy.Oh, no, there is nothing like that in the catechism, Davy.But I tell you there is, persisted Davy. It was in that question Marilla taught me last Sunday. Why should we love God? It says, Because he makes preserves, and redeems us. Preserves is just a holy way of saying jam.”

“I think it's something like Mr. Peter Sloane and the octogenarians. The other evening Mrs. Sloane was reading a newspaper ans she said to Mr. Sloane 'I see here that another octogenarian has just died. What is an Octogenarian, Peter?' And Mr. Sloane said he didn't know, but they must be very sickly creatures, for you never heard tell of them but they were dying.”

“Matthew, much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most quiet folks he liked talkative people when they were willing to do the talking themselves and did not expect him to keep up his end of it.”

“I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals are both writers they must therefore be hugely congenial," said Anne, rather scornfully. "Nobody would expect two blacksmiths to be violently attracted toward each other merely because they were both blacksmiths.”