“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.”
“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.”
“Perry says that he feels like going to Priest Pond and knocking the daylights out of Great-Aunt Nancy. I told him he must not talk like that about my family, and anyhow I don't see how knocking the daylights out of Great-Aunt Nancy would make her change her opinion about me...(I wonder what daylights are and how you knock them out of people.)”
“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.”
“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 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.”
“Babies are such fascinating creatures," said Anne dreamily. "They are what I heard somebody at Redmond call 'terrific bundles of potentialities.' Think of it, Katherine . . . Homer must have been a baby once . . . a baby with dimples and great eyes full of light . . . he couldn't have been blind then, of course.”