L.M. Montgomery

“You see," she concluded miserably, "when I can call like that to him across space--I belong to him. He doesn't love me--he never will--but I belong to him.”

“Listen to the trees talking in their sleep,' she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. 'What nice dreams they must have!”

“…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.”

“I think it is because I have a habit, when I am bored or disgusted with people of stepping suddenly into my own world and shutting the door. People resent this -- I suppose it is only natural to resent a door being shut in your face. They call it slyness when it is only self-defense.”

“There isn't any such thing as an ordinary life. (92)”

“[Ilse] was suffering so keenly that she wanted to arraign the universe at the bar of her pain.”

“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.”

“I ought to grow up successfully, and I'm sure it will be my own fault if I don't. I feel it's a great responsibility because I have only one chance. If I don't grow up right I can't go back and begin over again.”

“Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.”

“After all," Anne had said to Marilla once, "I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”

“Which would you rather be if you had the choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?”

“Don't you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back?”

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

“The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that…”

“When I read that the flash came, and I took a sheet of paper. . .and I wrote on it: I, Emily Byrd Starr, do solemnly vow this day that I will climb the Alpine Path and write my name on the scroll of fame.”

“Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.”

“A woman who has a sense of humor possesses no refuge from the merciless truth about herself. She cannot think herself misunderstood. She cannot revel in self-pity. She cannot comfortably damn any one who differs from her.”

“We _are_ rich,' said Anne staunchly. 'Why, we have sixteen years to our credit, and we are as happy as queens and we've all got imaginations, more or less. Look at that sea, girls - all silver and shallow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.”

“…I'm so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.”

“You may tire of reality but you never tire of dreams.”