L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea
31 quotes
"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."
"I suppose that's how it looks in prose. But it's very different if you look at it through poetry…and I think it's nicer…' Anne recovered herself and her eyes shone and her cheeks flushed… 'to look at it through poetry."
"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."
"Oh, sometimes I think it is of no use to make friends. They only go out of your life after awhile and leave a hurt that is worse than the emptiness before they came."
"…I'm so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much."
"People who are different from other people are always called peculiar,' said Anne."
"It takes all sorts of people to make a world, as I've often heard, but I think there are some who could be spared,' Anne told her reflection in the east gable mirror that night."
"I'm so glad you're here, Anne,' said Miss Lavendar, nibbling at her candy. 'If you weren't I should be blue…very blue…almost navy blue. Dreams and make-believes are all very well in the daytime and the sunshine, but when dark and storm come they fail to satisfy. One wants real things then. But you don't know this…seventeen never knows it. At seventeen dreams do satisfy because you think the realities are waiting for you further on."
"I've put out a lot of little roots these two years," Anne told the moon, "and when I'm pulled up they're going to hurt a great deal. But it's best to go, I think, and, as Marilla says, there's no good reason why I shouldn't. I must get out all my ambitions and dust them."
"Oh, sometimes I think it is of no use to make friends. They only go out of your life after a while and leave a hurt that is worse than the emptiness before they came."
"Oh, of course there's a risk in marrying anybody, but, when it's all said and done, there's many a worse thing than a husband."
"But the summer had been a very happy one, too -- a time of glad living with summer suns and skies, a time of keen delight in wholesome things; a time of renewing and deepening of old friendships; a time in which she had learned to live more nobly, to work more patiently, to play more heartily."
"I was very much provoked. Of course, I knew there are no fairies; but that needn't prevent my thinking there is."
"He watched over word and thought and deed as jealously as if her clear eyes were to pass judgement on it... She held over him the unconscious influence that every girl, whose ideals are high and pure, wields over her friends; an influence that would endure as long as she was faithful to those ideals and which she would certainly lose if she were ever false to them."
"Do you know, Mrs. Allan, I'm thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much." "True friendship is a very helpful thing indeed," said Mrs. Allan, "and we should have a very high ideal of it , and never sully it by any failure in truth and sincerity. I fear the name of friendship is often degraded to a kind of intimacy that had nothing of real friendship in it."
"I guess you've got a spice of temper," commented Mr. Harrison, surveying the flushed cheeks and indignant eyes opposite him. "It goes with hair like yours, I reckon"
"She looked like a head-on collision between a fashion plate and a nightmare."
"I read somewhere once that souls were like flowers,' said Priscilla.'Then your soul is a golden narcissus,' said Anne, 'and Diana's is like a red, red rose. Jane's is an apple blossom, pink and wholesome and sweet.''And our own is a white violet, with purple streaks in its heart,' finished Priscilla."
"I can't understand how she could have wanted to live back here, away from everything," said Jane. "Oh, I can easily understand that," said Anne thoughtfully. "I wouldn't want it myself for a steady thing because, although I love the fields and woods, I love people too..."
"...And every day in heaven will be more beautiful than the one before it Davy," assured Anne."
"Well, one can't get over the habit of being a liitle girl all at once."
"If a kiss could be seen I think it would look like a violet,' said Priscilla.Anne glowed.'I'm so glad you spoke that thought, Priscilla, instead of just thinking it and keeping it to yourself. This world would be a much more interesting place…although it is very interesting, anyhow…if people spoke out their real thoughts."
"Mrs Allan says that whenever we think of anything that is a trial to use we should also think of something nice that we can set over against it. If you are slightly too plump, you've got the dearest dimples; and if I have a freckled nose the shape of it is all right."
"I've come home in love with loneliness"
"And yet... you wouldn't want it to stop hurting... you wouldn't want to forget your little mother even if you could."