L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs
18 quotes
"Nobody with any real sense of humor *can* write a love story. . . . Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule. (90-91)"
"Don't try to write anything you can't feel - it will be a failure - 'echoes nothing worth"
"It was not, of course, a proper thing to do. But then I have never pretended, nor will ever pretend, that Emily was a proper child. Books are not written about proper children. They would be so dull nobody would read them."
"Fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world."
"I have made up my mind that I will never marry. I shall be wedded to my art."
"There isn't any such thing as an ordinary life. (92)"
"Lovely thoughts came flying to meet me like birds. They weren't my thoughts. I couldn't think anything half so exquisite. They came from somewhere."
"[Ilse] was suffering so keenly that she wanted to arraign the universe at the bar of her pain."
"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."
"Oh, as Dean says, nobody is free - never, except just for a few brief moments now and then, when the flash comes, or when as on my haystack night, the soul slips over into eternity for a little space. All the rest of our years we are slaves to something - traditions - conventions - ambitions - relations."
"Cousin Jimmy thinks I did perfectly right. Cousin Jimmy would think I had done perfectly right if I had murdered Andrew and buried him in the Land of Uprightness. It's very nice to have one friend like that, though too many wouldn't be good for you."
"Any human companionship, even the dearest and most perfect, would have been alien to her then. She was sufficient unto herself, needing not love nor comradeship nor any human emotion to round out her felicity. Such moments come rarely in any life, but when they do come they are inexpressibly wonderful - as if the finite were for a second infinity - as if humanity were for a space uplifted into divinity - as if all ugliness had vanished, leaving only flawless beauty."
"Satirize wickedness if you must--but pity weakness."
"No one can be free who has a thousand ancestors."
"He was so lonely that he laughed at himself."
"I have been reading three books Dean lent me this week. One was like a rose garden--very pleasant, but just a little too sweet. And one was like a pine wood on a mountain--full of balsam and tang--I loved it, and yet it filled me with a sort of despair. It was written so beautifully--I can never write like that, I feel sure. And one--it was just like a pig-sty. Dean gave me that one by mistake."
"Jimmy Murray, you are an ass,' said Aunt Ruth, angrily.'Well, we're cousins,' agreed Cousin Jimmy pleasantly."
"Well, it all comes to this, there's no use trying to live in other people's opinions. The only thing to do is to live in our own."