“It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
― L.M. Montgomery
“We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“True friends are always together in spirit.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“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.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“It's not what the world holds for you. It's what you bring to it.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“You may tire of reality but you never tire of dreams.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Road to Yesterday
“I don't want sunbursts or marble halls. I just want you.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (Anne to Gilbert)
“There's such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I'm such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl
“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“Humor is the spiciest condiment in the feast of existence. Laugh at your mistakes but learn from them, joke over your troubles but gather strength from them, make a jest of your difficulties but overcome them.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl
“And people make fun of me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?”
― L.M. Montgomery
“I'd like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily. "I don't exactly want to make people KNOW more... though I know that IS the noblest ambition... but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me... to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams
“For a moment Anne's heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert's gaze and a rosy flush stained the paleness of her face. It was as if a veil that had hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation of unsuspected feelings and realities. Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps. . . perhaps... love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath."
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea
“I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“'All life lessons are not learned at college,' she thought. 'Life teaches them everywhere.'”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island
“I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "You get hold of their soul then.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams
“I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset... almost pays for the thud.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“You were never poor as long as you had something to love.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“The body grows slowly and steadily but the soul grows by leaps and bounds. It may come to its full stature in an hour.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Rilla of Ingleside
“I couldn't live where there were no trees--something vital in me would starve.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams“There might be some hours of loneliness. But there was something wonderful even in loneliness. At least you belonged to yourself when you were lonely.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Mistress Pat
“When you've learned to laugh at the things that should be laughed at, and not to laugh at those that shouldn't, you've got wisdom and understanding.
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island
“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“Why did dusk and fir-scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd things?”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest
“Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“When you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worthwhile.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“Anyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn’t can never know what it is. So there is no need of defining it.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“It was November--the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“Don't you ever imagine things differently than what they are? Oh, Marilla, how much you miss.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“Anne always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night. It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“But if you call me Anne, please call me Anne with an 'E'.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables“Those who can soar to the highest heights can also plunge to the deepest depths and the natures which enjoy most keenly are those which also suffer most sharply.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“If I really wanted to pray I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field alone or into the deep, deep woods, and I'd look up into the sky - up - up - up- into that lovely blue sky that looks like there's no end to it's blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“But I believe I rather like superstitious people. They lend color to life. Wouldn't it be a rather drab world if everybody was wise and sensible . . . and good? What would we find to talk about?”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars
“I'm afraid to speak or move for fear that all this wonderful beauty will just vanish... like a broken silence.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“One can't get over the habit of being a little girl all at once.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea
“It's not vanity to know your own good points. It would just be stupidity if you didn't; It's only vanity when you get puffed up about them.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“I'm not a bit changed--not really. I'm only just pruned down and branched out. The real ME--back here--is just the same.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“Because when you're imagining, you might as well imagine something worthwhile”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“In this life you've got to hope for the best, prepare for the worst and take whatever God sends.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“It has always seemed to me, ever since early childhood, amid all the commonplaces of life, I was very near to a kingdom of ideal beauty. Between it and me hung only a thin veil. I could never draw it quite aside, but sometimes a wind fluttered it and I caught a glimpse of the enchanting realms beyond-only a glimpse-but those glimpses have always made life worthwhile.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“When twilight drops her curtain down,
And pins it with a star,
Remember that you have a friend,
Though she may wander far.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“Mrs. Cadbury: Tell me what you know about yourself, child.
Anne Shirley: Well, it really isn't worth telling, Mrs. Cadbury... but if you let me tell you what I IMAGINE about myself you'd find it a lot more interesting.”
― L.M. Montgomery
― L.M. Montgomery
“You're never safe from being surprised until you're dead.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“We all make mistake, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistake and learn from them but never carry them forward into the future with us.”
― L.M. Montgomery
“It was three o'clock in the morning – the wisest and most accursed hour of the clock. But sometimes it sets us free.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle
― L.M. Montgomery, Rilla of Ingleside
“Fairyland is the loveliest word because it means everything the human heart desires.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Selected Journals of L. M. Montgomery
“Dear old world', she murmured, 'you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“The woods are never solitary--they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Kilmeny of the Orchard
“It's nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I don't like to have them laughed at or wondered over.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“Proverbs are all very fine when there's nothing to worry you, but when you're in real trouble, they're not a bit of help.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl
"It's a serious thing to grow up, isn't it, Marilla?”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“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.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea
“In imagination she (Anne) sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of "faëry lands forlorn," where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie, with the evening star for pilot, to the land of Heart's Desire. And she was richer in those dreams than in realities; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island
― L.M. Montgomery
“I heard someone once say that the years from fifteen to nineteen are the best years in a girl's life.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Rilla of Ingleside
“All I want is a dress with puffy sleaves”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“I've done my best, and I begin to understand what is meant by 'the joy of strife'. Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars
“My pen shall heal, not hurt.”
“My pen shall heal, not hurt.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island
“Anne: I wouldn't want to marry anybody who was wicked, but I think I'd like it if he COULD be wicked and WOULDN'T.
Marilla: You will have more sense someday I hope.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island
"I've loved you ever since the day you broke your slate over my head”
