Quotes from L.M. Montgomery

but it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by a happiness that is not your own.

It's better to know than to imagine, said Felicity. Oh, no, it isn't, said the Story Girl quickly. When you know things you have to go by facts. But when you just dream about things there's nothing to hold you down.

She surrendered herself utterly to the charm of the moment.

Saying one's prayers isn't exactly the same thing as praying.

How quiet the woods are today... not a murmur except that soft wind putting in the treetops! It sounds like surf on a faraway shore. How dear the woods are! You beautiful trees! I love every one of you as a friend!

I am of one mind with the Irishman who said you could get used to anything, even to being hanged!

The trouble is you and Mrs Lynde don't understand each other. That is always what is wrong when people don't like each other. - Anne Shirley

she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the stir of poplars. 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

Did she think ginger cookies a substitute for impassioned longings and mad, wild, glamorous adventures?

Well, I should like to see you go to college, Anne, but if you never do, don't grow discontented about it. We make our own lives wherever we are, after all... college can only help us do it more easily.

Wouldn't it be lovely, Miss Shirley, if some one could just wave a wand and make everybody beautiful? she said wistfully. Just fancy my feelings, Miss Shirley, if I suddenly fould myself beautiful! But then....with a sigh...if we were all beauties who would do the work? Anne of Windy Poplars

How terrible it would be to be doing something you didn't like every day

and the unfortunate Matthew was left to do that which was harder for him than bearding a lion in its den—walk up to a girl—a strange girl—an orphan girl—and demand of her why she wasn't a boy.

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.

There's all the difference in the world, you know, between being inside looking out and outside looking in.

It's so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn't it?

It's a pretty good world, after all, isn't it, Marilla? concluded Anne happily. Mrs. Lynde was complaining the other day that it wasn't much of a world. She said whenever you looked forward to anything pleasant you were sure to be more or less disappointed... perhaps that is true. But there is a good side to it too. The bad things don't always come up to your expectations either... they nearly always turn out ever so much better than you think.

Changes ain't totally pleasant but they're excellent things. Two years is about long enough for things to stay the same. If they stayed put any longer they might grow mossy. - Mr Harrison

Every one has some fault but also some virtue … something that distinguishes it from all the others … gives it a personality. I

In life, as in dreams, however, things often go by contraries

open brow and his fearless eyes. There were thousands like him all over the land of the maple. Let the Piper

Life is rich and full here Ã¢â'¬Â¦ everywhere Ã¢â'¬Â¦ if we can only learn how to open our whole hearts to its richness and fulness.

Josie is a Pye," said Marilla sharply, "so she can't help being disagreeable. I suppose people of that kind serve some useful purpose in society, but I must say I don't know what it is any more than I know the use of thistles.

We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.