Quotes from L.M. Montgomery

Oh, this is the most TRAGICAL thing that ever happened to me!

The tinkles of sleigh bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through the frosty air, but their music was not sweeter than the song in Anne's heart and on her lips.

Well now, I dunno

Jos voitte istua toisen ihmisen seurassa vaiti puoli tuntia ja tuntea olonne mukavaksi, teistä ja tuosta ihmisestä voi tulla ystävät. Jos ette voi, teistä ei tule koskaan ystäviä, eikä teidän kannata tuhlata aikaa yrittämiseen.

One could have eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming the proverbial peck of dirt. Mrs.

It's dusk, dearest. (In passing, isn't 'dusk' a lovely word? I like it better than twilight. It sounds so velvety and shadowy and—and—dusky.) In daylight I belong to the world; in the night to sleep and eternity. But in the dusk I'm free from both and belong only to myself—and you. — L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars (Oxford City Press, 2012)(via luthienne)

But have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice. I don't know as that's much benefit when you're always making new ones. Oh, don't you see, Marilla? There must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I'll be through with them. That's a very comforting thought.

I don't seem to be like other girls, Judy. They all want to go to college and have a career. I don't...I just want to stay at Silver Bush and help you and mother. There's work for me here, Judy...you know there is. Mother isn't strong. As for being educated...I shall be well educated...love educates, Judy.

They had a sort of talent for happiness.

For, disguise the fact as we will, when friends, even the closest—perhaps the more because of that very closeness—meet again after a separation there is always a chill, lesser or greater, of change. Neither finds the other quite the same. This is natural and inevitable. Human nature is ever growing or retrogressing—never stationary.

Anne was kneeling at the west gable window watching the sunset sky that was like a great flower with petals of crocus and a heart of fiery yellow.

Oh, they meant to be – I know they meant to be just as good and kind as possible. And when people mean to be good to you, you don't mind very much when they're not quite – always.

Lowell says, 'Not failure but low aim is crime.' We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them. With them it's grand and great.

This is my night for being Betty, because I love everything in the world tonight. I was Elizabeth last night, and tomorrow night I'll probably be Beth. It all depends on how I feel.' ... 'How very nice to have a name you can change so easily and still feel it's your own.

everything is foreordained and it was bound to happen anyway. But even so, it's nice to think one was an instrument used by predestination.

If I had my way I'd shut everything out of your life but happiness and pleasure, Anne, said Gilbert in the tone that meant danger ahead. Then you would be very unwise, rejoined Anne hastily. I'm sure no life can be properly developed and rounded out without some trial and sorrow--though I suppose it is only when we are pretty comfortable that we admit it...

If you please, Great-Aunt Nancy, said Emily deliberately, I don't like to be told I look like other people. I look just like myself.

Well, all I hope, said Miss Cornelia calmly, is that when I'm dead nobody will call me 'our departed sister.

before them: the girls whose hearts were to be wrung were yet fair little maidens a-star with hopes and dreams.

She had died in her sleep, painlessly and calmly, and on her face was a smile- as if, after all, death had come as a kindly friend to lead her over the threshold, instead of the grisly phantom she had dreaded...Anne, looking down through a mist of tears, at her old playfellow, thought she saw the face of God had meant Ruby to have, and remembered it so always.

I see happiness for all of you .... Happiness for you all ... though, mind you, I reckon, you'll have your troubles and worries and sorrows too. They're bound to come ... and no house whether it's a palace or a little house of dreams can bar' em out. But they won't get the better of you if you face them together with love and trust. You can weather any storm with them two for compass and pilot.

I've always thought nobody understood me quite as well as I understood myself.

The whitewashed walls were so painfully bare and staring that she thought they must ache over their own bareness.

I listen to the sound the sea makes. I like it now though it always makes me feel sorrowful, but it's a kind of a nice sorrow.