Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a certain pitiful, shamed, little hope that Romance would come her way yet - never, until this wet, horrible morning, when she wakened to the fact that she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man. Ay, there lay the sting. Valancy did not mind so much being an old maid. After all, she thought, being an old maid couldn’t possibly be as dreadful as being married to an Uncle Wellignton or an Uncle Benjamin, or even an Uncle Herbert. What hurt her was that she had never had a chance to be anything but an old maid.

I've always held that early marriage is a sure indication of second-rate goods that had to be sold in a hurry." - Martin Harris

I've loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.

I know that in everybody's life must come days of depression and discouragement when all things in life seem to lose savour. The sunniest day has its clouds;but one must not forget the sun is there all the time.

But feeling is so different from knowing. My common sense tells me all you can say, but there are times when common sense has no power over me. Common nonsense takes possession of my soul.

But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.

Anyhow, there'll be plenty of jam in heaven, that's one comfort, he said complacently. Perhaps there will...if we want it, she said, But what makes you think so? Why, it's in the catechism, said Davy. Oh, no, there is nothing like that in the catechism, Davy. But I tell you there is, persisted Davy. It was in that question Marilla taught me last Sunday. Why should we love God? It says, Because he makes preserves, and redeems us. Preserves is just a holy way of saying jam.