Anne: "But have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice". Marilla: "I don't know as that's much benefit when you're always making new ones".

Which would you rather be if you had the choice--divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?

There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, is there? And it's so hard to keep from loving things, isn't it?

She suddenly found herself laughing without bitterness.

I have really done so few bad things that they have to keep harping on the old ones [.]

Don't be led away by those howls about realism. Remember-pine woods are just as real as pigsties and a darn sight pleasanter to be in.

An old house with its windows gone always makes me think of something dead with its eyes picked out.