Why did dusk and fir-scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd things?

…always felt the pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent words of comforting. Besides, she remembered how well-meant speeches had hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid.

It's so dreadful to have nothing to love - life is so empty - and there's nothing worse than emptiness.

Welcome, Anne. I thought you'd come today. You belong to the afternoon so it brought you. Things that belong together are sure to come together. What a lot of trouble that would save some people if they only knew it. But they don't...and so they waste beautiful energy moving heaven and earth to bring things together that don't belong.

she was richer in those dreams than in realities; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

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.

Make them do as you want them to," she said. "I can’t," mourned Anne. "Averil is such an unmanageable heroine. She will do and say things I never meant her to. Then that spoils everything that went before and I have to write it all over again.