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.

Well now, I'd rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne,' said Matthew patting her hand. 'Just mind you that — rather than a dozen boys. Well now, I guess it wasn't a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It was a girl — my girl — my girl that I'm proud of.

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

Oh, we're very careful, Marilla. And it's so interesting. Two flashes means, "Are you there?" Three means "yes" and four "no." Five means, "Come over as soon as possible, because I have something important to reveal." Diana has just signalled five flashes, and I'm really suffering to know what it is.

Red hair is my life long sorrow.

Without shedding of blood there is no anything. Everything, it seems to me, has to be purchased by selfsacrifice. Our race has marked every step of its painful ascent with blood. And now torrents of it must flow again.

In this world you've just got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and take whatever God sends.