Oh Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them," exclaimed Anne.

Marilla felt more embarrassed than ever. She had intended to teach Anne the childish classic, "Now I lay me down to sleep." But she had, as I have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humor--which is simply another name for a sense of the fitness of things; and it suddenly occurred to her that simple little prayer, sacred to the white-robed childhood lisping at motherly knees, was entirely unsuited to this freckled witch of a girl who knew and cared nothing about God's love, since she had never had it translated to her through the medium of human love.

Secrets are generally terrible. Beauty is not often hidden — only ugliness and deformity.

There isn't any such thing as an ordinary life. (92)

People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?

When you've learned to laugh at the things that should be laughed at, and not to laugh at those that shouldn't, you've got wisdom and understanding. -Aunt Jimsie

Fear is the original sin. Almost all of the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something.It is a cold slimy serpent coiling about you. It is horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading.