I'd like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily. "I don't exactly want to make people KNOW more... though I know that IS the noblest ambition... but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me... to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born.

When people mean to be good to you, you don't mind very much when they're not quite—always.

There are so many unpleasant things in the world already that there is no use in imagining any more.

You see," she concluded miserably, "when I can call like that to him across space--I belong to him. He doesn't love me--he never will--but I belong to him.

Anne laughed and sighed. She felt very old and mature and wise — which showed how young she was.

I have a dream," he said slowly. "I persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it, a cat and dog, the footsteps of friends -- and YOU!

It's the worst kind of cruelty — the thoughtless kind. You can't cope with it.