Lucy Maud Montgomery Quotes

I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "You get hold of their soul then.

Don't look at me so sorrowfully and so disapprovingly, dearest. I can't be sober and serious - everything looks so rosy and rainbowy to me.

I'm really a very happy, contented little person in spite of my broken heart.

There is another bend in the road after this. No one knows what will happen.

I am simply a 'book drunkard.' Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them.

It only seems as if you are doing something when you're worrying.

I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it?

You never know what peace is until you walk on the shores or in the fields or along the winding red roads of Prince Edward Island in a summer twilight when the dew is falling and the old stars are peeping out and the sea keeps its mighty tryst with the little land it loves. You find your soul then. You realize that youth is not a vanished thing but something that dwells forever in the heart.

Don't you know that it is only very foolish folk who talk sense all the time?

I shall give life here my best, and I believe it will give its best to me in return.

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!

I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.

I suppose it was a romantic was to perish... for a mouse

brains last, beauty doesn't.

You're not eating anything," said Marilla sharply, eying her as if it were a serious shortcoming. Anne sighed. I can't. I'm in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in the depths of despair?" I've never been in the depths of despair, so I can't say," responded Marilla. Weren't you? Well, did you ever try to IMAGINE you were in the depths of despair?" No, I didn't." Then I don't think you can understand what it's like. It's very uncomfortable a feeling indeed.

They keep coming up new all the time - things to perplex you, you know. You settle one question and there's another right after. There are so many things to be thought over and decided when you're beginning to grow up. It keeps me busy all the time thinking them over and deciding what's right. It's a serious thing to grow up, isn't it, Marilla?

In imagination she sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of "faëry lands forlorn," where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie, with the evening star for pilot, to the land of Heart's Desire. And she was richer in those dreams than in realities; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

The woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one only — a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of the archangels.

In daylight I belong to the world . . . in the night to sleep and eternity. But in the dusk I'm free from both and belong only to myself . . . and you

It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other.

Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me to talk like that, but I didn’t mean to be wicked. It’s so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn’t it?

It's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it?

The greatest happiness is to sneeze when you want to.

You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them.

[Anne, commenting on city life] "I think I would probably come to the conclusion that I'd like it for a while... but in the end, I'd still prefer the sound of the wind in the firs across the brook more than the tinkling of crystal.

When I make up my mind to do a thing it stays made up.

Behind them in the garden the little stone house brooded among the shadows. It was lonely but not forsaken. It had not yet done with dreams and laughter and the joy of life; there were to be future summers for the little stone house; meanwhile, it could wait. And over the river in purple durance the echoes bided their time.

There is so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it, and the heart to love it, and the hand to gather it to ourselves--so much in men and women, so much in art and literature, so much everywhere in which to delight, and for which to be thankful.

That doesn't sound very attractive," laughed Anne. "I like people to have a little nonsense about them.

Don't try to write anything you can't feel - it will be a failure - 'echoes nothing worth

Nobody with any real sense of humor *can* write a love story. . . . Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule. (90-91)

Don't be ridiculous, please.' The most insulting words in the world!

But she had long ago learned that when she wandered into the realm of fancy she must go alone. The way to it was by an enchanted path where not even her dearest might follow her.

If a kiss could be seen I think it would look like a violet,' said Priscilla. Anne glowed. 'I'm so glad you spoke that thought, Priscilla, instead of just thinking it and keeping it to yourself. This world would be a much more interesting place…although it is very interesting, anyhow…if people spoke out their real thoughts.

I don't know that she is as amusing as she was when she was a child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love them. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them.

Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare... Perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways.

I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals are both writers they must therefore be hugely congenial.

There was no mistaking her sincerity--it breathed in every tone of her voice. Both Marilla and Mrs. Lynde recognized its unmistakable ring. But the former understood in dismay that Anne was actually enjoying her valley of humiliation--was reveling in the thoroughness of her abasement. Where was the wholesome punishment upon which she, Marilla, had plumed herself? Anne had turned it into a species of positive pleasure.

But Anne with her elbows on the window sill, her soft cheek laid against her clasped hands, and her eyes filled with visions, looked out unheedingly across city roof and spire to that glorious dome of sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from the golden tissue of youth's own optimism. All the Beyond was hers, with its possibilities lurking rosily in the oncoming years — each year a rose of promise to be woven into an immortal chaplet.

Having adventures comes natural to some people", said Anne serenely. "You just have a gift for them or you haven't.

if I can't get what I want - well, I'll want what I can get.

Anne, are you killed?' shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees beside her friend. 'Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and tell me if you're killed.

It has always seemed to me. ever since early childhood, amid all the commonplaces of life, i was very near to a kingdom of ideal beauty. Between it and me hung only a thin veil. I could never draw it quite aside, but sometimes a wind fluttered it and I caught a glimpse of the enchanting realms beyond-only a glimpse-but those glimpses have always made life worthwhile.

Truth exists, only lies have to be invented.

it doesn't take long to stay an hour.

To love is easy and therefore common - but to understand - how rare it is!

But I'd rather look like you than be pretty," she told Anne sincerely. Anne laughed, sipped honey from the tribute, and cast away the sting.

I doubt if I shall ever have time to read the book again -- there are too many new ones coming out all the time which I want to read. Yet an old book has something for me which no new book can ever have -- for at every reading the memories and atmosphere of other readings come back and I am reading old years as well as an old book.