Lucy Maud Montgomery Quotes

I couldn't live where there were no trees--something vital in me would starve.

Gossip, as usual, was one-third right and two-thirds wrong.

Of all the uncertain things marriage is the uncertainest.

Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously.

Don't you ever imagine things differently than what they are? Oh, Marilla, how much you miss.

"Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them," exclaimed Anne. "You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynde says, 'Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.' But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed.".

It's all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you really come to have them, is it?

Red hair is my life long sorrow.

The beauty of winter is that it makes you appreciate spring.

We are never half so interesting when we have learned that language is given us to enable us to conceal our thoughts.

…I'm so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.

Twilight drops her curtain down, and pins it with a star.

…the Lake of Shining Waters was blue — blue — blue; not the changeful blue of spring, nor the pale azure of summer, but a clear, steadfast, serene blue, as if the water were past all modes and tenses of emotion and had settled down to a tranquillity unbroken by fickle dreams.

Gilbert took from his desk a little pink candy heart with a gold motto on it, “You are sweet,” and slipped it under the curve of Anne’s arm. Whereupon Anne arose, took the pink heart gingerly between the tips of her fingers, dropped it on the floor, ground it to powder beneath her heel, and resumed her position without deigning to bestow a glance on Gilbert.

People who haven’t red hair don’t know what trouble is.

For there is no bond more lasting than that formed by the mutual confidences of that magic time when youth is slipping from the sheath of childhood and beginning to wonder what lies for it beyond those misty hills that bound the golden road.

I don't really care what people think about me if they don't let me see it.

Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.

Oh, but there's such a difference between saying a thing yourself and hearing other people say it,' wailed Anne. 'You may know a thing is so, but you can't help hoping other people don't quite think it is.

Dogs want only love but cats demand worship.

Oh, of course there's a risk in marrying anybody, but, when it's all said and done, there's many a worse thing than a husband.

I've done my best, and I begin to understand what is meant by 'the joy of strife'. Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.

Words aren't made — they grow,' said Anne.

The ghosts of things that never happened are worse than the ghosts of things that did.

Walter's eyes were very wonderful. All the joy and sorrow and laughter and loyalty and aspirations of many generations lying under the sod looked out of their dark-gray depths.

...the sorrows God sent us brought comfort and strength with them, while the sorrows we brought on ourselves, through folly or wickedness, were by far the hardest to bear.

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

[O]ne can dream so much better in a room where there are pretty things.

I love bright red drinks, don’t you? They taste twice as good as any other color.

…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.

Mrs. Cadbury: Tell me what you know about yourself. Anne Shirley: Well, it really isn't worth telling, Mrs. Cadbury... but if you let me tell you what I IMAGINE about myself you'd find it a lot more interesting.

I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing influences that nature offers us. But I understand your feeling. I think we all experience the same thing. We resent the thought that anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when we find our interest in life returning to us.

After all, what could you expect from a pig but a grunt?

The woods are never solitary--they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity.

Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn't talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to it, although it's difficult.

But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts.

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

And he wrote, "When the moon rises tonight think of me and I'll think of you.

I don't like green Christmases. They're not green—they're just nasty faded browns and grays.

there's no use trying to live in other people's opinions. The only thing to do is live in your own.

After all," Anne had said to Marilla once, "I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.

Fairyland is the loveliest word because it means everything the human heart desires.

Poor soul, she always knew everything about her neighbors, but she never was very well acquainted with herself.

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.

Why, I've never even had a quarrel with any one. I haven't an enemy. What a spineless thing I must be not to have even one enemy!

Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but young men, and the older she gets the worse she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn't do to drag them into everything, does it?

You may tire of reality but you never tire of dreams.

We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.