Even when I’m alone I have real good company — dreams and imaginations and pretendings. I like to be alone now and then, just to think over things and taste them. But I love friendships...

People told her she hadn’t changed much, in a tone which hinted they were surprised and a little disappointed she hadn’t.

I feel as if I had opened a book and found roses of yesterday sweet and fragrant, between its leaves.

It’s good advice, but I expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think.

Oh, I know I’m a great trial to you, Marilla,” said Anne repentantly. “I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I don’t make, although I might.

I hate to go mincing through life, afraid to take a single long step for fear somebody is watching. I want to “wave my wild tail and walk by my wild lone.” There wasn’t a...

Satirize wickedness if you must–but pity weakness.

Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.

Then Diana puts too many murders into [her stories]. She says most of the time she doesn’t know what to do with the people so she kills them off to get rid of them.

Before this war is over,’ [Walter] said – or something said through his lips – ‘every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it – you, Mary, will feel it – feel it...

Mrs. Binnie says we throw out more with a spoon than the men can be bringing in with a shovel…Binnie-like. Our men like the good living. And what if we don’t be having too much...

She looked like a head-on collision between a fashion plate and a nightmare.

I have got akwanted with Lofty John. Ilse is a great friend of his and often goes there to watch him working in his carpenter shop. He says he has made enough ladders to get...

Well, it all comes to this, there’s no use trying to live in other people’s opinions. The only thing to do is to live in our own.

That’s a lovely idea, Diana,’ said Anne enthusiastically. ‘Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn’t beautiful to begin with…making it stand in people’s thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that...

Ten good lines out of four hundred, Emily—comparatively good, that is—and all the rest balderdash—balderdash, Emily.””I—suppose so,” said Emily faintly.Her eyes brimmed with tears—her lips quivered. She could not help it. Pride was hopelessly submerged...

Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before. Now I know that I just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness. This is the reality.

Oh, Mr. Cuthbert,” she whispered, that place we came through–that white place–what was it?””Well now, you must mean the Avenue,” said Matthew after a few moments’ profound reflection. “It is a kind of pretty place.””Pretty?...

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

We always hate people who surprise our secrets…

You must pay the penalty of growing-up, Paul. You must leave fairyland behind you.

How sadly things had changed since she had sat there the night after coming home! Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy with promise. Anne felt as...

She had never before minded being alone. Now she dreaded it. When she was alone now she felt so dreadfully alone.

I know you’re a fool, Jim Hardy, but for heaven’s sake pretend you’re not for five minutes.

Jane’s stories are too sensible. Then Diana puts too much murders into hers. She says most of the time she doesn’t know what to do with the people so she kills them off to get...

Thank goodness, we can choose our friends. We have to take our relatives as they are, and be thankful…

I’ve put out a lot of little roots these two years,” Anne told the moon, “and when I’m pulled up they’re going to hurt a great deal. But it’s best to go, I think, and,...

But the summer had been a very happy one, too — a time of glad living with summer suns and skies, a time of keen delight in wholesome things; a time of renewing and deepening...

Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.

I’ve come home in love with loneliness

I can just imagine myself sitting down at the head of the table and pouring out the tea,” said Anne, shutting her eyes ecstatically. “And asking Diana if she takes sugar! I know she doesn’t...

But pearls are for tears, the old legend says,” Gilbert had objected.”I’m not afraid of that. And tears can be happy as well as sad. My very happiest moments have been when I had tears...

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...

Don’t you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back?

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

You’ve all been so sure that life is good that I’ve never been able to disbelieve it. Never will be able to.

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

When weeds go to heaven, I suppose they will be flowers.

Look at that sea, girls–all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.

Oh, it makes SUCH a difference. It LOOKS so much nicer. When you hear a name pronounced can’t you always see it in your mind, just as if it was printed out? I can; and...

I love a book that makes me cry.

The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy mortals. It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.

Do you know, Mrs. Allan, I’m thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.” “True friendship is a very helpful thing indeed,” said Mrs. Allan, “and we should have a very high ideal of it...

When I read that the flash came, and I took a sheet of paper. . .and I wrote on it: I, Emily Byrd Starr, do solemnly vow this day that I will climb the Alpine...

Why should one hate you when you were so small? Could you be worth hating?

hat’s the worst of growing up, and I’m beginning to realize it. The things you wanted so much when you were a child don’t seem half so wonderful to you when you get them.

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...

…there was something about her that made you feel it was safe to tell her secrets.

Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it...

Fancies are like shadows…you can’t cage them, they’re such wayward, dancing things.