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

Everybody has. It wouldn’t do for us to have all our dreams fulfilled. We would be as good as dead if we had nothing left to dream about.

The body grows slowly and steadily but the soul grows by leaps and bounds. It may come to its full stature in an hour.

[Ilse] was suffering so keenly that she wanted to arraign the universe at the bar of her pain.

I wonder if it will be—can be—any more beautiful than this,’ murmured Anne, looking around her with the loving, enraptured eyes of those to whom ‘home’ must always be the loveliest spot in the world,...

Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.

There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I’m such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable,...

I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.

…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.

But you have such dimples,” said Anne, smiling affectionately into the pretty, vivacious face so near her own. “Lovely dimples, like little dents in cream. I have given up all hope of dimples. My dimple-dream...

Oh, as Dean says, nobody is free – never, except just for a few brief moments now and then, when the flash comes, or when as on my haystack night, the soul slips over into...

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

Look, do you see that poem?’ she said suddenly, pointing.

I never fancied cats much till I found the First Mate,” he remarked, to the accompaniment of the Mate’s tremendous purrs. “I saved his life, and when you’ve saved a creature’s life you’re bound to...

Even eighty-odd is sometimes vulnerable to vanity.

I don’t like places or people either that haven’t any faults. I think that a truly perfect person would be very uninteresting.

Why did dusk and fir-scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd things?

I’d write of people and places like I knew, and I’d make my characters talk everyday English; and I’d let the sun rise and set in the usual quiet way without much fuss over the...

Cousin Jimmy thinks I did perfectly right. Cousin Jimmy would think I had done perfectly right if I had murdered Andrew and buried him in the Land of Uprightness. It’s very nice to have one...

It takes all sorts of people to make a world, as I’ve often heard, but I think there are some who could be spared,’ Anne told her reflection in the east gable mirror that night.

Do you know what I think Mayflowers are, Marilla? I think they must be the souls of the flowers that died last summer, and this is their heaven.

Love you! Girl, you’re in the very core of my heart. I hold you there like a jewel. Didn’t I promise you I’d never tell you a lie? Love you! I love you with all...

Anne came dancing home in the purple winter twilight across the snowy places.

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

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

I don’t know, I don’t want to talk as much. (…) It’s nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one’s heart, like treasures. I don’t like to have them laughed at or...

I’m so glad you’re here, Anne,’ said Miss Lavendar, nibbling at her candy. ‘If you weren’t I should be blue…very blue…almost navy blue. Dreams and make-believes are all very well in the daytime and the...

Anybody is liable to rheumatism in her legs, Anne. It’s only old people who should have rheumatism in their souls, though. Thanks goodness, I never have. When you get rheumatism in your soul you might...

Well, hope for your thrilling career – but remember that if there is to be drama in your life somebody must pay the piper in the coin of suffering. If not you – then someone...

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...

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

An old house that had lived its life long ago and so was very quiet and wise and a little mysterious. Also a little austere, but very kind.

I read somewhere once that souls were like flowers,’ said Priscilla.’Then your soul is a golden narcissus,’ said Anne, ‘and Diana’s is like a red, red rose. Jane’s is an apple blossom, pink and wholesome...

My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.

Oh, sometimes I think it is of no use to make friends. They only go out of your life after awhile and leave a hurt that is worse than the emptiness before they came.

I never knew before that religion was such a cheerful thing. I always thought it was kind of melancholy, but Mrs. Allan’s isn’t, and I’d like to be a Christian if I could be one...

But I believe I rather like superstitious people. They lend color to life. Wouldn’t it be a rather drab world if everybody was wise and sensible . . . and good? What would we find...

Steal not this book for fear of shameFor on it is the owners nameAnd when you die the Lord will sayWhere is the book you stole awayAnd when you say you do not knowThe Lord...

The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that…

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

I think it’s something like Mr. Peter Sloane and the octogenarians. The other evening Mrs. Sloane was reading a newspaper ans she said to Mr. Sloane ‘I see here that another octogenarian has just died....

Gilbert, I’m afraid I’m scandalously in love with you.

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

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...

Some people are naturally good, you know, and others are not. I’m one of the others.

I was very much provoked. Of course, I knew there are no fairies; but that needn’t prevent my thinking there is.

A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till she is buried, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will make a batch of cherry pies.

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

The Woman had told her that Tomorrow never comes, but Elizabeth knows better. It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is Tomorrow. Not Today but Tomorrow. And...

Who would endure life if it were not for the hope of death?