L M Browning Quotes

To say I woke up one day and reached a point where I no longer cared about the pains to befall me would be a lie. Nor can I say that I have ever fully forgiven those who willfully did me harm. On a deep, internal battlefield, I wrestle with the thought that I have been robbed of any chance of normalcy by the losses suffered. Therapists and gurus alike tell us to, "Let go or be dragged," as Zen proverb urges - to forgive for our own sake. But, in my experience, there is no letting go and forgiveness is transient. My inability to be free of it all isn't for lack of an evolved consciousness on my part. I've "done the work" to process it all; rather, it is my irreconcilable, inescapable humanity that causes to clutch the pain close to me. ~ L.M. Browning

During the worst of it, onlookers who have learned my story often comment to me that, "All the hardships you suffered were part of a divine plan for your life because something good came from each bad thing." As though a divine presence decided to teach me these great lessons through pain. I am affronted by such a suggestion because it robs me of my accomplishment by removing the element of transcendence.
I don't believe we learn anything from suffering. If human beings inherently learned through suffering, we would be a population of enlightened beings and we're not. We learn from suffering if and only if we manage to transcend our suffering to find meaning in what is otherwise senseless. This process of transcendence is a profoundly human one that imparts the deepest - most lasting - sense of achievement. ~ L.M. Browning

I'm broken. We're all broken and right now we're all isolated within that brokenness. The cure for the loneliness is connection - connection with that broken part of ourselves and with each other - and we can't achieve that connection while pretending we are okay. We're not okay. ~ L.M. Browning

We all have those things that help us carry on through life. It is important that these things upon which we depend for daily strength are healthy for our character rather than harmful. We must ask ourselves whether the comforts we reach for each day are vices or virtues? Do they feed the best parts of us or do they rob us of them? Even when we are at our most fatigued and are tempted to reach for self-destructive things, we must try to seek out and take solace in those things that will lead to our eventual renewal; rather than those things that will only serve to bring us lower. ~ L.M. Browning

I burned by bridges so the devil couldn't follow me. ~ L.M. Browning

I no longer seek those things that help me to heal but for those things that fortify me with the strength required to carry the load fate has set upon my shoulders. Instead of finding a way to forget, find a way to bear the constant remembering. The silence of the wild being one of those elements that reinforce the weathered walls of the soul and mind. ~ L.M. Browning

Now I know, you can't change what's happened to you or hide it, or spin it, or get over it. All you can do is hold it confidently knowing that the mistakes are yours but so too is the wisdom earned along the punishing passage. Suffering is the catalyst for transformation. The wounds don't define us; how we went about surviving does. Oddity, in this sickened society of medicated despair, is a blessed state. ~ L.M. Browning

Take all those things that would propose to be important, and weigh them upon the scale of your soul. Asking how much each thing actually impacts, not just the moment, but the years ahead. Discard all that is trivial masquerading as significant, and reserve your days for those things that truly matter. ~ L.M. Browning

There is no "letting go." I would dare to take it further and say there is no healing from trauma. For nearly 25 years, I've waited to get over the traumas that have amassed across my life. The pursuit of this healing has felt a great deal like a search for God - for something elusive, divine, and that may or may not exist. ~ L.M. Browning

Indifference is a choice, ~ L.M. Browning

Becoming aware of the dearness in what might otherwise be regarded as mundane is the ultimate form of insight. ~ L.M. Browning

Evil is not some otherworldly creation; humanity is its source and thus its end. ~ L.M. Browning

I cannot help but come to believe, there should be a disclaimer for the soul upon entering this life stating: This will destroy you but it is not the end. Every immortal thing must die once to learn that it is immortal. One life ends but another begins. ~ L.M. Browning

The moments of silence are gone. We run from them into the rush of unimportant things, so filled is the quiet with the painful whispers of all that goes unspoken. Busy-ness is our drug of choice, numbing our minds just enough to keep us from dwelling on all that we fear we can't change. A compilation of coping mechanisms, we have become our fatigue. Unwilling or unable to cut ourselves free of this modern machine we have built, we're dragged in its wake all too quickly toward our end. The virtue of a society's culture is reflected in the physical, mental, and emotional health of its people. The time has come to part ways with all that is toxic, and preserve our quality of life. ~ L.M. Browning

The divine is in the present and you must be present to experience it. When you vacate the present and recede into your mind, allowing worries or work to remove you from the moment, you leave the plain upon which the divine dwells.
When you are constantly under the anesthetic of digital distraction, you withdraw; you are no longer conscious, and therefore are in no fit state to commune with the sacred.
If you wish to hear the answers you seek, you must be present to hear them. If you wish to partake in the insights there to be known, you must be present to receive them. If you wish to know the divine, you must be present to meet it. ... you must be present. ~ L.M. Browning

In lieu of letting go of our trauma and rather than healing completely, in my experience, we learn how to carry it and there are some days when it is heavier than others. Some days, I hardly know it is there, distracted as I am by present joys and excitement; while other days, the burden is cripplingly-heavy and I can hardly breathe under the weight of grief. ~ L.M. Browning

Speaking idly, without first knowing the character and intentions of those I am conversing with, has cost me a great deal already. I will not speak arbitrarily again. What I have learned on my path is saved for my family and for those who, like us, have sought the answers out of a deeply-felt need to know the truth. ~ L.M. Browning

Who are we without our addictions; without our media-induced hungers? So often the voices we hear echoing in our mind are not our own but that of our influencers. Isolation, while arguably going against human nature, is essential for mental and emotional health. Solitude is a detoxification of all that distorts our personality and misguides our path in life. It allows us to filter out the foreign opinions and hear our own voice - reach our authentic character - and practice fidelity to self. ~ L.M. Browning

Shall we not recover ourselves? Shall we not redeem ourselves to one another? Shall we not restore this world?
Could we not be the generation who did what always should have been done? Who took the hard path so that humanity could be returned to the right path? Shall we not reexamine all that we choose to pursue and reconsider what will actually fulfill us?
The past has been defined by what we have done; while the present and future are decided by what we choose to do.
Shall we believe in what should be and go in search of it? Shall we believe in what needs to be and build it together?
We become more by believing that we can be more. Life becomes better when we are willing to act on the belief that it can be better.
To believe is to reach and reach is what we all must do. ~ L.M. Browning

In the beginning we seek truth.
In the middle we seek reason.
In the end we seek peace. ~ L.M. Browning

The hands can build a structure, but it is the heart that brings forth the meaning to fill it. ~ L.M. Browning

The cure for our modern maladies is dirt under the fingernails and the feel of thick grass between the toes. The cure for our listlessness is to be out within the invigorating wind. The cure for our uselessness is to take back up our stewardship; for it is not that there has been no work to be done, we simply have not been attending to it. ~ L.M. Browning

The purpose of a pilgrimage is about setting aside a long period of time in which the only focus is to be the matters of the soul. Many believe a pilgrimage is about going away but it isn't; it is about coming home. Those who choose to go on pilgrimage have already ventured away from themselves; and now set out in a longing to journey back to who they are.
Many a time we believe we must go away from all that is familiar if we are to focus on our inner well-being because we feel it is the only way to escape all that drains and distracts us, allowing us to turn inward and tend to what ails us. Yet we do not need to go to the edges of the earth to learn who we are, only the edges of ourself. ~ L.M. Browning

Well, in a way she might be right. It might be better if he were married...It all came back to the fact that he was sure nobody would ever understand him as well as he understood himself. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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. What is an Octogenarian, Peter?' And Mr. Sloane said he didn't know, but they must be very sickly creatures, for you never heard tell of them but they were dying. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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

Well this is a good place to do both, except when it is about to rain," He attacked her with tickles and before she knew it, her clothes were gone.
"How did you do that?" she asked in an astonished tone.
"I am a Druid, baby," he teased. ~ L.M. Hannah

What's thought cannot be unthought. ~ L.M. Boston

We are responsible not only for our action, but also for the outcome of those actions. ~ L.M. Falcone

It was not an ogre's soul in that egg," said Toby in a burst of passionate despair. "It was mine. ~ L.M. Boston

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. ~ L.M. Montgomery

It does not do to laugh at the pangs of youth. They are very terrible because youth has not yet learned that 'this, too, will pass away. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it ~ L.M. Montgomery

Flour is so essential to cakes, you know. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Love! What a searing, torturing, intolerably sweet thing it was - this possession of body, soul and mind! With something at its core as fine and remote and purely spiritual as the tiny blue spark in the heart of the unbreakable diamond. No dream had ever been like this. She was no longer solitary. She was one of a vast sisterhood - all the women who had ever loved in the world. ~ L.M. Montgomery

I don't like places or people either that haven't any faults. I think that a truly perfect person would be very uninteresting. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Some women's intended from the start to be old maids, and I'm afraid I'm one of them, Miss Shirley, ma'am, because I've awful little patience with the men. ~ L.M. Montgomery

She brushed the old years and habits and inhibitions away from her like dead leaves. She would not be littered with them. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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

wounded prisoners. I wish I could hope, Miss Oliver - it would help, I suppose. But hope seems dead in me. I can't hope without some reason for it - and there is no reason." When Miss Oliver had gone to her own room and Rilla was lying on her bed in the moonlight, praying desperately for a little strength, Susan stepped in like a gaunt shadow and sat down beside her. "Rilla, dear, do not you worry. Little Jem is not dead." "Oh, how can you believe ~ L.M. Montgomery

Another story was that a certain dissipated youth of the community, going home one Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, from some unhallowed orgy, was pursued by a lamb of fire, with its head cut off and hanging by a strip of skin or flame. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Anne always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night. It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it. ~ L.M. Montgomery

But really, Marilla, one can't stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one? ~ L.M. Montgomery

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. ~ L.M. Montgomery

They were all growing so fast. In just a few short years they would be all young men and women ... youth tiptoe ... expectant ... a-star with its sweet wild dreams ... little ships sailing out of safe harbor to unknown ports. The boys would go away to their life work and the girls ... ah, the mist-veiled forms of beautiful brides might be seen coming down the old stairs at Ingleside. But they would still be hers for a few years yet ... hers to love and guide ... to sing the songs that so many mothers had sung ... Hers ... and Gilbert's. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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 is horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Life is worth living as long as there's a laugh in it. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Matthew had sheepishly unfolded the dress from its paper swathings and held it out with a deprecatory glance at Marilla, who feigned to be contemptuously filling the teapot, but nevertheless watched the scene out of the corner of her eye with a rather interested air.
Anne took the dress and looked at it in reverent silence. Oh, how pretty it was
a lovely soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk; a skirt with dainty frills and shirrings; a waist elaborately pintucked in the most fashinable way, with a little ruffle of filmy lace at the neck. But the sleeves
they were the crowning glory! Long elbow cuffs, and above them two beautiful puffs divided by rows of shirring and bows of brown-silk ribbon. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Aunt Ruth looked at the unlucky pair.
"What are you doing here?" she asked Perry.
Stovepipe Town made a mistake.
"Oh, looking for a round square," said Perry off-handedly, his eyes suddenly becoming limpid with mischief and lawless roguery. ~ L.M. Montgomery

This is
good. What you said, it's not entirely
wrong. It's pretty much right on target. I'm
afraid that if I let myself completely relax
and be happy, something bad is going to
happen again. You're the person that
makes me the happiest, so you're right.
I'm afraid to say it out loud. I'm afraid of
jinxing myself, but you know how I feel,
right? ~ L.M. Trio

And be very careful what friends you make. You never know what sort of creatures are in them colleges. Outwardly they may be as whited sepulchers and inwardly as ravening wolves, that's what. ~ L.M. Montgomery

But was anything in life, Anne asked herself wearily, like one's imagination of it? ~ L.M. Montgomery

It's no wonder we can't understand the grown-ups," said the Story Girl indignantly, "because we've never been grown-up ourselves. But THEY have been children, and I don't see why they can't understand us. ~ L.M. Montgomery

So bright and golden and fair, so free fro shadow and so lavish of blossom. ~ L.M. Montgomery

There was another occupant of the living-room, curled up on a couch, who must not be overlooked, since he was a creature of marked individuality, and, moreover, had the distinction of being the only living thing whom Susan really hated. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Most things are predestined, but some are just darn sheer luck, said Roaring Abel. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Beyond those ten minutes there did not seem, just then, to be anything worth being called Time. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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

Good-evening, Miss Stirling.
Nothing could be more commonplace and conventional.
Any one might have said it. But Barney Snaith had a way of saying things that gave them poignancy. When he said good-evening you felt that it was a good evening and it was partly his doing that it was. Also, you felt that some of the credit was yours. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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. ~ L.M. Montgomery

It was because you looked so happy. Oh, you'll agree with me now that I AM a hateful beast - to hate another woman just because she was happy, - and when her happiness didn't take anything from me! That ~ L.M. Montgomery

"Wouldn't it be lovely, Miss Shirley, if some one could just wave a wand and make everybody beautiful?" she said wistfully. "Just fancy my feelings, Miss Shirley, if I suddenly fould myself beautiful! But then" ... with a sigh ... "if we were all beauties who would do the work?"
Anne of Windy Poplars ~ L.M. Montgomery

housewives of the Glen felt it, and ~ L.M. Montgomery

Heaven grant me patience! Clothes are very important, said Anne severely ~ L.M. Montgomery

Note: - One can do a great deal with appropriate smiles. I must study the subject carefully. The friendly smile - the scornful smile - the detached smile - the entreating smile - the common or garden grin. ~ L.M. Montgomery

If you couldn't be loved, the next best thing was to be left alone. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Marilla, look at that big star over Mr. Harrison's maple grove, with all that hold hush of silvery sky about it. I gives me a feeling that is like a prayer. After all, when one can see stars and skies like that, little disappointments and accidents can't matter so much, can they? ~ L.M. Montgomery