L M Montgomery Quotes

That white birch you caught me kissing is a sister of mine. The only difference is, she's a tree and I'm a girl, but that's no real difference. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Only a few more weeks till spring ... and a few more weeks then till summer ... and holidays ... and Green Gables ... and golden sunlight on Avonlea meadows ... and a gulf that will be silver at dawn and sapphire at noon and crimson at sunset ... and you. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a little.
"I don't mind the world or the devil much, but the flesh does rather bother me," she admitted. "You always look as cool as a cucumber, Anne, dearie. Do I smell cherry pie? If I do, ask me to stay to tea ... ~ L.M. Montgomery

The trouble with Mr. Howard is that he's a leetle TOO clever. He thinks that he's bound to live up to his cleverness, and that it's smarter to thrash out some new way of getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common, ignorant folks is travelling. But ~ L.M. Montgomery

I suppose all this sounds very crazy - all these terrible emotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequate words. They are not meant to be spoken - only felt and endured. ~ L.M. Montgomery

When Marilla took Anne up to bed that night she said stiffly: "Now, Anne, I noticed last night that you threw your clothes all about the floor when you took them off. That is a very untidy habit, and I can't allow it at all. As soon as you take off any article of clothing fold it neatly and place it on the chair. I haven't any use at all for little girls who aren't neat. ~ L.M. Montgomery

More than ever at that instant did she long for speech - speech that would conceal and protect where dangerous silence might betray. ~ L.M. Montgomery

But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods ... for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Spring is singing in my blood today, and the lure of April is abroad on the air. I'm seeing visions and dreaming dreams, Pris. That's because the wind is from the west. I do love the west wind. It sings of hope and gladness, doesn't it? When the east wind blows I always think of sorrowful rain on the eaves and sad waves on a gray shore. When I get old I shall have rheumatism when the wind is east." "And ~ L.M. Montgomery

Chippy, pulling his hand from Rilla's. Rilla ~ L.M. Montgomery

Do you think amethysts can be the souls of good violets? ~ L.M. Montgomery

Despair is a free man - hope is
a slave. ~ L.M. Montgomery

The trouble with you, Anne, is that you're thinking too much about yourself. You should just think of Mrs. Allan and what would be nicest and most agreeable to her, said Marilla, hitting for once in her life on a very sound and pithy piece of advice. Anne instantly realized this. ~ L.M. Montgomery

This is no common day, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said solemnly.

"Oh, Susan, there is no such thing as a common day. EVERY day has something about it no other day has. Haven't you noticed? ~ L.M. Montgomery

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. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Since you are determined to be married, Miss Cornelia," said Gilbert solemnly, "I shall give you the excellent rules for the management of a husband which my grandmother gave my mother when she married my father."
"Well, I reckon I can manage Marshall Elliott," said Miss Cornelia placidly. "But let us hear your rules."
"The first one is, catch him."
"He's caught. Go on."
"The second one is, feed him well."
"With enough pie. What next?"
"The third and fourth are
keep your eye on him. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Well, James Matthew is a name that will wear well and not fade in the washing," said Miss Cornelia. "I'm glad you didn't load him down with some highfalutin, romantic name that he'd be ashamed of when he gets to be a grandfather ... ~ L.M. Montgomery

Leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it possible to go on with life after all, as most of us do, no matter what our particular form of torment has been. It is even possible that she enjoyed moments of it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little house of dreams. ~ L.M. Montgomery

There is a man in Bolingbroke who lisps and always testifies in prayer-meeting. He says, 'If you can't thine like an electric thtar thine like a candlethtick. ~ L.M. Montgomery

You've been four of the dearest, sweetest, goodest girls who ever went together through college,' averred Aunt Jamesina, who never spoiled a compliment by misplaced economy. ~ L.M. Montgomery

The possibilities of making new friends help to make life very fascinating ~ L.M. Montgomery

When the Lord puts us in certain circumstances He doesn't mean for us to imagine them away. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Perhaps it was nothing very dreadful after all. I think the little things in life often make more trouble than the big things,' said Anne with one of those flashes of insight which experience could not have bettered. ~ L.M. Montgomery

And then - thwack! - Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert's head and cracked it - slate not head - clear across. ~ L.M. Montgomery

I'm sure no life can be properly developed and rounded out without some trial and sorrow - though I suppose it is only when we are pretty comfortable that we admit it. ~ L.M. Montgomery

What a splendid day!' said Anne, drawing a long breath. 'Isn't it good just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren't born yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can never have this one. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Can you expect me to be just when you've just killed me? Oh, I know I asked for it
I know it's good for me. Horrible things always are good for you, I suppose. After you've been killed a few times you don't mind it. But the first time one does
squirm. Go away, Dean. Don't come back for a week at least. The funeral will be over then."
"Don't you believe I know what this means to you, Star?" asked Dean pityingly.
"You can't
altogether. Oh, I know you're sympathetic. I don't want sympathy. I only want time to bury myself decently. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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 else. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Well, said Marilla, unable to find an excuse for deffering her explanation longer, "I suppose I might as well tell you. Matthew and I have decided to keep you- that is, if you try to be a good little girl and show yourself grateful. Why, child whatever is the matter?" "I'm crying," said Anne in a tone of bewilderment. "I can't think why. I'm as glad as can be. ~ L.M. Montgomery

[She] may be an acquired taste with some folks; but I didn't keep on eating bananas because I was told I'd learn to like them if I did. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Or she may find out what is at the end of the harbor road ... that wandering, twisting road like a nice red snake, that leads, so Elizabeth thinks, to the end of the world. Perhaps the Island of Happiness is there. ~ L.M. Montgomery

I don't seem to be like other girls, Judy. They all want to go to college and have a career. I don't ... I just want to stay at Silver Bush and help you and mother. There's work for me here, Judy ... you know there is. Mother isn't strong. As for being educated ... I shall be well educated ... love educates, Judy. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Don't be led away by those howls about realism. Remember-pine woods are just as real as pigsties and a darn sight pleasanter to be in. ~ L.M. Montgomery

silent. Walter had been reading again that day in his beloved book of myths and he remembered how he had once fancied the Pied Piper coming down the valley on an evening ~ L.M. Montgomery

People who don't like cats always seem to think there is some peculiar virtue in not liking them. ~ L.M. Montgomery

If it's IN you to climb you must
there are those who MUST lift their eyes to the hills
they can't breathe properly in the valleys. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Mrs. Lynde says Mrs. Wrights grandfather stole a sheep but Marilla says we mustent speak ill of the dead. Why mustent we, Anne? I want to know. It's pretty safe ain't it? ~ L.M. Montgomery

whenever we think of anything that
is a trial to us we should also think of something
nice that we can set over against it. ~ L.M. Montgomery

There be three gentle and goodlie things,
To be here,
To be together,
And to think well of one another. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Is it Rilla-my-Rilla? ~ L.M. Montgomery

Mr. Harrison is an awful kind man. He's a real sociable man. I hope I'll be like him when I grow up. I mean BEHAVE like him ... I don't want to LOOK like him. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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. ~ L.M. Montgomery

I like a man whose eyes say more than his lips, thought Valancy. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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. ~ L.M. Montgomery

I feel as if something has been torn suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole. I feel as if I couldn't be I - as if I must have changed into somebody else and couldn't get used to it. It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed, helpless feeling. It's good to see you again - it seems as if you were a sort of anchor for my drifting soul. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Really, Nan could be very odious when she liked. Yet somehow she [Gay] didn't hate her as before. She felt very indifferent to her. She found herself looking at her with cool, appraising eyes, seeing her as she had never seen her before. An empty, selfish little creature, who had always to be amused like a child. ...A girl who posed as a sophisticate before her country cousins but who was really more provincial than they were, knowing nothing of real life or real love or real emotion of any kind. Gay wondered, as she looked, how she could ever have hated this girl - ever been jealous of her. She was not worth hating. Gay spoke at last. She stood up and looked levelly at Nan. There was contempt in her quiet voice.

"I suppose you came here to hurt me, Nan. You haven't - you can never hurt me again. You've lost the power. I think I even feel a little sorry for you. You've always been a taker, Nan. All through your life you've taken whatever you wanted. But you've never been a giver - you couldn't be because you've nothing to give. Neither love nor truth nor understanding nor kindness nor loyalty. Just taking all the time and giving nothing - oh, it has made you very poor. So poor that nobody need envy you. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Plum puffs can't minister to a mind diseased or a world that's crumbling to pieces ~ L.M. Montgomery

After all, what could you expect from a pig but a grunt? ~ L.M. Montgomery

All i want is a dress with puffy sleaves ~ L.M. Montgomery

I have really done so few bad things that they have to keep harping on the old ones [.] ~ L.M. Montgomery

Well, the Story Girl was right. There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way ~ L.M. Montgomery

And yet ... it's the little things that fret the holes in life ... like moths ... and ruin it. ~ L.M. Montgomery

But it ain't our feelings we have to steer by through life
no, no, we'd make shipwreck mighty often if we did that. There's only the one safe compass and we've got to set our course by that
what it's right to do. ~ L.M. Montgomery

You never can tell what you can do till you try. ~ L.M. Montgomery

We have come to a parting of the ways,I suppose",said Anne thoughtfully."we had to come to it,do you think,Diana,that being grown up is really as nice as we used to imagine it would be when we were children?"
"I don't know-there are SOME nice things about it,"answered Diana,again caressing her ring with that little smile which always had the effect of making Anne feel suddenly left out and inexperienced."But there are so many puzzling things,too.Sometimes I feel as if being grown-up just frightened me-and then I would give anything to be a little girl again. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Don't let's ever be afraid of things. It's such dreadful slavery. Let's be daring and adventurous and expectant. Let's dance to meet life and all it can bring to us, even if it brings scads of trouble and typhoid ~ L.M. Montgomery

Gilbert would never have dreamed of writing a sonnet to her eyebrows. But then, Gilbert could see a joke. She had once told Roy a funny story - and he had not seen the point of it. She recalled the chummy laugh she and Gilbert had had together over it, and wondered uneasily if life with a man who had no sense of humor might not be somewhat uninteresting in the long run. But who could expect a melancholy, inscrutable hero to see the humorous side of things? It would be flatly unreasonable. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Isn't it terrible the way some unworthy folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you'd think, never get much affection? ~ L.M. Montgomery

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 sunshine, but when dark and storm come they fail to satisfy. One wants real things then. But you don't know this ... seventeen never knows it. At seventeen dreams do satisfy because you think the realities are waiting for you further on. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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? ~ L.M. Montgomery

People told her she hadn't changed much, in a tone which hinted they were surprised and a little disappointed she hadn't. ~ L.M. Montgomery

I never see a ship sailing out of the channel, or a gull soaring over the sand-bar, without wishing I were on board the ship or had wings, not like a dove 'to fly away and be at rest,' but like a gull, to sweep out into the very heart of the storm. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Marilla loved the [more grown up] girl as much as she had loved the child, but she was conscious of a queer sorrowful sense of loss. ~ L.M. Montgomery

... there was something about her that made you feel it was safe to tell her secrets. ~ L.M. Montgomery

I wish we could see perfumes as well as smell them. I'm sure they would be very beautiful. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Miss Cordelia thought she had never seen anybody so much like an incarnate smile before. Smiles of all kinds seemed literally to riot over his ruddy face and in and out of his eyes and around the corners of his mouth. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Oh, I wish we had the old days back again," exclaimed Jem. "I'd love to be a soldier - a great, triumphant general. I'd give EVERYTHING to see a big battle." Well, ~ L.M. Montgomery

All things great are wound up with all things little. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Tears don't hurt like the ache does. ~ L.M. Montgomery

It doesn't seem FAIR, said Anne rebelliously. Babies are born and live where they are not wanted-where they will be neglected-where they have no chance. I would have loved my baby so-and cared for it tenderly-and tried to give her every chance for good. And yet I wasn't allowed to keep her. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Chapter 8 Anne's First Proposal The ~ L.M. Montgomery

But it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by a happiness that is not your own. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Still Anne said nothing, several times over. ~ L.M. Montgomery

You don't chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as many big words. What has come over you?" Anne coloured and laughed a little, as she dropped her book and looked dreamily out of the window, where big fat red buds were bursting out on the creeper in response to the lure of the spring sunshine. "I don't know - I don't want to talk as much," she said, denting her chin thoughtfully with her fore-finger. "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 wondered over. And ~ L.M. Montgomery

I like people who make me love them. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them. - Miss Barry ~ L.M. Montgomery

I was very much provoked. Of course, I knew there are no fairies; but that needn't prevent my thinking there is. ~ L.M. Montgomery

It was so easy to defy once you got started. The first step was the only one that really counted. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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

Never be silent with persons you love and distrust," Mr. Carpenter had said once. "Silence betrays. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Next to a mother she wanted a quiet place where she could be alone when she wanted to be; to listen to the wind telling her strange tales, or hold the big spotted shell that murmured of the sea to her ear, or talk to the roses in the garden. ~ L.M. Montgomery

On a day like this there's no such word as fail in my bright lexicon. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Mr. Harrison was certainly different from other people ... and that is the essential characteristic of a crank, as everybody knows. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Comedy and tragedy are so mixed up in life, Gilbert. The only thing that haunts me is that tale of the two who lived together fifty years and hated each other all that time. I can't believe they really did. Somebody has said that 'hate is only love that has missed its way.' I feel sure that under the hatred they really loved each other ... just as I really loved you all those years I thought I hated you ... and I think death would show it to them. I'm glad I found out in life. ~ L.M. Montgomery

But heaven won't be like church - all the time," said Anne. "I hope it ain't," said Davy emphatically. "If it is I don't want to go. Church is awful dull. Anyway, I don't mean to go for ever so long. I mean to live to be a hundred years old, like Mr. Thomas Blewett of White Sands. He says he's lived so long 'cause he always smoked tobacco and it killed all the germs. Can I smoke tobacco pretty soon, Anne?" "No, Davy, I hope you'll never use tobacco," said Anne absently. "What'll you feel like if the germs kill me then?" demanded Davy. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Don't you know that it is only very foolish folk who talk sense all the time? ~ L.M. Montgomery

He world looks like something God had just imagined for His own pleasure. This isn't poetry but it makes me feel the same way as poetry does. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Velvet carpet," sighed Anne luxuriously, "and silk curtains! I've dreamed of such things, Diana. But do you know I don't believe I feel very comfortable with them after all. There are so many things in this room and all so splendid that there is no scope for imagination. That is one consolation when you are poor
there are so many more things you can imagine about. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Handmaiden of the Blythe family at Ingleside, never lost an opportunity of calling her "Mrs. Marshall Elliott," with the most killing and pointed emphasis, as if ~ L.M. Montgomery

The Story Girl was written in 1910 and published in 1911. It was the last book I wrote in my old home by the gable window where I had spent so many happy hours of creation. It is my own favourite among my books, the one that gave me the greatest pleasure to write, the one whose characters and landscape seem to me most real. All the children in the book are purely imaginary. The old "King Orchard" was a compound of our old orchard in Cavendish and the orchard at Park Corner. "Peg Bowen" was suggested by a half-witted, gypsy-like personage who roamed at large for many years over the Island and was the terror of my childhood. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Dear old world. You are very lovely and I am glad to be alive in you - Anne Shirley ~ L.M. Montgomery

Oh, my, you are one of the Chosen People," mocked Black-eyes.

"Of course I am," retorted Emily. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Moonlight and the murmur of pines blended together so that one could hardly tell which was light and which was sound. ~ L.M. Montgomery

[ ... ] Cousin Jimmy gave me a whole dollar on the sly last week. I wish he had not given me so much. It worrys me. It is an awful responsibility. It will be so diffikult to spend it wisely also without Aunt Elizabeth finding out about it. I hope I shall never have a million dollars. I am sure it would crush me utterly. ~ L.M. Montgomery

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

Anne looked up. Tall and handsome and distinguished-looking - dark, melancholy, inscrutable eyes - melting, musical, sympathetic voice - yes, the very hero of her dreams stood before her in the flesh. He could not have more closely resembled her ideal if he ~ L.M. Montgomery

November is usually such a disagreeable month ... as if the year had suddenly found out that she was growing old and could do nothing but weep and fret over it. This year is growing old gracefully ... just like a stately old lady who knows she can be charming even with gray hair and wrinkles. We've had lovely days and delicious twilights. ~ L.M. Montgomery

She had always envied the wind. So free. Blowing where it listed. Through the hills. Over the lakes. What a tang, what a zip it had! What a magic of adventure! ~ L.M. Montgomery

Even skeptical Dan prayed, his skepticism falling away from him like a discarded garment in this valley of the shadow, which sifts out hearts and tries souls, until we all, grown-up or children, realize our weakness, and, finding that our own puny strength is as a reed shaken in the wind, creep back humbly to the God we have vainly dreamed we could do without. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Oh yes, I don't deny I married you because I was sorry for you. And then-I found you the best and jolliest and dearest little pal and chum a fellow ever had. Witty-loyal-sweet. You made me believe again in the reality of friendship and love. ~ L.M. Montgomery