L.M. Montgomery Quotes - Page 2

...“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.”...
L.M. Montgomery
Mrs. Lynde says, 'Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.
L.M. Montgomery
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 eternity for a little space. All the rest of our years we are slaves to something - traditions - conventions - ambitions - relations.
L.M. Montgomery
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 in the bitterness of her disappointment. She felt exactly like a candle that somebody had blown out."What are you crying for? demanded Mr. Carpenter.Emily blinked away tears and tried to laugh."I—I'm sorry—you think it's no good—" she said.Mr. Carpenter gave the desk a mighty thump."No good! Didn't I tell you there were ten good lines? Jade, for ten righteous men Sodom had been spared.""Do you mean—that—after all—" The candle was being relighted again."Of course, I mean. If at thirteen you can write ten good lines, at twenty you'll write ten times ten—if the gods are kind. Stop messing over months, though—and don't imagine you're a genius, either, if you have written ten decent lines. I think there's something trying to speak through you—but you'll have to make yourself a fit instrument for it. You've got to work hard and sacrifice—by gad, girl, you've chosen a jealous goddess. And she never lets her votaries go—not even when she shuts her ears forever to their plea.
L.M. Montgomery
…and he wasn't reconciled to dying. Dora told him he was going to a better world. "Mebbe, mebbe," says poor Ben, "but I'm sorter used to the imperfections of this one.
L.M. Montgomery
A house isn't a home without the ineffable contentment of a cat with its tail folded about its feet. A cat gives mystery, charm, suggestion.
L.M. Montgomery
I don't care a hang for any cat that hasn't stripes.
L.M. Montgomery
I had a dog once. I thought so much of him that when he died I couldn't bear the thought of getting another in his place. He was a FRIEND—you understand, Mistress Blythe? Matey's only a pal. I'm fond of Matey—all the fonder on account of the spice of devilment that's in him—like there is in all cats. But I LOVED my dog. I always had a sneaking sympathy for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog. There isn't any devil in a good dog. That's why they're more lovable than cats, I reckon.
L.M. Montgomery
I love them, they are so nice and selfish. Dogs are TOO good and unselfish. They make me feel uncomfortable. But cats are gloriously human.
L.M. Montgomery
Some are born old maids, some achieve old maidenhood, and some have old maidenhood thrust upon them ," parodied Miss Lavendar whimsically.
L.M. Montgomery
The dark hills, with the darker spruces marching over them, looked grim on early falling nights, but Ingleside bloomed with firelight and laughter, though the winds come in from the Atlantic singing of mournful things. "Why isn't the wind happy, Mummy?" asked Walter one night. "Because it is remembering all the sorrow of the world since it began," answered Anne.
L.M. Montgomery
Oh, Gilbert, don't let's ever grow too old and wise... no, not too old and silly for fairyland.
L.M. Montgomery
Of course it's better to be good. I know it ism but it's sometimes so hard to believe a thing even when you know it.
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
The Piper is coming nearer," he said, "he is nearer than he was that evening I saw him before. His long, shadowy cloak is blowing around him. He pipes - he pipes - and we must follow - Jem and Carl and Jerry and I - round and round the world. Listen - listen - can't you hear his wild music?
L.M. Montgomery
She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with a dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wandering afar, star-led.
L.M. Montgomery
If the bards of old the true has toldThe sirens have raven hair.But over the earth since art had birth,They paint the angels fair.
L.M. Montgomery
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, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting.
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
Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.
L.M. Montgomery
Anne looked at the white young mother with a certain awe that had never entered into her feelings for Diana before. Could this pale woman with the rapture in her eyes be the little black-curled, rosy-cheeked Diana she had played with in vanished schooldays? It gave her a queer desolate feeling that she herself somehow belonged only in those past years and had no business in the present at all.
L.M. Montgomery
Satirize wickedness if you must--but pity weakness.
L.M. Montgomery
…there was something about her that made you feel it was safe to tell her secrets.
L.M. Montgomery
Oh, I don't wonder babies always cry when they wake up in the night. So often I want to do it too.
L.M. Montgomery
But tonight is a gusty, hurrying night . . . even the clouds racing over the sky are in a hurry and the moonlight that gushes out between them is in a hurry to flood the world.
L.M. Montgomery
Isn't it queer that the things we writhe over at night are seldom wicked things? Just humiliating ones.
L.M. Montgomery
And yet... you wouldn't want it to stop hurting... you wouldn't want to forget your little mother even if you could.
L.M. Montgomery
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 love it. It's next thing to giving life.
L.M. Montgomery
Ithink we all experience the same thing. We resent thethought that anything can please us when someone we loveis no longer here to share the pleasure with us, and we almostfeel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when wefind our interest in life returning to us.
L.M. Montgomery
She told herself that she longed greatly to go back to those dear merry days when life was seen through a rosy mist of hope and illusion, and possessed an indefinable something that had passed away forever. Where was it now--the glory and the dream?
L.M. Montgomery
Don't give up all your romance, Anne," he whispered shyly, "a little bit is a good thing - not too much, of course, but keep a little of it, Anne, keep a little of it.
L.M. Montgomery
That'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
L.M. Montgomery
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.
L.M. Montgomery
You must pay the penalty of growing-up, Paul. You must leave fairyland behind you.
L.M. Montgomery
It must be lovely to be grown up, Marilla, when just being treated as if you were is so nice...Well, anyway, when I grow up, I'm always going to talk to little girls as if they were, too, and I'll never laugh when they use big words.
L.M. Montgomery
I've come home in love with loneliness
L.M. Montgomery
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.
L.M. Montgomery
Mrs Allan says that whenever we think of anything that is a trial to use we should also think of something nice that we can set over against it. If you are slightly too plump, you've got the dearest dimples; and if I have a freckled nose the shape of it is all right.
L.M. Montgomery
Good night, belovedest. Your sleep will be sweet if there is any influences in the wishes of your own.
L.M. Montgomery
I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.
L.M. Montgomery
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 world would be a much more interesting place…although it is very interesting, anyhow…if people spoke out their real thoughts.
L.M. Montgomery
Any human companionship, even the dearest and most perfect, would have been alien to her then. She was sufficient unto herself, needing not love nor comradeship nor any human emotion to round out her felicity. Such moments come rarely in any life, but when they do come they are inexpressibly wonderful - as if the finite were for a second infinity - as if humanity were for a space uplifted into divinity - as if all ugliness had vanished, leaving only flawless beauty.
L.M. Montgomery
Well, one can't get over the habit of being a liitle girl all at once.
L.M. Montgomery
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 there is of me to love. Heart, soul, brain. Every fibre of body and spirit thrilling to the sweetness of you. There's nobody in the world for me but you, Valancy.
L.M. Montgomery
Mrs. Hammon told me that God made my hair red on purpose and I haven't card for him since.
L.M. Montgomery
Once upon a time we all walked on the golden road. It was a fair highway, through the Land of Lost Delight; shadow and sunshine were blessedly mingled, and every turn and dip revealed a fresh charm and a new loveliness to eager hearts and unspoiled eyes.On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in fragrances aerial and sweet as a May mist; we were rich in gossamer fancies and iris hopes; our hearts sought and found the boon of dreams; the years waited beyond and they were very fair; life was a rose-lipped comrade with purple flowers dripping from her fingers.We may long have left the golden road behind, but its memories are the dearest of our eternal possessions; and those who cherish them as such may haply find a pleasure in the pages of this book, whose people are pilgrims on the golden road of youth.
L.M. Montgomery
…but youth yearned to youth.
L.M. Montgomery
...And every day in heaven will be more beautiful than the one before it Davy," assured Anne.
L.M. Montgomery
When weeds go to heaven, I suppose they will be flowers.
L.M. Montgomery
I have got acquainted 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 to heaven without the priest but that is just his joke.
L.M. Montgomery
It has been a Prosy day for us, but for some people it has been a wonderful day. Someone was rapturously happy in it. Perhaps a great deed has been done somewhere today- a great poem written- or a great man born. And some heart has been broken, Phil.
L.M. Montgomery
I can't understand how she could have wanted to live back here, away from everything," said Jane. "Oh, I can easily understand that," said Anne thoughtfully. "I wouldn't want it myself for a steady thing because, although I love the fields and woods, I love people too...
L.M. Montgomery
It's lovely to be going home and know it's home. I love green gables already, and I've never loved any place before. Oh, Marilla, I'm so happy.
L.M. Montgomery
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, no matter what fairer lands may lie under alien stars.
L.M. Montgomery
Some people are naturally good, you know, and others are not. I'm one of the others.
L.M. Montgomery
…I'm sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be formed, for good or evil. I don't feel that it's what it should be. It's full of flaws.' 'So's everybody's,' said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully. 'Mine's cracked in a hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or 'tother, and would go on developing in that line.
L.M. Montgomery
When I don't like the name of a place or a person I always imagine a new one and always think of them so. " Anne of Green Gables
L.M. Montgomery
She isn't like any of the girls I ever knew, or any of the girls I was myself.
L.M. Montgomery
Heaven must be very beautiful, of course, the Bible says so — but, Anne, it won't be what I've been used to.
L.M. Montgomery
We'll just sit here," said Barney, "and if we think of anything worth while saying we'll say it. Otherwise, not. Don't imagine you're bound to talk to me.""John Foster says," quoted Valancy, "'If you can sit in silencewith a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, youand that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you'llnever be and you need not waste time in trying.'""Evidently John Foster says a sensible thing once in a while,"conceded Barney.
L.M. Montgomery