Lucy Maud Montgomery Quotations

Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it.

Twilight drops her curtain down, and pins it with a star.

In this world you've just got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and take whatever God sends.

That is one good thing about this world... there are always sure to be more springs.

It's so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn't it?

We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them. With them it's grand and great.

There are so many unpleasant things in the world already that there is no use in imagining any more.

It only seems as if you're doing something when you worry.

We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.

Proverbs are all very fine when there's nothing to worry you, but when you're in real trouble, they're not a bit of help.

As a rule, I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted.

I'm not a bit changed - not really. I'm only just pruned down and branched out. The real me - back here - is just the same.

Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I'd look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer.

Doesn't matter what a person's name is as long as he behaves himself.

I believe flowers have souls. I have known roses that I expect to meet in heaven.

I am simply a book drunkard.

It's not vanity to know your own good points. It would just be stupidity if you didn't; It's only vanity when you get puffed up about them.

Human nature is not obliged to be consistent.

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.

All life lessons are not learned at college,'she thought. Life teaches them everywhere.

There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, is there? And it's so hard to keep from loving things, isn't it?

When people mean to be good to you, you don't mind very much when they're not quite—always.

Folks that has brought up children know that there's no hard and fast method in the world that'll suit every child. But them as never have think it's all as plain and easy as Rule of Three—just set your three terms down so fashion, and the sum'll work out correct.

That is one consolation when you are poor—there are so many more things you can imagine about.

Reading stories is bad enough but writing them is worse.

Don't believe in imagining things different from what they really are. When the Lord puts us in certain circumstances He doesn't mean for us to imagine them away.

Oh", she thought, "how horrible it is that people have to grow up-and marry-and change!

I'm always sorry when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter may come after, but you can never be sure.

When people ask me what on earth I want to keep two cats for I tell them I keep them to do my resting for me.

There are many worse friends than the soft, silent, furry, cat-folk.

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

I suppose it was a romantic was to perish... for a mouse

I'd rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and sensible all by myself.

Make them do as you want them to," she said. "I can’t," mourned Anne. "Averil is such an unmanageable heroine. She will do and say things I never meant her to. Then that spoils everything that went before and I have to write it all over again.

It is when my umbrella turns inside out that I am convinced of the total depravity of inanimate things.

The only true animal is a cat, and the only true cat is a gray cat.

Don't you know that it is only the very foolish folk who talk sense all the time? (Anne)

Few women are so beautiful and charming that they can afford to divest themselves of any portion of their charm; so they are very foolish to do so by smoking. It doesn't matter about men. Men look ugly and silly, too, when smoking. But it isn't beauty that matters with them-only strength

she was richer in those dreams than in realities; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.

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.

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 revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps . . . perhaps . . . love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.

When I make up my mind to do a thing it stays made up.

I don't like green Christmases. They're not green—they're just nasty faded browns and grays.

there's no use trying to live in other people's opinions. The only thing to do is live in your own.

What is it really like to be engaged?" asked Anne curiously. "Well, that all depends on who you're engaged to," answered Diana, with that maddening air of superior wisdom always assumed by those who are engaged over those who are not.

But I'd rather look like you than be pretty," she told Anne sincerely. Anne laughed, sipped honey from the tribute, and cast away the sting.

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

That's one of the things we learn as we grow older -- how to forgive. It comes easier at forty than it did at twenty.

But feeling is so different from knowing. My common sense tells me all you can say, but there are times when common sense has no power over me. Common nonsense takes possession of my soul.

I feel as though someone's handed me the moon and I don't exactly know what to do with it.

Mrs. Cadbury: Tell me what you know about yourself. Anne Shirley: Well, it really isn't worth telling, Mrs. Cadbury... but if you let me tell you what I IMAGINE about myself you'd find it a lot more interesting.

Hark, I hear a robin calling! List, the wind is from the south! And the orchard-bloom is falling Sweet as kisses on the mouth. In the dreamy vale of beeches Fair and faint is woven mist, And the river's orient reaches Are the palest amethyst. Every limpid brook is singing Of the lure of April days; Every piney glen is ringing With the maddest roundelays. Come and let us seek together Springtime lore of daffodils, Giving to the golden weather Greeting on the sun-warm hills.

...“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.”...

Good night, belovedest. Your sleep will be sweet if there is any influences in the wishes of your own.

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

I have a dream," he said slowly. "I persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it, a cat and dog, the footsteps of friends -- and YOU!

Have you ever noticed how many silences there are Gilbert? The silence of the woods....of the shore....of the meadows....of the night....of the summer afternoon. All different because the undertones that thread them are different.

Oh Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them," exclaimed Anne.

I've just been imagining that it was really me you wanted after all and that I was to stay here for ever and ever. It was a great comfort while it lasted. But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts.

To dispair is to turn your back on God.

The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth.

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 fact. If I had to have villains at all, I'd give them a chance, Anne--I'd give them a chance. There are some terrible bad men the world, I suppose, but you'd have to go a long piece to find them...But most of us have got a little decency somewhere in us. Keep on writing, Anne.

I'm in the depths of despair!" (Anne of Green Gables)

Since ever the world was spinning And till the world shall end You've your man in the beginning Or you have him in the end, But to have him from start to finish And neither nor borrow nor lend Is what all of the girls are wanting And none of the gods can send

It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other.

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

I don't know which is worse - to have somebody you DON'T like ask you to marry him or NOT have some one you DO like. Both are rather unpleasant.

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

Houses are like people - some you like and some you don't like - and once in a while there is one you love.

War was a hellish, horrible hideous thing - too horrible and hideous to happen in the twentieth century between civilised nations.

Don't try to write anything you can't feel - it will be a failure - 'echoes nothing worth

Steal not this book for fear of shame For on it is the owners name And when you die the Lord will say Where is the book you stole away And when you say you do not know The Lord will say go down below.

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

...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.

I'm afraid our old world has come to an end, Rilla. We've got to face the fact. (Walter)

You'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair." — Anne Shirley

She had dreamed some brilliant dreams during the past winter and now they lay in the dust around her. In her present mood of self-disgust, she could not immediately begin dreaming again. And she discovered that, while solitude with dreams is glorious, solitude without them has few charms.

I do know my own mind,' protested Anne. 'The trouble is, my mind changes and then I have to get acquainted with it all over again.

But was anything in life, Anne asked herself wearily, like one's imagination of it?

Words aren't made — they grow,' said Anne.

I wish I were dead, or that it were tomorrow night,' groaned Phil.

We've had a beautiful friendship, Diana. We've never marred it by one quarrel or coolness or unkind word; and I hope it will always be so. But things can't be quite the same after this. You'll have other interests. I'll just be on the outside.

I know I haven't much sense or sobriety, but I've got what is ever so much better — the knack of making people like me.

She seemed to walk in an atmosphere of things about to happen.

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 the off to get rid of them." -Anne Shirley

Anne was always glad in the happiness of her friends; but it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by happiness that is not your own.

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.

I doubt if I shall ever have time to read the book again -- there are too many new ones coming out all the time which I want to read. Yet an old book has something for me which no new book can ever have -- for at every reading the memories and atmosphere of other readings come back and I am reading old years as well as an old book.

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

Fairyland is the loveliest word because it means everything the human heart desires.

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?

She suddenly found herself laughing without bitterness.

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

I hate to lend a book I love…it never seems quite the same when it comes back to me…

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

You are the only person who loves me in the world," said Elizabeth. "When you talk to me I smell violets.

I am well in body though considerably rumpled up in spirit.

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 to talk about?

That's all the freedom we canhope for - the freedom to choose our prison. [...]