Quotessence
Home / Authors / Lucy Maud Montgomery
Lucy Maud Montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

Famous Lucy Maud Montgomery Quotes

“If any person wants to see clearly just how much she has changed - whether for better or worse - let her revisit after some lapse of time any place where she has ones lived. She will meet her former self at every turn, with every familiar face, in every old recollection ... She will see how much she has gained in some respects, how much she has lost - irretrievably lost - in others.”

“Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously.”

“It's delightful when your imaginations come true, isn't it?”

“Listen to the trees talking in their sleep,' she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. 'What nice dreams they must have!”

“Don't you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back?”

“Oh, but there's such a difference between saying a thing yourself and hearing other people say it,' wailed Anne. 'You may know a thing is so, but you can't help hoping other people don't quite think it is.”

“Oh, we're very careful, Marilla. And it's so interesting. Two flashes means, "Are you there?" Three means "yes" and four "no." Five means, "Come over as soon as possible, because I have something important to reveal." Diana has just signalled five flashes, and I'm really suffering to know what it is.”

“That's one splendid thing about such affairs — it's so lovely to look back to them.”

“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.”

“I can't cheer up — I don't want to cheer up. It's nicer to be miserable!”

“I don't know that she is as amusing as she was when she was a child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love them. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them.”

“But Anne with her elbows on the window sill, her soft cheek laid against her clasped hands, and her eyes filled with visions, looked out unheedingly across city roof and spire to that glorious dome of sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from the golden tissue of youth's own optimism. All the Beyond was hers, with its possibilities lurking rosily in the oncoming years — each year a rose of promise to be woven into an immortal chaplet.”

“Well now, I'd rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne,' said Matthew patting her hand. 'Just mind you that — rather than a dozen boys. Well now, I guess it wasn't a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It was a girl — my girl — my girl that I'm proud of.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Look, do you see that poem?' she said suddenly, pointing.”

“I wonder what a soul…a person's soul…would look like,' said Priscilla dreamily. 'Like that, I should think,' answered Anne, pointing to a radiance of sifted sunlight streaming through a birch tree. 'Only with shape and features of course. I like to fancy souls as being made of light. And some are all shot through with rosy stains and quivers…and some have a soft glitter like moonlight on the sea…and some are pale and transparent like mist at dawn.”

“I don't really care what people think about me if they don't let me see it.”

“That's the worst…or the best…of real life, Anne. It won't let you be miserable. It keeps on trying to make you comfortable…and succeeding…even when you're determined to be unhappy and romantic.”

“I'm just tired of everything…even of the echoes. There is nothing in my life but echoes…echoes of lost hopes and dreams and joys. They're beautiful and mocking.”

“…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.”

“You must pay the penalty of growing-up, Paul. You must leave fairyland behind you.”

“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 as well go and pick out your coffin.”

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

“It seems to me a most dreadful thing to go out of the world and not leave one person behind you who is sorry you are gone,' said Anne, shuddering.”