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Home / Books / L. M. MONTGOMERY – Premium Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry & Autobiography (Including Anne Shirley Novels, Chronicles of Avonlea & The Story Girl Series): Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne's House of Dreams, Rainbow Valley, The Golden Road, Kilmeny of the Orchard, The Watchman, Songs of the Sea & many more

L. M. MONTGOMERY – Premium Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry & Autobiography (Including Anne Shirley Novels, Chronicles of Avonlea & The Story Girl Series): Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne's House of Dreams, Rainbow Valley, The Golden Road, Kilmeny of the Orchard, The Watchman, Songs of the Sea & many more

Book by Lucy Maud Montgomery · 36 quotes · Ifs, People, Said

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L. M. MONTGOMERY – Premium Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry & Autobiography (Including Anne Shirley Novels, Chronicles of Avonlea & The Story Girl Series): Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne's House of Dreams, Rainbow Valley, The Golden Road, Kilmeny of the Orchard, The Watchman, Songs of the Sea & many more Quotes

“I must be getting old ... People are beginning to tell me I look so young. They never tell you that when you are young.”

“one reason why I like writing poetry - you can say so many things in it that are true in poetry but wouldn't be true in prose.”

“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.”

“It was October again ... a glorious October, all red and gold, with mellow mornings when the valleys were filled with delicate mists as if the spirit of autumn had poured them in for the sun to drain - amethyst, pearl, silver, rose, and smoke-blue. The dews were so heavy that the fields glistened like cloth of silver and there were such heaps of rustling leaves in the hollows of many-stemmed woods to run crisply through.”

“Humor is the spiciest condiment in the feast of existence. Laugh at your mistakes but learn from them, joke over your troubles but gather strength from them, make a jest of your difficulties but overcome them.”

“Anyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn’t can never know what it is. So there is no need of defining it.”

“I couldn't live where there were no trees--something vital in me would starve.”

“Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn't talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to it, although it's difficult.”

“Behind them in the garden the little stone house brooded among the shadows. It was lonely but not forsaken. It had not yet done with dreams and laughter and the joy of life; there were to be future summers for the little stone house; meanwhile, it could wait. And over the river in purple durance the echoes bided their time.”

“Few things in Avonlea ever escaped Mrs. Lynde. It was only that morning Anne had said, "If you went to your own room at midnight, locked the door, pulled down the blind, and sneezed, Mrs. Lynde would ask you the next day how your cold was!”

“It was November--the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul.”

“Heretics are wicked, but they're mighty int'resting. It's jest that they've got sorter lost looking for God, being under the impression that He's hard to find - which He ain't never.”

“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.”

“The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and storytellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.”

“If you can't be cheerful, be as cheerful as you can.”

“Anne "felt instinctively" that romance was peeping at her around a corner.”

“But if you call me Anne, please call me Anne with an 'e'.”

“March came in that winter like the meekest and mildest of lambs, bringing days that were crisp and golden and tingling, each followed by a frosty pink twilight which gradually lost itself in an elfland of moonshine.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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 just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was sensible,' pleaded Anne.”

“It is never quite safe to think we have done with life. When we imagine we have finished our story fate has a trick of turning the page and showing us yet another chapter.”

“It's good advice, but I expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think.”

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

“We belong to the race that knows Joseph”

“It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and think of the rainbows in 'em," said Captain Jim. "When I ponder on them seeds I don't find it nowise hard to believe that we've got souls that'll live in other worlds. You couldn't hardly believe there was life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone colour and scent, if you hadn't seen the miracle, could you?”

“You'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair," said Anne reproachfully. "People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble is.”

“It’s so much more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding.”

“Anne reveled in the world of color about her. "Oh, Marilla," she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of gorgeous boughs, "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it? Look at these maple branches. Don't they give you a thrill--several thrills?”

“A good laugh is as good as a prayer sometimes.”