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

"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."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Avonlea)

"Tomorrow is fresh, with no mistakes in it."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"I am simply a "book drunkard." Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them."
— L.M. Montgomery (The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery : Volume I: 1889-1910)

"True friends are always together in spirit. (Anne Shirley)"
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"Life is worth living as long as there's a laugh in it."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"Marilla, isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet? (Anne Shirley)"
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"Miss Barry was a kindred spirit after all," Anne confided to Marilla, "You wouldn't think so to look at her, but she is. . . Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"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

"It's not what the world holds for you. It's what you bring to it. "
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"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 (Anne of Green Gables)

"I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted."
— L.M. Montgomery

"You may tire of reality but you never tire of dreams."
— L.M. Montgomery (The Road to Yesterday)

"I don't want sunbursts or marble halls, I just want you."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"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 to fairyland."
— L.M. Montgomery (The Story Girl)

"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 of Green Gables)

"For a moment Anne's heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert's gaze and a rosy flush stained the paleness of her face. It was as if a veil that had hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation of unsuspected feelings and realities. 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. "
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Avonlea)

"When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"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."
— L.M. Montgomery

"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."
— L.M. Montgomery

"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?"
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"’Oh, no. I wouldn’t want to marry anybody who was wicked, but I think I’d like it if he could be wicked and wouldn’t. Now, Fred is hopelessly good.’
‘You’ll have more sense some day, I hope,’ said Marilla."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of the Island and Tales of Avonlea)

"she was richer in those dreams than in realities; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Windy Poplars)

"Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"And people make fun of me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?"
— L.M. Montgomery

"Why did dusk and fir-scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd things?"
— L.M. Montgomery (Emily's Quest)

"I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset... almost pays for the thud."
— L.M. Montgomery

"I'd like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily. "I don't exactly want to make people KNOW more. . .though I know that IS the noblest ambition. . .but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me. . .to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born."
— L.M. Montgomery

"When you've learned to laugh at the things that should be laughed at, and not to laugh at those that shouldn't, you've got wisdom and understanding.
-Aunt Jimsie"
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of the Island)

"You were never poor as long as you had something to love."
— L.M. Montgomery

"If I really wanted to pray I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field alone or into the deep, deep woods, and I'd look up into the sky - up - up - up- into that lovely blue sky that looks like there's no end to it's blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer."
— L.M. Montgomery

"There might be some hours of loneliness. But there was something wonderful even in loneliness. At least you belonged to yourself when you were lonely."
— L.M. Montgomery (Mistress Pat)

"After all, what could you expect from a pig but a grunt?"
— 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 (Anne of Green Gables)

"Don't you ever imagine things differently than what they are? Oh, Marilla, how much you miss."
— L.M. Montgomery

""I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "You get hold of their soul then.""
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne's House of Dreams)

"Well, it all comes to this; there's no use trying to live in other people's opinions. The only thing to do is to live in your own. After all, I believe in myself. I'm not so bad and silly as they think me, and I'm not consumptive, and I can write. Now that I've written it all out I feel differently about it. The only thing that still aggravates me is that Miss Potter pitied me -- pitied by a Potter!"
— L.M. Montgomery (Emily Climbs)

"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?"
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Windy Poplars)

"The body grows slowly and steadily but the soul grows by leaps and bounds. It may come to its full stature in an hour."
— L.M. Montgomery (Rilla of Ingleside (Anne of Green Gables, #8))

"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."
— L.M. Montgomery

"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."
— L.M. Montgomery (The Story Girl)

"I'm afraid to speak or move for fear that all this wonderful beauty will just vanish... like a broken silence."
— L.M. Montgomery

"Sunbursts and marble halls may be all very well, but there is more 'scope for imagination' without them... Oh, dreams will be very sweet now."
— L.M. Montgomery

"Those who can soar to the highest heights can also plunge to the deepest depths and the natures which enjoy most keenly are those which also suffer most sharply."
— L.M. Montgomery

"Fear is the original sin. Almost all of the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something."
— L.M. Montgomery (The Blue Castle)

"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."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it."
— L.M. Montgomery (The Story Girl)

""Humor is the spicest 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.""
— L.M. Montgomery

"It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is Tomorrow. Not Today but Tomorrow. And then things will happen ... wonderful things."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of the Island)