The Complete Anne of Green Gables Collection

by L.M. Montgomery

contrive

pompadour,

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

vim

servitor

samite.

haughtily

dory

evening comes I think it’s lovelier still.”

The things you wanted so much when you were a child don’t seem half so wonderful to you when you get them.”

prosaic;

But we can’t have things perfect in this imperfect world,

tacitly

1

spasmodic

scorn.

“It’s nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one’s heart, like treasures.

‘If you can’t be cheerful, be as cheerful as you can.’

elocutionist,

1

limpid

It would be worth while to win, but she no longer thought life would be insupportable if she did not.

I’ve done my best and I begin to understand what is meant by the ‘joy of the strife.’ Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.

“Oh, just let me cry, Marilla,” sobbed Anne. “The tears don’t hurt me like that ache did.

We resent the thought that anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when we find our interest in life returning to us.”

She said whenever you looked forward to anything pleasant you were sure to be more or less disappointed... perhaps that is true. But there is a good side to it too. The bad things don’t always come up to your expectations either... they nearly always turn out ever so much better than you think.

After she had passed through a life with a smile or a word thrown across it like a gleam of sunshine the owner of that life saw it, for the time being at least, as hopeful and lovely and of good report.

“But then, Anne, you know what Lowell says, ‘Not failure but low aim is crime.’ 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. Hold fast to your ideals, Anne.”

“Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.

We make our own lives wherever we are, after all...

college can only help us to do it more easily. They are broad or narrow according to what we put into them, not what we get out.

Life is rich and full here... everywhere... if we can only learn how to open our whole hearts t...

“True friendship is a very helpful thing indeed,”

“and we should have a very high ideal of it, and never sully it by any failure in truth and sincerity.

“Having adventures comes natural to some people,” said Anne serenely. “You just have a gift for them or you haven’t.”

Prince Charming is coming tonight. He came long ago, but in a foolish moment went away and wandered afar and forgot the secret of the magic pathway to the enchanted castle, where the princess was weeping her faithful heart out for him. But at last he remembered it again and the princess is waiting still... because nobody but her own dear prince could carry her off.”

“This is the one place where time stands still,”

“You know time always does stand still in an enchanted palace,”

“It is only when the prince comes that things begin to happen.”

“Sometimes the prince comes too late,”

But maybe everything’ll go all right. In this world you’ve just got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and take whatever God sends.”

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.

See, it was twilight three minutes ago and now it’s moonlight. What a pity we couldn’t have caught the moment of transformation. But such moments never are caught, I suppose.”

“Oh, there’s another bend in the road at their end,”

“I’ve no idea what may be around it — I don’t want to have. It’s nicer not to know.”

“but Priscilla and I are so firmly convinced of our own good looks that we don’t need any assurance about them, so you needn’t trouble.”

“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.”

“Nobody is ever too old to dream. And dreams never grow old.”

“‘Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.’

Well, a man is nothing but trouble as I sees it and of all the uncertain things marriage is the uncertainest, but what else is there for a woman in this world?

“We always hate people who surprise our secrets,

I think it is just misunderstanding that makes most of the trouble in the world. You and I for so long, now...