L.m. Montgomery Quotes

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 laughed.I don't want sunbursts or marble halls, I just want you.

~ L.m. Montgomery

And if you couldn't be loved, the next best thing was to be let alone.

~ L.m. Montgomery

A broken heart in real life isn't half as dreadful as it is in books. It's a good deal like a bad tooth, though you won't think THAT a very romantic simile. It takes spells of aching and gives you a sleepless night now and then, but between times it lets you enjoy life and dreams and echoes and peanut candy as if there were nothing the matter with it.

~ L.m. Montgomery

Gilbert, I'm afraid I'm scandalously in love with you.

~ L.m. Montgomery

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

~ L.m. Montgomery

Life is worth living as long as there's a laugh in it.

~ L.m. Montgomery

Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?

~ L.m. Montgomery

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.

~ L.m. Montgomery

I don't know, I don't want to talk as much. (...) It's nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I don't like to have them laughed at or wondered over.

~ L.m. Montgomery

Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.

~ L.m. Montgomery

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

~ L.m. Montgomery

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

Gossip, as usual, was one-third right and two-thirds wrong.

~ L.m. Montgomery

The world looks like something God had just imaged for his own pleasure, doesn't it?

~ L.m. Montgomery

...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.

~ 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.

~ L.m. Montgomery

It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.

~ L.m. Montgomery

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.

~ L.m. Montgomery

Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before. Now I know that I just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness. This is the reality.

~ L.m. Montgomery

The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy mortals. It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.

~ L.m. Montgomery

Well, I don't want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds all my life,' declared Anne. 'I'm quite content to be Anne of Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads.

~ L.m. Montgomery

We mustn't let next week rob us of this week's joy.

~ L.m. Montgomery

Anne, look here. Can’t we be good friends?”For a moment Anne hesitated. She had an odd, newly awakened consciousness under all her outraged dignity that the half-shy, half-eager expression in Gilbert’s hazel eyes was something that was very good to see. Her heart gave a quick, queer little beat. But the bitterness of her old grievance promptly stiffened up her wavering determination. That scene of two years before flashed back into her recollection as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday. Gilbert had called her “carrots” and had brought about her disdain before the whole school. Her resentment, which to other and older people might be as laughable as its cause, was in no whit allayed and softened by time seemingly. She hated Gilbert Blythe! She would never forgive him!

~ L.m. Montgomery

Nobody with any real sense of humor *can* write a love story. . . . Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule. (90-91)

~ L.m. Montgomery

My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.

~ L.m. Montgomery

Despair is a free man—hope isa slave.

~ L.m. Montgomery

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.

~ L.m. Montgomery

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

~ L.m. Montgomery

I suppose that's how it looks in prose. But it's very different if you look at it through poetry…and I think it's nicer…' Anne recovered herself and her eyes shone and her cheeks flushed… 'to look at it through poetry.

~ L.m. Montgomery

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.

~ L.m. Montgomery

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

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 them off to get rid of them. -Anne Shirley

~ L.m. Montgomery

Fancies are like shadows...you can't cage them, they're such wayward, dancing things.

~ L.m. Montgomery

My pen shall heal, not hurt.

~ L.m. Montgomery

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.

~ L.m. Montgomery

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

~ L.m. Montgomery

It was not, of course, a proper thing to do. But then I have never pretended, nor will ever pretend, that Emily was a proper child. Books are not written about proper children. They would be so dull nobody would read them.

~ L.m. Montgomery

The p'int of good writing is to know when to stop.

~ L.m. Montgomery

Then Diana puts too many murders into [her stories]. She says most of the time she doesn’t know what to do with the people so she kills them off to get rid of them.

~ L.m. Montgomery