L. M. Montgomery quotes

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.

— Spoken by a character · XIX. A Concert, a Catastrophe, and a Confession

I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.

— Spoken by a character · XVI. Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results

And people laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven’t you?

— Spoken by a character · II. Matthew Cuthbert Is Surprised

“Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

— Spoken by a character · XXI. A New Departure in Flavorings

‘My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.’

— Spoken by a character · V. Anne’s History

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

— Anne · XXXV. The Winter at Queen’s

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

— Anne · V. Anne’s History

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 knew all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there?

— Spoken by a character · II. Matthew Cuthbert Is Surprised

“Dear old world,” she murmured, “you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”

— Spoken by a character · XXXVIII. The Bend in the Road

It is ever so much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable.

— Anne · XXIX. An Epoch in Anne’s Life

That’s all the freedom we can hope for—the freedom to choose our prison.

— Barney · Chapter XXIX

It was three o’clock in the morning—the wisest and most accursed hour of the clock. But sometimes it sets us free.

“John Foster says,” quoted Valancy, “‘If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you’ll never be and you need not waste time in trying.’”

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XXI

Thirty seconds can be very long sometimes. Long enough to work a miracle or a revolution.

‘Despair is a free man—hope is a slave.’

— Spoken by a character · Chapter VIII

“The trouble with you people is that you don’t laugh enough,” she said.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XXVII

But Barney made a fragrant bed of bracken and fir boughs and they slept on it dreamlessly, under a ceiling of old spruces with moss hanging from them, while beyond them moonlight and the murmur of pines blended together so that one could hardly tell which was light and which was sound.

Rebellion flamed up in her soul as the dark hours passed by—not because she had no future but because she had no past.

“We don’t know where we’re going, but isn’t it fun to go?”

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XXX

‘I’ve been keeping up appearances all my life. Now I’m going in for realities. Appearances can go hang!’

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XV

The body grows slowly and steadily, but the soul grows by leaps and bounds. It may come to its full stature in an hour.

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."