Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?
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.
Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into oneβs life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to oneβs 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.
And if you couldn't be loved, the next best thing was to be let alone.
Gilbert, I'm afraid I'm scandalously in love with you.
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.
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.
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.
The world looks like something God had just imaged for his own pleasure, doesn't it?
...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.
Gossip, as usual, was one-third right and two-thirds wrong.
Anne, look here. Canβt we be good friends?β 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 Gilbertβs 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 βcarrotsβ 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!
Nobody with any real sense of humor *can* write a love story. . . . Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule. (90-91)
Don't you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back?
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.
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.
Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before. Now I know that I just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness. This is the reality.
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.
My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.
Despair is a free manβhope is a slave.
