L. M. Montgomery

There's really no fun in being sensible all the time....

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.

Proverbs are all very fine when there's nothing to worry you, but when you're in real trouble, they're not a bit of help.

If we don't chase things--sometimes the things following us can catch up.

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?

I'm always sorry when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter may come after, but you can never be sure.

But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts.

It's all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you really come to have them, is it?

There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, is there? And it's so hard to keep from loving things, isn't it?

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

Doesn't matter what a person's name is as long as he behaves himself.

When people mean to be good to you, you don't mind very much when they're not quite—always.

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 into 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.

Don't believe in imagining things different from what they really are. When the Lord puts us in certain circumstances He doesn't mean for us to imagine them away.

When I make up my mind to do a thing it stays made up.

There's such a difference between saying a thing yourself and hearing other people say it. You may know a thing is so, but you can't help hoping other people don't quite think it is.

A child that has a quick temper, just blaze up and cool down, ain't never likely to be sly or deceitful.

I love pretty things; and I hate to look in the glass and see something that isn't pretty. It makes me feel so sorrowful—just as I feel when I look at any ugly thing. I pity it because it isn't beautiful.

I'd rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and sensible all by myself.

Looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them. You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them.

I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed.

Isn't it good just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren't born yet for missing it.

One can dream so much better in a room where there are pretty things.

One can't stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one?

ALL things great are wound up with all things little.

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.

Cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them to be good.

There must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I'll be through with them. That's a very comforting thought.

Folks that has brought up children know that there's no hard and fast method in the world that'll suit every child. But them as never have think it's all as plain and easy as Rule of Three—just set your three terms down so fashion, and the sum'll work out correct.

I don't like green Christmases. They're not green—they're just nasty faded browns and grays.

Reading stories is bad enough but writing them is worse.

It makes you feel very virtuous when you forgive people, doesn't it?

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

That is one consolation when you are poor—there are so many more things you can imagine about.

That's the worst of growing up, and I'm beginning to realize it. The things you wanted so much when you were a child don't seem half so wonderful to you when you get them.

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.

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.

She makes me love her and I like people who make me love them. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them.

Worrying helps you some—it seems as if you were doing something when you're worrying.

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

We pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement.

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.

I shall give life here my best, and I believe it will give its best to me in return.

If the path set before her feet was to be narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. The joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams.

An old house with its windows gone always makes me think of something dead with its eyes picked out.

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.

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.

It's so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn't it?