The 30 Most Entertaining and Uplifting Anne of Green Gables Quotes
I’ve always felt that out of all the literary characters I’ve spent time with, Anne Shirley would have been the ideal best friend, or, bosom buddy, as she would say. Something about her irrepressible optimism paired with her wholly original view of the world makes me love coming back to her when life gets overwhelming or frightening. I like to think of her as one of my (many) literary life coaches. In addition to crafting the lilting, lovely words of Anne, author L. M. Montgomery also did a remarkably hilarious and astute job of describing the people Anne encounters in her life. Here are 30 of my favorite Anne of Green Gables quotes about love, life, and more.
The best Anne of Green Gables quotes
“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 had made up my mind that if you didn’t come for me tonight I’d go down the track to that big wild cherry tree at the bend, and climb up into it to stay all night. I wouldn’t be a bit afraid, and it would be lovely to sleep in a wild cherry tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don’t you think? You could imagine you were dwelling in marble halls, couldn’t you?”
“I can’t cheer up — I don’t want to cheer up. It’s nicer to be miserable!”
“It almost seemed to her that those secret, unuttered, critical thoughts had suddenly taken visible and accusing shape and form in the person of this outspoken morsel of neglected humanity. “
“Anne has as many shades as a rainbow and every shade is the prettiest while it lasts. “
“Oh, look, here’s a big bee just tumbled out of an apple blossom. Just think what a lovely place to live–in an apple blossom! Fancy going to sleep in it when the wind was rocking it. If I wasn’t a human girl, I think I’d like to be a bee and live among the flowers.”
“Oh, 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.”
“Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously.”
“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.”
“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 know all about everything would it?”
“I can’t. I’m in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in the depths of despair?”
“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.”
“Anne’s beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking everything greedily in. She had looked on so many unlovely places in her life, poor child; but this was as lovely as anything she had ever dreamed.”
“Well, that is another hope gone. ‘My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.’ That’s a sentence I read in a book once, and I say it over to comfort myself whenever I’m disappointed in anything.”
“There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I’m such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn’t be half so interesting.”
“Life is worth living as long as there’s a laugh in it.”
“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.”
“Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it… Yet.”
“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.”
“It has always seemed to me, ever since early childhood, amid all the commonplaces of life, i was very near to a kingdom of ideal beauty. Between it and me hung only a thin veil. I could never draw it quite aside, but sometimes a wind fluttered it and I caught a glimpse of the enchanting realms beyond-only a glimpse-but those glimpses have always made life worthwhile.”
“But really, Marilla, one can’t stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one?”
“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.”
“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
“Don’t you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back?”
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
“Look at that sea, girls–all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.”
“Listen to the trees talking in their sleep,’ she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. ‘What nice dreams they must have!”
“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.”
“It is ever so much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable.”
“Which would you rather be if you had the choice–divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?”
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