Talk:Anne of Green Gables

Unsourced

Anne: 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?

Marilla: I wish he was like other men and would talk things out. A body could answer back then and argue him into reason. But what's to be done with a man who just looks?

Anne: 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.

Anne: Oh, what I know about myself isn't really worth telling. If you'll only let me tell you what I imagine about myself you'll think it ever so much more interesting.

Anne: I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose would be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk-cabbage.

Anne: You'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair. People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble is.

Anne: Mrs Thomas told me that God made my hair red on purpose, and I've never cared about Him since.

Anne: Do you never imagine things different from what they really are?

Marilla: No.

Anne: Oh! Oh, Miss - Marilla, how much you miss!

Anne: What is Diana like? Her hair isn't red, is it? Oh, I hope not. It's bad enough to have red hair myself, but I positively couldn't endure it in a bosom friend.

Anne: [looking at her reflection] You're only Anne of Green Gables, and I see you, just as you are looking now, whenever I try to imagine I'm the Lady Cordelia. But it's a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than Anne of nowhere in particular, isn't it?

Rachel Lynde: Well, they didn't pick you for your looks, that's sure and certain. She's terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did anyone ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say.

Anne: I hate you. I hate you - I hate you - I hate you [stamps her foot]. How dare you call me skinny and ugly? how dare you say I'm freckled and red-headed? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman! How dare you say such things about me? How would you like to have such things said about you? How would you like to be told that you are fat and clumsy and probably hadn't a spark of imagination in you? I don't care if I do hurt your feelings by saying so! I hope I hurt them. You have hurt mine worse than they were ever hurt before, even by Mrs Thomas' intoxicated husband. And I'll never forgive you for it, never, never!

Anne: Oh, but 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.

Anne: I can't say I'm sorry when I'm not, can I? I can't even imagine I'm sorry.

Marilla: I'm afraid you are a very vain little girl.

Anne: How can I be vain when I know I'm homely? I love pretty things; and I hate to look in the glass and see something that isn't pretty. It makes me feel sorrowful - just as I feel when I look at any ugly thing. I pity it because it isn't beautiful.

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

Anne: Mr Bell made an awfully long prayer. I would have been dreadfully tired before he got through if I hadn't been sitting by that window. But it looked right out on the Lake of Shining Waters, so I just gazed at that and imagined all sorts of splendid things.

Marilla: You shouldn't have done anything of the sort. You should have listened to Mr Bell.

Anne: But he wasn't talking to me. He was talking to God and he didn't seem to be very much interested in it, either. I think he thought God was too far off to make it worth while.

Anne: I don't know what 'squadrons' means nor 'Midian' either, but it sounds so tragical.

Anne: I'm afraid I'm going to be a dreadful trial to you. Maybe you'd better send me back to the asylum. That would be terrible; I don't think i could endure it; most likely I would go into consumption; I'm so thin as it is, you see. But that would be better than being a trial to you.

Anne: Will you swear to be my friend for ever and ever?

Diana: Why, it's dreadfully wicked to swear.

Anne: Oh, no, not my kind of swearing. There are two kinds, you know.

Diana: I never heard of but one kind.

Anne: There really is another. Oh, it isn't wicked at all. It just means vowing and promising solemnly.

Diana: Well, I don't mind doing that.

Diana: You're a queer girl, Anne. I heard before that you were queer. But I believe I'm going to like you real well.

Anne: Oh, Marilla, 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. Mrs Lynde says, 'Blessed are they who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed.' But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed.

Anne: I think amethysts are just sweet. They are what I used to think diamonds were like. Long ago, before I had ever seen a diamond, I read about them, and I tried to imagine what they would be like. I thought they would be lovely glimmering purple stones. When I saw a real diamond in a lady's ring one day I was so disappointed I cried. Of course, it was very lovely, but it wasn't my idea of a diamond.

Anne: Please don't ask me to eat anything, especially boiled pork and greens. Boiled pork and greens are so unromantic when one is in affliction.

Diana: Those Pye girls are cheats all round. Gertie Pye actually went and put her milk bottle in my place in the brook yesterday. Did you ever? I don't speak to her now.

Gilbert: [holding one of Anne's braids] Carrots! Carrots!

Anne: I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe. And Mr Phillips spelled my name without an e too. The iron has entered my soul, Diana.

Anne: I love bright red drinks, don't you? They taste twice as good as any other colour.

Anne: She is trying to teach me to cook, but I assure you, Diana it is uphill work. There's so little scope for imagination in cookery. You just have to go by rules. Thelast time I made a cake I forgot to put the flour in.

Anne: My last hope is gone. I went up and saw Mrs Barry myself and she treated me very insultingly. Marilla, I do not think she is a well-bred woman. There is nothing more to do except to pray and I haven't much hope that that'll do much good because, Marilla, I do not believe that God Himself can do very much with such an obstinate person as Mrs Barry.

Anne: But really, Marilla, one can't stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one?