All quotes

I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending stars,—every one lit me to a purpose or delight.

Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness.

I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils.

He did not know how long he sat there or what was happening to him, but at last he moved as if he were awakening and he got up slowly and stood on the moss carpet, drawing a long, deep, soft breath and wondering at himself. Something seemed to have been unbound and released in him, very quietly.

Everything was strange and silent and she seemed to be hundreds of miles away from anyone, but somehow she did not feel lonely at all.

She had been actually happy all the time; and dozens and dozens of the tiny, pale green points were to be seen in cleared places, looking twice as cheerful as they had looked before when the grass and weeds had been smothering them.

There, too, after a fit of temper, I went to find comfort and to hide my hot face in the cool leaves and grass.

Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, "There is joy in self-forgetfulness." So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.

What a joy it is to feel the soft, springy earth under my feet once more, to follow grassy roads that lead to ferny brooks where I can bathe my fingers in a cataract of rippling notes, or to clamber over a stone wall into green fields that tumble and roll and climb in riotous gladness!

Then love came and set my soul free.

Darkness cannot shut me in again. I have had a glimpse of the shore, and can now live by the hope of reaching it.

Now I rejoice in the consciousness that I can think, act and attain heaven.

I love the good that others do; for their activity is an assurance that whether I can help or not, the true and the good will stand sure.

Now I know hope and joy.

But during the first nineteen months of my life I had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not wholly blot out.

In the midst of my perplexity I read an essay of Stevenson which made me feel as if I had been "outing" in the sunshine, instead of losing heart over a difficult task. I tried again with new courage and succeeded almost before I knew it.

My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to coöperate with the good, that it may prevail.

Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all, heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.

The tears don’t hurt me like that ache did. Stay here for a little while with me and keep your arm round me--so.

You mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them.

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 am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing influences that nature offers us.

I’m not ungrateful--and perhaps--when this horrible ache grows a little less--I’ll find that I can go on living.

The thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts me worse than all else, Marilla.

And, Leslie, I can’t help believing that life has something good and beautiful for you yet.