“Snow in April is abominable," said Anne. "Like a slap in the face when you expected a kiss.”
“Beauty was all around them. Unsuspected tintings glimmered in the dark demesnes of the woods and glowed in their alluring by-ways. The spring sunshine sifted through the young green leaves. Gay trills of song were everywhere. There were little hollows where you felt as if you were bathing in a pool of liquid gold. At every turn some fresh spring scent struck their faces: Spice ferns...fir balsam...the wholesome odour of newly ploughed fields. There was a lane curtained with wild-cherry blossoms; a grassy old field full of tiny spruce trees just starting in life and looking like elvish things that had sat down among the grasses; brooks not yet "too broad for leaping"; starflowers under the firs; sheets of curly young ferns; and a birch tree whence someone had torn away the white-skin wrapper in several places, exposing the tints of the bark below-tints ranging from purest creamy white, through exquisite golden tones, growing deeper and deeper until the inmost layer revealed the deepest, richest brown as if to tell tha all birches, so maiden-like and cool exteriorly, had yet warm-hued feelings; "the primeval fire of earth at their hearts.”
“Well, that was life. Gladness and pain...hope and fear...and change. Always change! You could not help it. You had to let the old go and take the new to your heart...learn to love it and then let it go in turn. Spring, lovely as it was, must yield to summer and summer lose itself in autumn. The birth...the bridal...the death...”
“The dark hills, with the darker spruces marching over them, looked grim on early falling nights, but Ingleside bloomed with firelight and laughter, though the winds come in from the Atlantic singing of mournful things.
"Why isn't the wind happy, Mummy?" asked Walter one night.
"Because it is remembering all the sorrow of the world since it began," answered Anne.”
“You do love me, Gilbert? You haven’t said you loved me in so long."
“My dear, I didn’t think you needed words to know that. I can’t live without you.”
“Anne smiled and sighed. The seasons that seemed so long to Baby Rilla were beginning to pass all too quickly for her. Another summer was ended, lighted out of life by the ageless gold of Lombardy torches. Soon...all too soon...the children of Ingleside would be children no longer. But they were still hers...hers to welcome when they came home at night...hers to fill life with wonder and delight...hers to love and cheer and scold...a little.”
“It's a dreadful mistake to cherish bitterness for years... hugging it to our hearts like a treasure.”
“Time is kinder than we think,' thought Anne. 'It's a dreadful mistake to cherish bitterness for years...hugging it to our hearts like a treasure.”
“They were all growing so fast. In just a few short years they would be all young men and women...youth tiptoe...expectant...a-star with its sweet wild dreams...little ships sailing out of safe harbor to unknown ports. The boys would go away to their life work and the girls...ah, the mist-veiled forms of beautiful brides might be seen coming down the old stairs at Ingleside. But they would still be hers for a few years yet...hers to love and guide...to sing the songs that so many mothers had sung...Hers...and Gilbert's.”
“Anne sewed and planned little winter wardrobes..."Nan must have a red dress, since she is so set on it"...and sometimes thought of Hannah, weaving her little coat every year for the small Samuel. Mothers were the same all through the centuries...a great sisterhood of love and service...the remembered and the unremembered alike.”
“I should have found out what was troubling her. But I've been too much taken up with other things this week . . . things that really mattered nothing compared to a child's unhappiness. Think of what the poor darling has suffered."
She stooped repentantly, gloatingly over them. They were still hers . . . wholly hers, to mother and love and protect. They still came to her with every love and grief of their little hearts. For a few years longer they would be hers . . . and then? Anne shivered. Motherhood was very sweet . . . but very terrible.
"I wonder what life holds for them," she whispered.”
“Dear God, help him and help the mother . . . help all mothers everywhere. We need so much help, with the little sensitive, loving hearts and minds that look to us for guidance and love and understanding.”
“Every one has some fault but also some virtue … something that distinguishes it from all the others … gives it a personality. I”
“And yet … it's the little things that fret the holes in life … like moths … and ruin it.”
“This is no common day, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said solemnly.
"Oh, Susan, there is no such thing as a common day. EVERY day has something about it no other day has. Haven't you noticed?”
“of a cross-marked grave "somewhere in France." But tonight it was only a shadow … nothing more.”
“Lay not the blame on me, O sailor, but on the winds. By nature I am as calm and safe as the land itself, but the winds fall upon me with their gusts and gales, and lash me into a fury that is not natural to me.”
“... then unleashed Stargate's 18 sex-starved men on our women, compliant and promiscuous by military custom and law...”
“crossroads about the same time tomorrow. Ashton spent a few moments chattering about her excuse for being away from Mont Royal; it also involved staying with a friend, a nonexistent one. Madeline heard Ashton’s voice, but few of the words registered. The three women crowded into the chaise, Ashton in the middle. It was evident to Madeline that Orry’s sister didn’t like squeezing against a Negress, but she’d just have to put up with it.”
“Because . . . most of us think that the point is something to do with work, or kids, or family, or whatever. But you don't have any of that. There's nothing between you and despair, and you don't seem a very desperate person.'
'Too stupid.'
'You're not stupid. So why don't you ever put your head in the oven?'
'I don't know. There's always a new Nirvana album to look forward to, or something happening in NYPD Blue to make you want to watch the next episode.'
'Exactly.'
'That's the point? NYPD Blue? Jesus.' It was worse than he thought.
'No, no. The point is you keep going. You want to. So all the things that make you want to are the point. I don't know if you even realize it, but on the quiet you don't think life's too bad. You love things. Telly. Music. Food.”
“Fiction is a particularly effective way for strangers to connect across time and distance”
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