You must pay the penalty of growing-up, Paul. You must leave fairyland behind you.
Interpretation
Growing up requires leaving behind the innocence and fantasies of childhood.
In this quote, Lucy Maud Montgomery emphasizes the inevitable transition from childhood to adulthood, where one must let go of the whimsical and fantastical elements of youth, often referred to as 'fairyland'. This process can be seen as both a loss and a necessary step towards maturity, signaling the responsibilities and realities that accompany adult life.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a graduation ceremony to motivate students as they embark on their adult lives.
A broken heart in real life isn't half as dreadful as it is in books. It's a good deal like a bad tooth, though you won't think THAT a very romantic simile. It takes spells of aching and gives you a sleepless night now and then, but between times it lets you enjoy life and dreams and echoes and peanut candy as if there were nothing the matter with it.
A house isn't a home without the ineffable contentment of a cat with its tail folded about its feet. A cat gives mystery, charm, suggestion.
Gilbert darling, don't let's ever be afraid of things. It's such dreadful slavery. Let's be daring and adventurous and expectant. Let's dance to meet life and all it can bring to us, even if it brings scads of trouble and typhoid and twins!" (Anne to Gilbert)
Youth is not a vanished thing but something that dwells forever in the heart.
I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.
She had dreamed some brilliant dreams during the past winter and now they lay in the dust around her. In her present mood of self-disgust, she could not immediately begin dreaming again. And she discovered that, while solitude with dreams is glorious, solitude without them has few charms.
And through our travels we get separated, never forget:_x000D_ _x000D_ In order to survive, got to learn to live with regrets.
People will make a life in their own terms, whether they are deaf or colorblind or autistic or whatever. And their world will be quite as rich and interesting and full as our world.
It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary... to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age.
A meaningful life is not a popularity contest. Do what in your heart you believe to be the right thing, and you may or may not get immediate approval from the world. Do it anyway.
It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it's great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you.
This earthly life is a battle,' said Ma. 'If it isn't one thing to contend with, it's another. It always has been so, and it always will be. The sooner you make up your mind to that, the better off you are, and more thankful for your pleasures.
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