never write a line you'd be ashamed to read at your own funeral.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of living authentically and with integrity.
Lucy Maud Montgomery's quote suggests that individuals should always strive to be honest and true to themselves in their writings and actions. The idea of reading something at one's own funeral calls for reflection on how we wish to be remembered, urging people to create work and lead lives that they can be proud of, even in the most solemn moments.
In practice
This quote can be used during a writing workshop to encourage participants to write sincerely.
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.
The Sufis advise us to speak only after our words have managed to pass through three gates. At the first gate, we ask ourselves, 'Are these words true?' If so, we let them pass on; if not, back they go. At the second gate, we ask, 'Are the necessary?' At the last gate, we ask, 'Are they kind?'
I believe that if you don't derive a deep sense of purpose from what you do, if you don't come radiantly alive several times a day, if you don't feel deeply grateful at the tremendous good fortune that has been bestowed on you, then you are wasting your life. And life is too short to waste.
I really wasn't equipped to be a writer when I left Oxford. But then I set out to learn. I've always had the highest regard for the craft. I've always felt it was work.
People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.
I am not cruel, only truthful.
She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.