5 Quotes About Adopted Family Love From Anne of Green Gables, With Chapters
Words My Family Quotes Editors
The Cuthberts of Green Gables asked an orphan asylum for a boy to help with the farm. They got Anne Shirley, eleven years old and talkative. Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (1908) is, among other things, a book about how two reluctant, unsentimental adults come to adopt a child, and how slowly they say so. Five lines carry that story from "she has to go back" to "my own flesh and blood." Each one is quoted below from the public-domain text on Project Gutenberg, with its chapter, so you can find it in any edition.
The five lines at a glance
| Chapter | Speaker | What is happening |
|---|---|---|
| III | Matthew | The first night: Anne is still a mistake to be corrected |
| VI | Matthew | The decision to keep her |
| XIX | Anne | She finds she is not alone in the world |
| XXXVI | Matthew | His last evening with her |
| XXXVII | Marilla | The night after his death |
Before anyone says "love": Matthew, chapter III
On Anne's first night at Green Gables, Marilla is clear that the girl will be sent back to the asylum the next morning. Matthew, who has barely spoken to her, tries a quieter argument.
"We might be some good to her."
— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, chapter III, 1908
It is a small sentence, and it is worth noticing what it leaves out. Matthew does not say he likes Anne, or that she is a bargain, or that she will be useful. He says the adults might be good to the child, which reverses the arithmetic the farm had been doing ("What good would she be to us?", Marilla has just asked). Anyone who has had to make the case for a child nobody planned for will recognise how modest the winning argument often is.
Deciding to keep her: Matthew, chapter VI
After a trip to the woman who arranged the mix-up, Marilla agrees, grudgingly, that Anne may stay: "It seems a sort of duty. I've never brought up a child, especially a girl, and I dare say I'll make a terrible mess of it. But I'll do my best." Duty, not affection, is her word for it. Matthew answers with the advice that turns out to be the book's whole method:
"I kind of think she's one of the sort you can do anything with if you only get her to love you."
— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, chapter VI, 1908
The two adults arrive at the same child from opposite ends: one through duty and "methods," the other through trust. Read together, they describe most adoptions and step-parenting better than the greeting-card version does. Love is not what starts the arrangement; it is what the arrangement, carried out faithfully, produces. If you are writing to someone who took a child in out of obligation and found it became something else, this is the passage to point to.
Finding her people: Anne, chapter XIX
This is the line most often printed on mugs and tote bags, usually cut down to "Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think." The full sentence belongs to Anne, speaking to Marilla after Miss Barry, a stern visiting lady whose bed Anne once jumped on, has become her firm friend:
"Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."
— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, chapter XIX, 1908
The setup matters. Anne had told Marilla in chapter VIII that she hoped for "a bosom friend—an intimate friend, you know—a really kindred spirit," and the book treats that wish as the engine of her whole childhood. By chapter XIX she is no longer asking whether one such person exists; she is counting them, and she has just added someone she says you would never guess to look at. For a child who arrived with nothing, that count is the real evidence of belonging, and it is a good line for a card to a foster or adopted child who is still making a circle of their own.
The sentence he almost never says: Matthew, chapter XXXVI
Anne, now a grown young woman with a scholarship, walks with Matthew to bring the cows home and tells him she wishes she had been the boy they sent for, so she could do more of the farm work. His answer:
"Well now, I'd rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne ... Just mind you that—rather than a dozen boys."
— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, chapter XXXVI, 1908
He continues, in the original, "I guess it wasn't a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It was a girl—my girl—my girl that I'm proud of." This is the correction of the novel's opening mistake, spoken by the one person who never wanted to send her back. The ellipsis above marks only the stage direction ("said Matthew, patting her hand"). It is the evening before Matthew dies, which is why the passage is quoted at funerals and on memorial cards for fathers and father figures of every kind. It also sits well beside how a daughter measures her father.
Saying it out loud: Marilla, chapter XXXVII
The following night, Anne is crying in her room. Marilla, who has been "strict and harsh" and says it has never been easy for her "to say things out of my heart," comes and says it.
"I love you as dear as if you were my own flesh and blood and you've been my joy and comfort ever since you came to Green Gables."
— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, chapter XXXVII, 1908
Two details are usually lost in reposts. The words are "as if you were," not "as my own," and the sentence is not a statement that blood and love are equal, but a confession that Marilla needed a catastrophe to find the words. She also frames it as late: "I want to tell you now when I can." For anyone hesitating over a message to an adopted, step or foster child, her example is the practical advice. Say it before the occasion forces you to.
Using these lines in a card or message
- Quote one line and add one sentence of your own. The lines work because they are plain. Follow "We might be some good to her" with a concrete thing the person did, not another adjective.
- Match the line to the moment. Chapter III for the first weeks of a placement, chapter XIX for a child finding friends, chapter XXXVI for a graduation or wedding, chapter XXXVII for a hard day when words are needed.
- Name the book and the chapter. Giving "Anne of Green Gables, chapter XXXVII" lets the reader look it up, and it avoids the garbled versions that circulate.
- Do not over-claim. None of these is a statement about adoption law or advice from the author; they are lines from a novel, and they read best as such.
For other family lines about love that is chosen rather than inherited, see our family love quotes, the sourced collection on what a mother is, and short mother-daughter quotes about unconditional love.
Questions readers ask
Is Anne of Green Gables really about adoption?
Yes. The Cuthberts request a boy from an orphan asylum, receive Anne by mistake, and decide in chapter VI to keep her. The rest of the book follows them becoming her family. The word "adopt" appears in the text, though the legal process is not described.
Which chapter has the "flesh and blood" line?
Chapter XXXVII, "The Reaper Whose Name Is Death," in the original 1908 text. The wording is "as dear as if you were my own flesh and blood."
Where does "I'd rather have you than a dozen boys" come from?
Chapter XXXVI, "The Glory and the Dream," spoken by Matthew the evening before he dies. It is often misplaced in later chapters.
Where did Montgomery get this theme?
Her mother died when she was a baby and she was raised by her maternal grandparents on Prince Edward Island, which is the usual biographical context given for her recurring stories of children taken in by relatives and neighbours.