Top 48 Pollyanna Quotes & Sayings

I survived turning 60, I was not thrilled to turn 61, I was less thrilled to turn 62, I didn't much like being 63, I loathed being 64, and I will hate being 65. I don't let on about such things in person; in person, I am cheerful and Pollyanna-ish. But the honest truth is that it's sad to be over 60.

To affirm a person is to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves and to repeat it in spite of appearances to the contrary. Please, this is not some Pollyanna optimism that is blind to the reality of evil, but rather like a fine radar system that is tuned in to the true, the good, and the beautiful.

My husband and I met on OKCupid. We went out on our little coffee date, and I knew right away he was my husband. He's a handsome, smarty-pants architect from Tokyo. On our first date, I said, 'I wake up like this. I'm Pollyanna Sunshine, and I'm not for everyone'.

In all probability the Human Genome Project will, someday, find that I carry some recessive gene for optimism, because despite all my best efforts I still can't scrape together even a couple days of hopelessness. Future scientists will call it the Pollyanna Syndrome, and if forced to guess, I'd say that mine has been a way-long case history of chasing rainbows.

We have to support each other's tired nerves, I know that sounds so Pollyanna, but really... Mommy groups can be amazing, but haven't you ever gone to one and felt like you are back in high school, totally on the outside of the 'cool kids' club? I totally have!

I live in constant anticipation of good stuff. It's not being 'Pollyanna' about things, but most stories don't have the ending we would give them right away. The better endings come later.

I hate the pollyanna pest who says that all is for the best.

Be a balanced optimist. Nobody is suggesting that you become an oblivious Pollyanna, pretending that nothing bad can or ever will happen. Doing so can lead to poor decisions and invites people to take advantage of you. Instead, be a rational optimist who takes the good with the bad, in hopes of the good ultimately outweighing the bad, and with the understanding that being pessimistic about everything accomplishes nothing. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best - the former makes you sensible, and the latter makes you an optimist.

I have been accused of being a Pollyanna, but I think there are plenty of people dealing with the darker side of human nature, and if I am going to write about people who are kind and generous and loving and thoughtful, so what?

I'm an optimist in my heart - I'm a hopeless pollyanna just like my mother - but a pessimist in my head. I think that's the dialectic we all need to be in.

I do tend to be almost kind of Pollyanna-ish person.

You know, I do have a little Pollyanna in me.

Don't be a Pollyanna!

I'm not Pollyanna.

Anyone who looks for life can find it... and they don't need to photograph ashcans. The average camera fan reminds me of Pollyanna, with a lollypop in one hand and a camera in the other. You can't be a Nice Nelly and take news pictures.

I have been accused of being a Pollyanna, but I think there are plenty of people dealing with the darker side of human nature, and if I am going to write about people who are kind and generous and loving and thoughtful, so what? In my life I have met astonishingly good people.

None of my films are 'Pollyanna.' They're not little deers walking around with butterflies and stuff. That's not what I do.

I long ago discovered that you can't TELL about Pollyanna. The minute you try to, she sounds priggish and preachy, and--impossible. Yet you and I know she is anything but that.

I'm less Pollyanna now. That's probably healthy.

Consider the "new" woman. She's trying to be Pollyanna Borgia, clearly a conflict of interest. She's supposed to be a ruthless winner at work and a bundle of nurturing sweetness at home.

I'm not Pollyanna - I know that my personality and my opinions and how I approach the teaching of writing maybe isn't exactly how it's done traditionally in the academy...wherever that academy is...but, you know, the academy is broken as it relates to many creative writing programs.

There are really two kinds of optimism. There's the complacent, Pollyanna optimism that says, 'Don't worry - everything will be just fine,' and that allows one to just lay back and do nothing about the problems around you. Then there's what we call dynamic optimism. That's an optimism based on action.

I'm not a Pollyanna sort of kumbaya type.

I’m grateful I had the strength to fight. It takes courage to believe the best is yet to come, especially when you are flat on your back and don’t know if you’re going to see tomorrow. I’m no Pollyanna, but I believe optimism is a choice — a muscle that gets stronger with use. Right foot, left foot…just keep moving.

I'm not Pollyanna. Nobody has a magic wand.

My family absolutely comes first, and I don't mean that in a Pollyanna way. It's the focus of my life because it's what makes me happy.

I'm like a little Pollyanna. I look at the world with rose-colored glasses.

Whenever someone calls me a Pollyanna, I consider it to be the highest of compliments. This courageous girl finds a community that has been torn apart with hate, fear, and pain and brings it love, courage and healing. Isn't that what our world today needs more than anything?

My relationship with "Pollyanna" is a very personal one, because Pollyanna got me through my childhood.

Balance in life is the key, as Aristotle taught us. Nobody likes a naive Pollyanna, but neither do we like to be around people who are constantly complaining and finding fault.

I'm not a Pollyanna; I'm a pragmatist.

If the prime directives were followed a little more accurately here on earth, I mean it sounds somewhat Pollyanna, but I think people would certainly get along better.

I suffer from a genetic flaw, which is that my mother was a hopeless Pollyanna.

I don't mean to sound like a Pollyanna, but for me, New York is the ideal because of the diversity here. 'Billy on the Street' is really informed by that.

If you think only of evil, then you become pessimistic and hopeless like Freud. But if you think there is no evil, then you're just one more deluded Pollyanna.

'Oh, yes,' nodded Pollyanna emphatically. 'He said he felt better right away, that first day he thought to count 'em. He said if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it - some.

There are really two kinds of optimism. There's the complacent, Pollyanna optimism that says "don't worry - everything will be just fine" and that allows one to just lay back and do nothing about the problems around you. Then there's what we call dynamic optimism. That's an optimism based on action.

Wonder is not a Pollyanna stance, not a denial of reality; wonder is an acknowledgement of the power of the mind to transform, to notice, to decide what experience shall mean.

I went to an extreme for literary purposes because I felt all the self-help books out there were so gooey and Pollyanna-ish and nauseating. It was making me angry.

That's the way I look at things - if you focus on the worst case scenario and it happens, you've lived it twice. It sounds like Pollyanna-ish tripe but I'm telling you - it works for me.

I prefer to see myself as the Janus, the two-faced god who is half Pollyanna and half Cassandra, warning of the future and perhaps living too much in the past - a combination of both.

Not to sound too Pollyanna-ish, but I think most people are decent, caring human beings. You don't necessarily see that reflected in fiction maybe, because possibly it's perceived as not having much dramatic potential.

Look, I hate to sound like Pollyanna, but I literally can't wait to get to work in the morning. I've got steady jobs, I've got my health, and I'm here in the greatest city in the world. I'd be a pig not to be grateful

Look, I hate to sound like Pollyanna, but I literally can't wait to get to work in the morning. I've got steady jobs, I've got my health, and I'm here in the greatest city in the world. I'd be a pig not to be grateful.

I am a bit of a Pollyanna - I spend most of my day happy.

I don't find any real rivalries with crime and thriller writers anyway. That might sound a little Pollyanna, but for the most part the writers I compete with, if you want to use that word, it's a pretty friendly rivalry. I think we all realise that the boat rises and sinks together.

I remember being about eight and watching 'Pollyanna' with Hayley Mills. I looked at my mum and said, 'Mum, I want to be Pollyanna.' She said, 'You're going to have to make yourself cry if you want to be an actress.' So I turned my head away, and when I turned it back I was in floods of tears.

I am not an idiot, and I'm not a Pollyanna sort of kumbaya type.