1. Anne Shirley

Anne of Green Gables

“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.”

2. Elizabeth Bennet

Pride & Prejudice

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”

3. Hester Prynne

The Scarlett Letter

“She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness... Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods... The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”

4. Jo March

Little Women

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

5. Scout Finch

To Kill a Mockingbird

"Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum."

6. Scarlett O’Hara

Gone with the Wind

"After all, tomorrow is another day!”

7. Éponine

Les Misérables

"And then, do you know, Monsieur Marius, I believe I was a little in love with you."

8. Harriet M. Welsch

Harriet The Spy

"I want to learn everything I can, and I write down everything I see. Golly says if I want to be a writer someday, I better start now, and that is why I am a spy."

9. Matilda

Matilda

“So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.”

10. Cinderella

Cinderella

"Where there is kindness, there is goodness, and where there is goodness, there is magic."