Of Carrots & Freckles
the joy of being a redhead

"There is more, much more, to being a redhead than the color of one’s hair."
-G. Adam Stanislav

"A face without freckles is like a night without stars."

"If you want trouble... find yourself a redhead."

"You'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair," said Anne reproachfully. "People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble is."
-Anne to Marilla in Anne of Green Gables

"Blondes are noticed but redheads are never forgotten."
-Unknown

"Of course, part of the 'problem' with redheads is that there aren't enough of them. They make up just two percent of the population. So they're pretty extraordinary. Redheads are too numerous to be ignored, too rare to be accepted."
-Grant McCracken, from his book Big Hair

"It's not just a hair color, it's a state of mind."
-Realm of Redheads

"Please just call me red-headed and forgive me."
-Anne to Gilbert in Anne's House of Dreams

"Nobody who has known a redhead can say that redheads are tame. Even shy redheads have a burning spark of adventure inside them. Opinionated, hotheaded, logical, loyal, friendly, reserved, whatever the redheads' personality, you can bet they'll have SCADS of it!"
-Review of The Redhead Encyclopedia

"I do believe my redheadedness plays a huge part in who I am. If I were a blonde or brunette, I would be an entirely different person."

"We redheads are a minority, we tend to notice each other - you know, and notice our identity."
-Juliann Moore, actress

"Redheads are less than 1% of the world's population. Now that is a minority! And, I thought, one that should qualify me for school scholarships or something like that."
-Becky McAlpine

"All throughout history, from Reuben to Robbins, redheads have been recognized as a rare breed. Blondes may have more fun, brunettes may be brainier, but when it comes down to raw energy, creativity, and personality ... you just can't beat a redhead well, you can, but beware ... she'll probably beat you back!"
-Redheads Unlimited

"While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats."
-Mark Twain

"The highest percentage of natural redheads in the world is in Scotland (13%), followed closely by Ireland with 10%. In the US, about 2% of the population are natural redheads."
-Marcia's Facts About Redheads

"Redheads are dry and easily irritated. And that's just talking about their skin!"
-a dermatologist

"Yes, it's green," moaned Anne. "I thought nothing could be as bad as red hair. But now I know it's ten times worse to have green hair. Oh, Marilla, you little know how utterly wretched I am."
-Anne to Marilla in Anne of Green Gables

"It ought to be a criminal offence for women to dye their hair. Especially red. What the devil do women do that sort of thing for?"
-Bill in P.G. Wodehouse's Indiscretions of Archie

"I am strong. I am invincible. I am redhead."
-T-shirt

"When red headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn."
-Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

"Two women in the house and one of them a redhead."
-Michaleen Flynn in "The Quiet Man"

"My hair is pretty dark red... And of course, it catches fire in the sunlight. A great time to bring out a redhead's coloring is right before sunset, when rose-colored clouds and golden light begin to streak across the sky."

"Ruadh gu brath!"
Scots gaelic for "Red heads forever!"

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The Story Behind "Carrots"
From Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Gilbert Blythe wasn't used to putting himself out to make a girl look at him and meeting with failure. She should look at him, that red-haired Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes that weren't like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.

Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne's long red braid, held it out at arm's length and said in a piercing whisper:

"Carrots! Carrots!"

Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance!

She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry tears.

"You mean, hateful boy!" she exclaimed passionately. "How dare you!"

And then--thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert's head and cracked it--slate not head--clear across.

Later in the book:
"Anne," he [Gilbert] said hurriedly, "look here. Can't we be good friends? I'm awfully sorry I made fun of your hair that time. I didn't mean to vex you and I only meant it for a joke. Besides, it's so long ago. I think your hair is awfully pretty now--honest I do. Let's be friends."

From the movie:
Gil: "Look, I'm sorry I ever said anything about your hair. You have no idea how sorry. But it was so long ago. Aren't you ever going to forgive me?"
Anne: "You hurt my feelings excruciatingly."
Gil: "I only said it because I-- Because I wanted to meet you so much."

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From a Redhead's Perspective

...There is more, much more, to being a redhead than the color of one’s hair. After all, hair color changes naturally throughout one’s life. It can also be changed deliberately. But we were born redheads, we live as redheads, and someday we will die redheads. It cannot be taken away from us. Nor can it be obtained by simply dyeing one’s hair. In other words, redheads are born, not made.

...We are not redheads because our hair is red (and every redhead has naturally red hair at least sometime in his life). Rather, I am convinced, our hair is red because we are redheads.

Being a redhead comes from within. Redheadedness is a quality of the person, a state of mind. Red hair is simply an external, physical, manifestation, and a sure giveaway of this state of mind. Because of its beauty, red hair also is a special gift of nature given to redheads in appreciation for our special role in human society. We are only "different" because there are so few of us, anywhere between 2 - 5% of population.

-G. Adam Stanislav
at http://www.whizkidtech.redprince.net/redheads/

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Books About Redheads:
Anne of Green Gables Series by L.M. Montgomery
Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: "The Redheaded League" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Movies About Redheads:
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Avonlea
The Quiet Man
The Redhead from Wyoming

Links:
Read about Charlie Brown & his beloved little red-haired girl
The Art of Being a Redhead
Redhead Clothing
Realm of Redheads Store
Got Curl?

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P.G. Wodehouse on Red-haired Girls

"Red hair in Wodehouse usually spells Trouble (with, as you may have noted, a capital 'T')..."
-The P.G. Wodehouse Society

"I would always hesitate to recommend as a life's companion a young lady with quite such a vivid shade of red hair. Red hair, sir, in my opinion, is dangerous."
-Jeeves in Very Good, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

"He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl. She was a red-haired girl, with the beautiful ivory skin which goes with red hair.
...She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen...But there was a subtle something about her. A sort of, how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He swallowed convulsively. ...At last, he told himself, he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which made it all the more impressive. ...But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit. That, he felt, constituted an obstacle."
-from The Girl on the Boat by P.G. Wodehouse

Ann had red hair and the nature which generally goes with red hair. She was impulsive and quick of tongue, and--as he remembered her father had always been--a little too ready for combat. She was usually as quickly remorseful as she was quickly pugnacious, like most persons of her colour.
...Her eyes were flashing with an inspired light of a highly belligerent nature, and the sun turned the red hair to which she owed her deplorable want of balance to a mass of flame.
"It's your red hair!" said Mr. Pett at length, with the air of a man who has been solving a problem. "It's your red hair that makes you like this, Ann. Your father has red hair, too."
Ann laughed.
"It's not my fault that I have red hair, uncle Peter. It's my misfortune."
Mr. Pett shook his head.
"Other people's misfortune, too!" he said.
-P.G. Wodehouse, Picadilly Jim (Chapter 1: "A Red-haired Girl")

"Are you a polygamist?"
He could answer that. Decidedly no. One wife would be ample--provided she had red-gold hair, brown-gold eyes, the right kind of mouth, and a dimple. Whatever doubts there might be in his mind on other points, on that one he had none whatever.
-P.G. Wodehouse, Picadilly Jim (Chapter 6)

You have the most glorious hair I have ever seen!"
"Do you like red hair?"
"Red-gold."
"It is nice of you to put it like that. When I was a child all except a few of the other children called me Carrots."
"They have undoubtedly come to a bad end by this time. If bears were sent to attend to the children who criticised Elijah, your little friends were in line for a troupe of tigers. But there were some of a finer fibre? There were a few who didn't call you Carrots?"
"One or two. They called me Brick-Top."
"They have probably been electrocuted since. Your eyes are perfectly wonderful!"
-P.G. Wodehouse, Picadilly Jim (Chapter 7: "On the Boat Deck")

"Even now he was inclined to give his goddess of the red hair the benefit of the doubt."
-P.G. Wodehouse, Picadilly Jim (Chapter 18)

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Redheads and the Men Who Love Them

"It's not the hair that turns men on, it's the spirit that redheads exude."

"When a fellow has a home and a dear, little, red-haired wife in it what more need he ask of life?"
-Gilbert in Anne's House of Dreams

"Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but it takes a real man to handle a redhead."

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And eat men like air.
-Sylvia Plath

"I used to hate my red hair, but now I love the attention I get with it. I think that very smart, daring men love red hair, and I love that in a man."

"That... drew me particularly to the flamboyant qualities of redheads. Their hair and the exotic flourish of their skin in sunlight were even redder and more visible in that blue surround."
-Joel Meyerowitz 

"They are probably the worst people to date. They are demanding and obsessive and they can't make up their minds about anything, so they are very difficult to figure out. But I still love them."

"Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall in love with a gorgeous redhead!"
-Lucille Ball

"Redheads have been nicknamed demons by my associates and I because of what they can do to the human heart. Best thing that's hit the Earth, ever. Never had too much luck with them though. Advice is accepted...."

"The sun on a brunette's hair looks red. The sun on a redhead's hair looks like Heaven on Earth."

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Redhead Jokes

Redheads are just blondes with high blood pressure.

Q: Why do redheads really like their hair color?
A. It does the same thing for the men it does for the bulls.

Q: Why didn't Indians scalp redheads?
A. They knew better.

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Image Credits

• http://www.reelclassics.com/Movies/QuietMan/quietman-credits.htm
• http://greengables.tripod.com/
• http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Balcony/8175/anne/anne.html
• Photos related to the Anne of Green Gables films and all other Sullivan productions are owned, trademarked and copyrighted by Sullivan Entertainment Inc. and permission to use such photos on this web site has been granted by Sullivan Entertainment Inc.

Uncredited quotations from http://home.hiwaay.net/~keiper/redpage.htm (a "PG" rated site)