Glee fans adored Cory Monteith for his charming performance as the handsome, guileless Finn Hudson, but they also loved the actor's down-to-earth, refreshingly self-effacing attitude. The 31-year-old actor died in his beloved homeland of British Columbia on Saturday, and while the shock and devastation of his passing doesn't quite feel real yet, the memory of his cool, honest approach to stardom is on the minds of mourning Gleeks everywhere. Today, we're revisiting ten of the late actor's sincerest and funniest quotes, some culled from interviews, others taken from his Twitter feed.

1. On fame:

"I think there's a part of fame that, when it happens, is unusual for the human experience. It happened so late in my life, I really started to prepare myself for the absence of that fame. This is all fleeting, and this is rarefied air. It's all going to change. I guess I've been kind of thinking about that a lot."

2. On his loyalty to Canada:

"There are so many things that I think you can lose [when you move away] that are important about being Canadian. You don't want to lose that when you move somewhere else. And it's so easy. A lot of people lose themselves when they move to Hollywood. I make a point to come back here to stay in touch with my family and my friends. It's really, really important to me."

3. On Prop 8:

Prop 8 has been ruled unconstitutional! In other news, the Pacific Ocean was discovered to be wet.

— Cory Monteith (@CoryMonteith) February 7, 2012

4. On his evolution as a dancer on Glee:

"Evolved? As a dancer? Me? I don’t fall down as much, unless it’s part of the scripted dance. I don’t step on other people’s toes anymore. I think if I started the show a one out of ten dancer, now I am a two and a half."

5. On understanding Finn:

“When I first saw the script I thought [Finn] was an idiot. That’s not a good place to start as an actor. You don’t want to judge your character like that. I think his progression has been going from this dumb — well, he’s not dumb. He’s innocent. He truly comes from a place of childlike innocence where he doesn’t know that the moon and New York City are more than 100 miles apart, for example. He really doesn’t know. And he always speaks before he thinks. That’s a pretty common trait of Finn’s.”

6. On Instagram:

Instagram: making bad photos look halfway decent since 2010 http://t.co/MuHnwGHv — Cory Monteith (@CoryMonteith) July 25, 2012

7. On Glee, before its premiere:

"It's as if High School Musical had been punched in the stomach and had its lunch money stolen".

8. On Twitter:

we tweet because we can't sleep anymore

— Cory Monteith (@CoryMonteith) May 19, 2012

9. On his "rebellious" learning streak as a kid

"My mom had a set of the World Book encyclopedias growing up. 'C' had its own volume! There's so much information under 'C.' I'd go to the shelf and get one of these books after she sent me to bed -- 'Go to bed!'; 'OK, I'm going to bed!' -- I would get the flashlight, get the World Book, sneak back to my room, and read it under the covers... I can tell you all about waste water treatment plants."

10. On what he'd like to hear God say at the pearly gates (from Inside the Actors Studio)

“‘Sorry I haven’t been around — there’s a good explanation.’”