Winter – A Moment of Reflection on the Season

“Winter is a subtle nudge to remind us to reflect on our lives. Though we are surrounded by the chill in the air, it is also an exercise in cleansing. With each snowfall, we are given a clean slate with the innocence and beauty the white power brings.” – Mark A. Leon

“In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” – Albert Camus

“Now is the winter of our discontent.” – William Shakespeare

“Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.” – Victor Hugo

winter1

“From the bitter cold winter at Valley Forge, to the mountains of Afghanistan and the deserts of Iraq, our soldiers have courageously answered when called, gone where ordered, and defended our nation with honor.” – Solomon Ortiz

“As winter strips the leaves from around us, so that we may see the distant regions they formerly concealed, so old age takes away our enjoyments only to enlarge the prospect of the coming eternity.” – Jean Paul

“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” – Edith Sitwell

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” – Lewis Carroll

winter2

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” – John Steinbeck

“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.” – Yoko Ono

“Melancholy were the sounds on a winter’s night.” – Virginia Woolf

“Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too? When it is misty, in the evenings, and I am out walking by myself, it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart and causing it to crumble into ruins” – Gustave Flaubert

“My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt
away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.” – George R.R. Martin

winter3

“A song she heard
Of cold that gathers
Like winter’s tongue
Among the shadows
It rose like blackness
In the sky
That on volcano’s
Vomit rise
A Stone of ruin
From burn to chill
Like black moonrise
Her voice fell still…” – Robert Fanney

“Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o’clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.” – Thomas de Quincey

winter5

“Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people’s legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world.” – Sarah Addison Allen

“Winter then in its early and clear stages, was a purifying engine that ran unhindered over city and country, alerting the stars to sparkle violently and shower their silver light into the arms of bare upreaching trees. It was a mad and beautiful thing that scoured raw the souls of animals and man, driving them before it until they loved to run. And what it did to Northern forests can hardly be described, considering that it iced the branches of the sycamores on Chrystie Street and swept them back and forth until they rang like ranks of bells.” – Mark Helprin

“October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces.” – J.K. Rowling

“Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. It’s late afternoon – the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you.” – Jean Webster

“When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night,the dark is blue and bluer still, as sapphire of night.” – Alice Hoffman

winter6

“The season was waning fast
Our nights were growing cold at last
I took her to bed with silk and song,
‘Lay still, my love, I won’t be long;
I must prepare my body for passion.’
‘O, your body you give, but all else you ration.’
‘It is because of these dreams of a sylvan scene:
A bleeding nymph to leave me serene…
I have dreams of a trembling wench.’
‘You have dreams,’ she said, ‘that cannot be quenched.’
‘Our passion,’ said I, ‘should never be feared;
As our longing for love can never be cured.
Our want is our way and our way is our will,
We have the love, my love, that no one can kill.’
‘If night is your love, then in dreams you’ll fulfill…
This love, our love, that no one can kill.’
Yet want is my way, and my way is my will,
Thus I killed my love with a sleeping pill.” – Roman Payne

“Every Autumn now my thoughts return to snow. Snow is something I identify myself with. Like my father, I am a snow person.” – Charlie English

“Fall colors are funny. They’re so bright and intense and beautiful. It’s like nature is trying to fill you up with color, to saturate you so you can stockpile it before winter turns everything muted and dreary.” – Siobhan Vivian

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