It’s the heart of winter here and January has its got its gnarled fingers well and truly into our souls. Some days its cold and wet, others it’s mild and windy, others icy and sunny, and a few snowy and beautiful. At this time of year, many of us want to hibernate and hardly venture out, or fly off for a dash of winter sun. Here are my favourite seasonal quotes, many by well-known writers, to lift your spirits and brighten your day.

Top 20 Winter Quotes

1.  Of all the seasons, winter is the most conducive to the great art of dormancy. This art requires an appreciation of semi-consciousness: the beautiful and necessary prelude to sleep – a special pleasure in itself that is all too often neglected, under-valued or looked down upon. Michael Leung

2.  Winter is a season of recovery and preparation. Paul Theroux

3.  I love the scents of winter! For me, it’s all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce. Taylor Swift

4.  In winter, the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity. John Burrows

5.  The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? J.B. Priestley

6.  Few sights are more charming than that of a town covered in new-fallen, clean white snow; and how pretty it is to watch the tiny flakes drift downwards through the air as it there were a wedding in the sky and the fairies were throwing confetti. The Mysterious Toyshop – Cyril W Beaumont

7. It is winter in Narnia and has been for ever so long and we shall both catch cold if we stand here talking in the snow. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis

8.  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

9. 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 – Confessions of an English Opium Eater

10. When the snow is still blowing against the window-pane in January and February and the wild winds are howling without, what pleasure it is to plan for summer that is to be. Celia Thaxter

11. Where the sun shone, everything glittered and sparkled as if diamond dust had been strewn about; and the snowy carpet of the earth seemed covered with diamonds from which gleamed countless lights, whiter even than the snow itself.  The Snowman – Hans Christian Andersen

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

13. It’s called skiing. It makes you rush ahead fast, like lightning, in a cloud of whirling snow, and you’ve got to look sharp, or else. Mominland Midwinter – Tove Jansen

14.  The snow had a fine crust upon it and the old trees sparkles like tinsel … The sky cleared and broad streams of stars ran down over the valley and away to Wales. Everything was quiet; everywhere there was the faint crackling silence of the winter night. Cider with Rosie – Laurie Lee

15. The rapid nightfall of mid-December had quite beset the little village as they approached on soft feet over the first thin fall of powdery snow. Little was visible but squares of a dusky orange-red on either side of the street, where the firelight or lamplight of each cottage overflowed the casements into the dark world without.  The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Graham

16. Silently, like thoughts that come and go, the snowflakes fall, each one a gem. William Hamilton Gibson

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

18. And though in your winter you deny your spring, yet spring reposing within you, smiles in her drowsiness and is not offended. The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran 

19. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.  Albert Camus

20. No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.  Hal Borland

All photos from Pixabay.com – free for commercial use. No attribution required

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