Quotes about Christmas

„The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.“

—  Howard Thurman American writer 1899 - 1981

"The Work of Christmas" in The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations (1985)
Context: When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

„That does it," said Jace. "I'm going to get you a dictionary for Christmas this year."
"Why?" Isabelle said.
"So you can look up 'fun.' I'm not sure you know what it means.“

—  Cassandra Clare, book City of Ashes

Jace and Isabelle, pg. 155
Variant: "That does it, I'm going to get you a dictionary for Christmas this year."
"Why?"
"So you can look up 'fun.' I'm not sure you know what it means."
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

„Peace on earth will come to stay, When we live Christmas every day.“

—  Helen Steiner Rice American poet 1900 - 1981

„Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.“

—  Norman Vincent Peale American writer 1898 - 1993

„Driving in my car
I'm driving home for Christmas
With a thousand memories
I take look at the driver next to me
He's just the same
Just the same“

—  Chris Rea English singer-songwriter 1951

"Driving Home for Christmas"
Song lyrics, New Light Through Old Windows (1988)

„Till I had you I didn't know that I was missing out. Had to grow up and see the world through different shades of doubt. Give me one more chance to dream again. One more chance to feel again through your young heart. If only for one day let me try. I wanna see Christmas through your eyes. I want everything to be the way it used to be. Back to being a child again, thinking the world was mine... I see the rain, you see the rainbow hiding in the clouds. Never afraid to let your love show. Won't you show me how. Wanna learn how to believe again. Find the innocence in me again, through your young heart. Help me find a way, help me try. I wanna see Christmas through your eyes. I want everything to be the way it used to be. Back to being a child again, thinking the world was kind. I wanna see Christmas, Christmas through your eyes.“

—  Gloria Estefan Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada 1957

Christmas Through Your Eyes
2007, 2008

„He made a lot of friends everywhere and was always in contact with them too. Weeks before Christmas he would have piles of cards and he always wrote to anyone that he knew, keeping them informed. Even his enemies I think.“

—  Bon Scott Rock musician 1946 - 1980

Angus Young, from Sounds, March 1980.
About

„What kind of food did we drop on Afghanistan? Pop-Tarts, peanut butter…just add a Honey Baked Ham and you've got a redneck Christmas. Why are we dropping this food on Afghanistan? Tastes a shit load better than dirt, #1. #2, difficult to have a call to jihad with a mouth full of peanut butter. Thirdly, Afghanistan is a hashish-smoking culture, and anyone who's ever been a friend of the hookah will go, (intense, stoned stare) "Pop-Tarts!"“

—  Robin Williams American actor and stand-up comedian 1951 - 2014

„There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.“

—  Erma Bombeck When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and coul… 1927 - 1996

„Grey dawn was seeping into the sick room [around Christmas 1867, Munch was almost dying then and spitting blood when he was 13; but he recovered]. I lay in the middle of the bed with my hands outside the bedclothes, looking straight ahead. Now I was in a pact with God. I had promised to serve him if I survived, if he allowed me to escape the tuberculosis. Now I could never be as before.“

—  Edvard Munch Norwegian painter and printmaker 1863 - 1944

T 2771, as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 26
after 1930

„But we're going to smile and pretend we're fine with the dorky birthmas gifts because people do not get that they can't mush a birthday into christmas.“

—  P. C. Cast, book Chosen

Source: Chosen

„Its berries are red as a maiden's lip,
Its leaves are of changeless green;
And any thing changeless now, I wis,
Is somewhat rare to be seen.
The holly, which fall and frost has borne,
The holly's the wreath for a Christmas morn.“

—  Letitia Elizabeth Landon English poet and novelist 1802 - 1838

(1st January 1831) Christmas Carol
The London Literary Gazette, 1831

„Well, I didn't ever think about Australia much. To me Australia had never been very interesting, it was just something that happened in the background. It was Neighbours and Crocodile Dundee movies and things that never really registered with me and I didn't pay any attention to it at all. I went out there in 1992, as I was invited to the Melbourne Writers Festival, and I got there and realised almost immediately that this was a really really interesting country and I knew absolutely nothing about it. As I say in the book, the thing that really struck me was that they had this prime minister who disappeared in 1967, Harold Holt and I had never heard about this. I should perhaps tell you because a lot of other people haven't either. In 1967 Harold Holt was prime minister and he was walking along a beach in Victoria just before Christmas and decided impulsively to go for a swim and dove into the water and swam about 100 feet out and vanished underneath the waves, presumably pulled under by the ferocious undertow or rips as they are called, that are a feature of so much of the Australian coastline. In any case, his body was never found. Two things about that amazed me. The first is that a country could just lose a prime minister — that struck me as a really quite special thing to do — and the second was that I had never heard of this. I could not recall ever having heard of this. I was sixteen years old in 1967. I should have known about it and I just realised that there were all these things about Australia that I had never heard about that were actually very very interesting. The more I looked into it, the more I realised that it is a fascinating place. The thing that really endeared Australia to me about Harold Holt's disappearance was not his tragic drowning, but when I learned that about a year after he disappeared the City of Melbourne, his home town, decided to commemorate him in some appropriate way and named a municipal swimming pool after him. I just thought: this is a great country.“

—  Bill Bryson American author 1951

The pool was under construction before he disappeared and is located in the electorate he represented.
Interview with Stanford's Newsletter (June 2001)

„Young, blond fags with powder-blue eyes and soft shoes skipped along arm-in-arm. Chinese girls with long hair and black stockings carried metal pots into Ernie’s Delicatessen for bean cake, barbequed duck, Chinese curds and steamed rice. Art students from the Art Institute, draftsmen from Heald’s College and law students from S. F. Law School walked by in carefree abandon, none of them in pain, all with beautiful girls in red slippers. They had leather, beads and books and pipes and scabs of hair on their interesting faces. Polk Street at night was always Christmas Eve for lonely men such as myself.“

—  Oscar Zeta Acosta, book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 51.

„Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more!“

—  Dr. Seuss, book How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Variant: "Maybe Christmas...", he thought, "... Doesn't come from a store."
"Maybe Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more!"
Source: How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957)

„The foundation upon which our nation stands is much richer and firmer than the sympathies that may occasionally divide us. And we never know this more truly than in Christmas time. In good times or in bad, under clear skies or under the shadow of uncertainty, the Christmas message is the imperishable one of joy, hope and brotherhood.“

—  Ferdinand Marcos former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986 1917 - 1989

Christmas message to overseas Filipinos (25 December 1979)
1965

„There are many reasons why the religion of Islam impoverishes western society, but the main one, in my opinion, is that it degrades and debases women, except, of course, for left-wing women, who happily degrade and debase themselves defending Islam, like turkeys defending Christmas. A woman in Islam needs to be covered from head to toe because men are not expected to exhibit any kind of basic self-control. I get a lot of correspondence from angry Muslim males and I've lost count of the number of times I've been told that western women are asking to be raped because of the way they dress. No other religion teaches people to think like this. Recently here in Britain, we've had a rash of Muslim gangs pimping and raping young girls in northern England. I do mean Muslim gangs, and not Asians, as the media keep reporting. There are no Sikhs or Hindus involved in this, and to call them Asians to avoid naming the real problem is a slander on Hindus and Sikhs. These men do it because they regard non-Muslim women as subhuman trash. And this poison is coming directly from their religion, a religion whose values are dictated and imposed by some of the most narrow-minded, psychotic human beings on this planet. And, coming as I do from an Irish Catholic background, believe me, that's saying something.“

—  Pat Condell Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality 1949

"Name the poison" (22 June 2011) http://youtube.com/watch?v=sEsWO4xep44
2011

„He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day
When the New York Times said God is dead
And the war's begun.“

—  Elton John English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist 1947

Levon
Song lyrics, Madman Across the Water (1971)

„And I'm tired of living here in this hotel,Snow and the rain falling through the sheets.In fact, I'm tired of 23rd Street.Strung out like some Christmas lightsOut there in the Chelsea night.“

—  Ryan Adams American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter 1974

Hotel Chelsea Nights
Love Is Hell pt. 2 (2003)