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

„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)

„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.

„They are cynical about human rights. They don’t like immigrants or the European Union. They want the state to be strong and “defence”, generally, to mean attack. They are, basically, the racist grandad who is going to spoil your Christmas. These are the people pollsters have labelled “authoritarian populists.”“

—  Paul Mason (journalist) British journalist 1960

How do we fight the loudmouth politics of authoritarian populism? (21 November 2016)

„Went for a walk, whistling. Saw a throne in a window. I said: What chair is this? Is it the one great Ferdinand sat in, when he sent the ships to find the Indies? The seat is frayed. Hardly a day passes without an announcement of some kind of marriage, a pregnancy, a cancer, a rebirth. Sometimes they drift in from the Yukon and other far places, come in and sit down at the kitchen table, want a glass of milk and a peanut-butter-and-jelly, I oblige, for old times’ sake. Sent me the schedule for the Little League soccer teams, they’re all named after cars, the Mustangs vs. the Mavericks, the Chargers vs. the Impalas. Something funny about that. My son. Slept with What’s-Her-Name, they said, while she was asleep, I don’t think that’s fair. Prone and helpless in the glare of the headlights. They went away, then they came back, at Christmas and Eastertide, had quite a full table, maybe a dozen in all including all the little…partners they’d picked up on their travels….“

—  Donald Barthelme, book Sixty Stories

“Aria”.
Sixty Stories (1981)

„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)

„There was one in the gang who had Scalextric, and because of that he thought he was better than you.
All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit, Back Again In The D. H. S. S.“

—  Nigel Blackwell

1987
Lyrics

„What is patriotism but love of the good things we ate in our childhood? I have said elsewhere that the loyalty to Uncle Sam is the loyalty to doughnuts and ham and sweet potatoes and the loyalty to the German Vaterland is the loyalty to Pfannkuchen and Christmas Stollen. As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini… in food, as in death, we feel the essential brotherhood of mankind.“

—  Lin Yutang, book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. IV : On Having A Stomach, p. 46

„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)