17 Quotes From Books To Warm You Up This Winter

Winter isn't just coming, winter is here. For some people, winter means giant sweaters, cuddling up to cocoa and a good book, making snowpeople and ice skating like the sisters in Little Women (minus the falling through the ice part). There's lots of seasonal fun to be had in the winter. And then there's also the bitter winder chill, the bulky coats, the chapped lips (and hands, and faces), the total lack of sun, the nights that seem to start in the middle of the afternoon, the inability to sit outside and enjoy an iced coffee — there are also plenty of drawbacks to the winter.

There's a reason that every winter holiday revolves around eating and lights and presents. Without all the jolly distractions, winter can get really gloomy really fast. Luckily, books exist! And that means that it's never so cold or dreary or mushy outside that you can't escape to Hogwarts, or Westeros, or Ankh-Morpork. Books are great for summer reading, but in the winter they become life-saving devices.

So if you're missing reading in the sun, here are some literary quotes that'll give you an extra burst of warmth on those cold winter days:

1. “Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.”

— L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

2. “In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.”

— Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank

3. “Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies ― God damn it, you've got to be kind.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

4. “I would always rather be happy than dignified.”

— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

5. “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

6. “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

7. "'Go on, have a pasty,' said Harry, who had never had anything to share before or, indeed, anyone to share it with. It was a nice feeling, sitting there with Ron, eating their way through all Harry's pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten)."

— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

8. “If it weren't for greed, intolerance, hate, passion and murder, you would have no works of art, no great buildings, no medical science, no Mozart, no Van Gough, no Muppets and no Louis Armstrong.”

― Jasper Fforde, The Big Over Easy

9. “Do your thing and don't care if they like it.”

― Tina Fey, Bossypants

10. “Travel light. She extended her arms to embrace her house, maybe the whole world.”

― Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

11. “There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it.”

― Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

12. “Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know.”

― Sarah Vowell, The Partly Cloudy Patriot

13. “I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”

― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Stories

14. “‘What day is it?’, asked Winnie the Pooh.‘It’s today,’ squeaked Piglet.‘My favorite day,’ said Pooh.”

— A. A. Milne, The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

15. “The sun was rising behind her now; she could feel the heat on her back, and it gave her courage.”

— William Goldman, The Princess Bride

16. “I wished she’d never stop squeezing me. I wished I could spend the rest of my life as a child, being slightly crushed by someone who loved me.”

— Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted

17. "People always think that happiness is a faraway thing," thought Francie, "something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains — a cup of strong hot coffee when you're blue… a book to read when you're alone — just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness."

— Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

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