These dreamy winter quotes capture the frost-laced beauty of the season
The best winter quotes
1. “Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for talk beside the fire; it is the time for home.” —Edith Sitwell
2. “Nature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved and distinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The day is but a Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer.” —Henry David Thoreau
3. “There must be some nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning.” —Henry David Thoreau
4. “In those days, Christmas still retained a certain aura of magic and mystery. The powdery light of winter, the hopeful expressions of people who lived among shadows and silence, lent that setting a slight air of promise in which at least children and those who had learned the art of forgetting could still believe.” —Carlos Ruiz Zafón
5. “When she sees the leaves fall, they raise no other idea in her mind than that winter is approaching.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
6. “Winter is the time for study, you know, and the colder it is, the more studious we are.” —Henry David Thoreau
7. “I am a book of snow, a spacious hand, an open meadow, a circle that waits, I belong to the earth and its winter.” —Pablo Neruda
8. “Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly.” —William Shakespeare
9. “It’s the first day of spring. Only 274 days left till winter.” —Verne, Over the Hedge
10. “Can you not see that I have bigger problems? Winter is almost here, and I have an entire village to feed!” —Stoick, How to Train Your Dragon
11. “You kind of set off an eternal winter everywhere.” —Anna, Frozen
12. “All us flowers sleep in the winter.” —Flower the Skunk, Bambi
13. “I’ll whistle up a winter.” —Jack Frost, Jack Frost (1979)
14. “Snow day! Anything can happen.” —Natalie Brandston, Snow Day
15. “I never knew winter could be so beautiful.” —Anna, Frozen
16. “Oh, Vermont should be beautiful this time of year, with all of that snow!” —Judy Haynes, White Christmas
17. “You see, before he came down here, it never snowed. And afterwards, it did. If he weren’t up there now … I don’t think it would be snowing. Sometimes you can still catch me dancing in it.” —Kim, Edward Scissorhands
18. “I could feel the winter shaking my bones and banging my teeth together.” —Sylvia Plath
19. “Rain-diamonds, this winter morning, embellish the tangle of unpruned pear-tree twigs; each solitaire, placed, it appears, with considered judgment, bears the light beneath the rifted clouds—the indivisible shared out in endless abundance.” —Denise Levertov
20. “Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder—no matter how old you became and how much you’d seen, things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered.” —Candace Bushnell, Lipstick Jungle
21. “Kindness is like snow—it beautifies everything it covers.” —Kahlil Gibran
22. “How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!” —Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Cozy winter quotes
23. “The simplicity of winter has a deep moral.” —John Burroughs
24. “O, Winter! Put away thy snowy pride …” —Thomas Chatterton
25. “How bittersweet it is, on winter‘s night, / To listen, by the sputtering, smoking fire, / As distant memories, through the fog-dimmed light, / Rise, to the muffled chime of churchbell choir.” —Charles Baudelaire
26. “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” —Albert Camus
27. “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.” —Anne Bradstreet
28. “The neck on which diamonds might have worthily sparkled will look less tempting when the biting winter has hung icicles there for gems.” —Samuel Lover
29. “The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” —Percy Bysshe Shelley
30. “In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts …” —Henry David Thoreau
31. “Winter’s a good time to stay in and cuddle, but put me in summer and I’ll be a … happy snowman!” —Olaf, Frozen
32. “If you ask me, the miracle isn’t how each snowflake is perfectly formed. The real winter miracle is what can happen afterward. It’s called a snow day.” —Hal Brandston, Snow Day
33. “Everything’s magical when it snows.” —Lorelai Gilmore, Gilmore Girls
34. “What good is the warm of summer without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” —John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
35. “It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.” —John Burroughs
36. “In the winter, the snow had become glittery fairy dust that had given all the creatures of the meadow warm clothes and a fire to help them endure the winter.” —Carla Reighard, Elle’s Magical Shoes
37. “There is a wilder solitude in winter, / When every sense is pricked alive and keen.” —May Sarton
38. “Late at night, listening to the winter rain / Recalling my youth— / Was it only a dream? Was I really young once?” —Ryōkan
39. “Even in winter, the cold isn’t always bitter, and not every day is cruel.” —Jim Butcher, Changes: A Novel of the Dresden Files
40. “But Winter has yet brighter scenes—he boasts / Splendors beyond what gorgeous Summer knows …” —William Cullen Bryant, “A Winter Piece”
41. “I suppose it all started with the snow. You see, it was a very special kind of snow. A snow that made the happy happier, and the giddy even giddier. A snow that’d make a homecoming homier, and natural enemies, friends, naturally.” —Narrator, Frosty the Snowman
42. “First, we’ll make snow angels for two hours, then we’ll go ice skating, and then we’ll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse Cookie Dough as fast as we can, and then we’ll snuggle.” —Buddy, Elf
Funny winter quotes
43. “You mean winter, as in igloos and Eskimos and penguins and ice?” —Sanka Coffie, Cool Runnings
44. “Let’s just fly south for the winter.” —Grandpa Joe, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
45. “There is no way that this winter is ever going to end as long as this groundhog keeps seeing his shadow. I don’t see any other way out. He’s gotta be stopped. And I have to stop him.” —Phil Connors, Groundhog Day
46. “First, I set the alarm clock for like spring. Then I jump into the sack, Jack … and snooze away the winter.” —Yogi Bear, Yogi Bear
47. “Nothing burns like the cold.” —George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book One
48. “You know when you’re making a snow angel and—you wanna make it perfect but you can’t—because there’s always that handprint you make when you climb out? But, with Hal, there’s no handprint.” —Lane Leonard, Snow Day
49. “I wish it were winter so we could freeze it into ice blocks and skate on it and melt it in the springtime and drink it!” —Barry Badrinath, Beerfest
50. “This is pure snow! It’s everywhere! Do you have any idea what the street value of this mountain is?” —
51. “For your information, sir, I intend on stayin’ awake all winter.” —Yogi Bear, Yogi Bear
52. “Snow, it had to be snow. She couldn’t have had tropical magic that covered the fjords in white sand and warm.” —Anna, Frozen
53. “If the snow’s white, then it’s all right. Yellow or green, it’s just not clean. I learned that one the hard way.” —Koda, Brother Bear
54. “Ah, Christmas. Time for Santa Claus and his eight prancing rein-bear.” —Fozzie Bear, A Muppet Family Christmas
55. “Abominable. Can you believe that? Do I look abominable to you? Why can’t they call me the Adorable Snowman or the Agreeable Snowman, for crying out loud? I’m a nice guy.” —Yeti, Monsters, Inc.
56. “I like to mash snow. It gives me a tremendous feeling of self-satisfaction.” —Marty, Beautiful Girls
57. “Did I ever tell you about the time I invented snowboarding? I don’t want credit for it, but they keep on giving it to me.” —Stumpy, Out Cold
58. “Sit on a park wall / Ask all the right questions / ‘Why are the horses racing taxis in the winter?'” —Ezra Koenig
59. “People were talking about the urban moose problem. It had been a very snow-intensive winter, even for Alaska, and there were moose wandering all over Anchorage. This can create problems, because moose, in addition to being humongous, are the disgruntled postal workers of the animal kingdom.” —Dave Barry
60. “Winter is not a season in the North Middlewest; it is an industry.” —Sinclair Lewis
As winter approaches, it’s time for cozy nights and festive cheer. Spread the magic of the season with winter quotes and holiday quotes too.
Additional reporting by Kelly Kuehn.
Why trust us
At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite quotes for over 100 years. The sayings and quips that appear in the magazine’s “Quotable Quotes” (formerly “Remarkable Remarks”) are curated from interviews and essays originally published in the magazine, reprints from trusted titles and other verified sources. For this piece on winter quotes, Associate Editor Mariah Thomas tapped her experience as a lifestyle writer and editor to ensure that all information is accurate. We’ve gone the extra step and had Marcy Lovitch, a fact-checker with 20-plus years of experience researching for national publications including Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Glamour, Seventeen, Real Simple, Forbes and InStyle magazines, verify that all quotes are attributed correctly and have credible sourcing. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
