Skipping Christmas Quotes

A sharp bolt of hunger hit Luther hard. His knees almost buckled, his poker face almost grimaced. For two weeks now his sense of smell had been much keener, no doubt a side effect of a strict diet. Maybe he got a whiff of Mabel's finest, he wasn't sure, but a craving came over him. Suddenly, he had to have something to eat. Suddenly, he wanted to snatch the bag from Kendall, rip open a package, and start gnawing on a fruitcake. ~ John Grisham

Small towns are best for spending Christmas, I think. They catch the mood quicker and change and come alive under its spell. ~ Truman Capote

Christmas was a response of the choice of mankind to take its existence into its own hands and chart its own course, liberally scripting its own ethics, crafting its own moral system, and choosing to believe that it was the creator and therefore master of its fate. Christmas is a response to mankind reeling off the pages of history and splattering the blood of lives and generations wasted along its free-wheeling course. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Because Christmas did something to the world at large and to individuals in particular. It crystallized all your hopes and fears. It made you yearn and wish and dream. And no matter how hard you tried - it made you realize all the things you were missing in life. ~ Sharon Kendrick

I grew up with the classics. My mom and I would sit and watch 'Singin' in the Rain' and 'White Christmas' - those kind of movies. ~ Lucas Grabeel

I was that kind of tired you feel when you've spent a day in a hospital while a loved one undergoes surgery and comes through all right, the loved one, of course, being myself, and Christmas being the surgical procedure. ~ Vicki Covington

Good grief, he'd fallen into his death sleep with a hard-on. Was it possible for a stiff to be that stiff? ~ Kerrelyn Sparks

Hot damn! Hunter was finally paying off with the hot guy friends. I knew this day would come, it was inevitable, but I was still overwhelmed with gratitude - Ev would be getting an extra nice Christmas present this year. ~ Genna Rulon

But that is just half the story.
The Gospel of Thomas has what I take to be the full text.

The Kingdom of God is within you
and all around you.


Split a piece of wood. I am there.
Lift up a stone, and you will find me there.

The holiest thing then, the Kingdom, is inside,
the observing consciousness, the deep core of being,
and outside, the Brown Thrasher, the little girl skipping
over the squares of the sidewalk, the universe itself
that, so far as we know is unlimited.

It would be best here to start singing and dancing
for the spacious joy of inside and outside. ~ Coleman Barks

One of the key pleasures of receiving a letter is the act of holding and entering the envelope - a sort of cross between Christmas and sex. ~ Nick Bantock

Through the month of December, the radio was slowly strangled by Christmas Carols ~ Michael Crummey

Jeremy supposed that a Christmas party full of elementary school professionals might be the worst place in the world. He would drift among them helplessly, like a grizzly bear in a roomful of children, expected not to eat anyone. ~ Nathan Ballingrud

Trust him, I said. Trust Superman, Spider-man, E.T., the Ghost of Christmas Present . . . whoever the hell. ~ Janet Evanovich

We don't wish the day away. We embrace every second. Every new sunrise brings the possibility of possibilities. ~ Mandy Baggot

As he carefully made his way back to the stairs and awkwardly turned off the light, he did not notice that the dark shadow he had assumed was his reflection remained in the mirror. He didn't see the hands press against the surface and make large, liquid-like bulges beneath the glass. Nor did he hear the whispers that so suddenly and violently filled the dark, cluttered space as he had closed and locked the heavy attic door. ~ "The Mirror ~ Cassie McCown

His hand was a claw, sharp enough to open her. She would be like all the others - Ruta Badowski, in her broken dancing shoes. Tommy Duffy, still with the dirt of his last baseball game under his nails. Gabriel Johnson, taken on the best day of his life. Or even Mary White, holding out for a future that never arrived. She'd be like all those beautiful, shining boys marching off to war, rifles at their hips and promises on their lips to their best girls that they'd be home in time for Christmas, the excitement of the game showing in their bright faces. They'd come home men, heroes with adventures to tell about, how they'd walloped the enemy and put the world right side up again, funneled it into neat lines of yes and no. Black and white. Right and wrong. Here and there. Us and them. Instead, they had died tangled in barbed wire in Flanders, hollowed by influenza along the Western Front, blown apart in no-man's-land, writhing in trenches with those smiles still in place, courtesy of the phosgene, chlorine, or mustard gas. Some had come home shell-shocked and blinking, hands shaking, mumbling to themselves, following orders in some private war still taking place in their minds. Or, like James, they'd simply vanished, relegated to history books no one bothered to read, medals put in cupboards kept closed. Just a bunch of chess pieces moved about by unseen hands in a universe bored with itself. ~ Libba Bray

I get a little behind during Lent, but it comes out even at Christmas. ~ Frank Butler

Tonight the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come marched in goose-step and raised a hand to salute "Heil Hitler!" Tonight the ghost wore a swastika on his armband instead of the simple red and white colors of Austria. And yet, on this silent night, the horrible specter seemed all but invisible in Vienna. Murphy could only wonder if he was the sole person at Sacher's who could hear the anthem of Hitler's hordes echoing distantly from beyond the mountains. ~ Bodie Thoene

You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are! ~ Charles Dickens

Pre-Christmas is very important, and it is stressful, and, you know, even in the biblical story ... travelling on the donkey in a stressful environment. ~ Michael Leunig

I can understand people simply fleeing the mountainous effort Christmas has become ... but there are always a few saving graces and finally they make up for all the bother and distress. ~ May Sarton

I need to stop thinking about peeing. I should focus on dry things.
Like California's drought, month old Christmas trees, British wit. And my vagina while listening to the world's most boring date mansplain to me about his fantasy football club. ~ Daisy Prescott

I do like Christmas. I do understand that there are people who hate it, and there are other religions that resent it. So, I speak to everybody - I try to speak to every kind of minority and majority that cannot escape the steamroller known as Christmas. ~ John Waters

I've noticed that the more flooding there is, the more bullshit gets talked. I mean it was very noticeable in the Asian tsumai. It happened around Christmas-New Year. The Muslims of Sri Lanka said 'We knew this would happen because the Christians were using alcohol for their Christmas celebrations.' The Buddhists said 'We knew this would happen because of the horrible Muslim slaughter practices.' It's amazing to see how apocalypse or catastrophe makes people behave primitively. ~ Christopher Hitchens

I turn around from the window and for the first time I see him ... It is Richard, smiling at my surprise.
I run to him, without thinking what I am doing. I run to the first friendly face that I have seen since Christmas, and in a moment I am in his arms and he is holding me tightly and kissing my face, my closed eyes, my smiling mouth, kissing me till I am breathless and have to pull away from him. ~ Philippa Gregory

You might be a redneck if you go Christmas shopping for your mom, sister, and girlfriend, and you only need to buy one gift. ~ Jeff Foxworthy

Will I live yearning for a world that I need not yearn for because the message of Christmas is entirely undaunted in its ability to handily penetrate and completely subjugate the very world that I doubt its ability to survive in? ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Given the amount of unjust suffering and unhappiness in the world, I am deeply grateful for, sometimes even perplexed by, how much misery I have been spared. ~ Dennis Prager

Hammer: Where are u? The chicks at the Gas Station are so hot tonight. It's like winter doesn't exist for them. God bless band-aid dresses.

Me: Bandage.

Hammer: Same thing. Where are u?! Do you think the Christmas break makes these Western girls hotter? I don't remember them being so fine last semester.

Me: How much have u had to drink? It's only 8.

Hammer: Where are u? ~ Jen Frederick

My Barbies were usually naked. Once, I took their heads off, cut their hair, drew on their short, spiky hair with some markers, then stuck the heads on Christmas lights. Every year, we'd string our tree with those Barbie heads. It looked demonic. My parents were so cool - they saw it as a form of self-expression. ~ Jessica Biel

By god the Buddhist means that from which the universe was born, the unborn of the Buddhist scriptures, and by soul that factor in the thing called man which moves towards enlightenment. Why need more be said of it, at any rate those who are not content with scholarship, but strive to attain that same enlightenment? ~ Christmas Humphreys

Later in the winter I'd tire of the snow, but Christmas snow was different. ~ Marie Landry

It was one thing to pray for a Christmas miracle, to believe in one. It was something else entirely to see it happen before their eyes. ~ Karen Kingsbury

At six years old we didn't have any money;
there was my mother, my brother and I.
We had a deadbeat dad; left us before we were
two, but she took us at Christmas-time to
downtown Los Angeles.
We had little cars going around in circles,
it was pretty cool, and decorations in the
window.
She gave my brother and I a dime and told
us, "Boys whole half of it each, give it to
the man ringing the bell in the bucket."
We put it in this bucket, we said, "Mom, why
did we give that man a dime?
That's like two soda pops."
This is 1951, two soda pops, three candy bars.
And mom said, "Boys, that's the Salvation
Army.
They take care of people that have no place
to live and no food.
And we don't have a lot of money, but we can
afford a dime this year.
Boys, always remember in life: give a little
something to those in need, they'll always
be somebody that's not as well-off as you
are.

No matter where you are or how far down you
are, try and help someone along the way."
It stuck with me. ~ John Paul DeJoria

Halloween is the best holiday in the world. It even beats Christmas. ~ R.J. Palacio

I know a lot of actors picture themselves winning Academy Awards. I really just wanted to do a Christmas movie because it's the kind of movie that I really love to watch. I'm a sucker for the holidays. ~ Leigh-Allyn Baker

There's never really been a real hood Christmas movie. ~ Ice Cube

I'm a disorganized mess. My purse is gross: I once found a shoulder pad, string cheese, and a Christmas ornament in it! ~ Hoda Kotb

Religious symbols should be visible in public space, in a dignified and non-provocative manner. Christmas trees here, Jewish menorahs there and, further along, a minaret - these symbols represent human life in all its diversity. ~ Tariq Ramadan

I know you probably feel like there's no color left in the world. Like there's no light, instead all darkness. But there's sunshine. There are colorful flowers all around us. And for me, you're the only thing ... the only one I see. The only one I've seen in a long time. I know it's hard to imagine, but one day you'll see the colors again. ~ J.B. McGee

Hamish's family were unusual in that they had always celebrated Christmas - tree, turkey, presents and all. In parts of the Highlands, like Lochdubh, the old spirit of John Knox still wandered, blasting anyone with hellfire should they dare to celebrate this heathen festival. Hamish had often pointed out that none other than Luther was credited with the idea of the Christmas tree, having been struck by the sight of stars shining through the branches of an evergreen. But to no avail. Lochdubh lay silent and dark beside the black waters of the loch. ~ M.C. Beaton

And flowering all the year round, especially at Christmas - make your picture complete,' said he. 'No, ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Just before you went into the ICU, I started to feel this ache in my hip." "No," I said. Panic rolled in, pulled me under. He nodded. "So I went in for a PET scan." He stopped. He yanked the cigarette out of his mouth and clenched his teeth. Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but A Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile. He flashed his crooked smile, then said, "I lit up like a Christmas tree, Hazel Grace. The lining of my chest, my left hip, my liver, everywhere. ~ John Green

Christmas is God being relentless to the point that He would die in that relentlessness. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I don't need to paint a picture of what I want my life to look like. What I need to do is to study the picture that God painted of me so that I can better understand how to live out the splendor of the painting. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

During this Christmas season, when the world seems to be in turmoil, wars are breaking out in different places, crime is rampant, and many things are happening that are great sins in the sight of God. But in that crib is the person who grew up to save us. And He did. ~ Billy Graham