A walk in the snow in Berlin, winter

As an Australian, it’s taken me a while to come to terms with this season. I mean, a European winter really is markedly different to what Australians call the same season. But I have a little confession: winter actually isn’t so bad. In fact, I’m kinda liking it. Did I really just say that? It snowed last night and I awoke with excitement and an impatience to get out and about in it. Maybe I’m turning European…

Here are 10 quotes to inspire a love of winter in us all:

A walk in the snow in Berlin, winter

The first fall of snow is not only an event, but it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment, then where is it to be found? — J. B. Priestley, ‘Apes and Angels’

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” — Lewis Carroll, ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass’

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home. — Edith Sitwell

First we’ll make snow angels for two hours, then we’ll go ice skating, then we’ll eat a whole roll of Toll-House cookie dough as fast as we can, and then we’ll snuggle. — Buddy the Elf

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness? — John Steinbeck, ‘Travels with Charley: In Search of America’

If winter comes, can spring be far behind? — Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Ode to the West Wind’

Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o’clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without. — Thomas de Quincey, ‘Confessions of an English Opium Eater’

Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people’s legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world. — Sarah Addison, ‘The Sugar Queen’

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show. — Andrew Wyeth

In winter, I plot and plan. In spring, I move. — Henry Rollins

What do you like best about winter? Share in the comments below!