Christmas Quotes From Famous Writers

writing cards with Christmas tree in background

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The Christmas Holidays are all about traditions. Families and friends sing Christmas carols, and kids listen to stories about Santa and Rudolph. Whether you are looking for words to express in Christmas cards or letters, in social media or just for fun, here you can find famous quotations by famous writers.

Margaret Cousins

"Christmas, in its final essence, is for grown people who have forgotten what children know. Christmas is for whoever is old enough to have denied the unquenchable spirit of man."

Dale Evans

"Christmas, my child, is love in action." 

Joan Winmill Brown

"Christmas! The very word brings joy to our hearts. No matter how we may dread the rush, the long Christmas lists for gifts and cards to be bought and given — when Christmas Day comes there is still the same warm feeling we had as children, the same warmth that enfolds our hearts and our homes." 

Bess Streeter Aldrich

"Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart...filled it, too, with melody that would last forever." 

Oren Arnold

"Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect."

Lenore Hershey

"Do give books — religious or otherwise — for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal." 

Peg Bracken

"Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas." 

Ray Stannard Baker

"I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays — let them overtake me unexpectedly — waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself: 'Why this is Christmas Day!'"

Charles Dickens

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."

W.T Ellis

"It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air."

Isabel Currier

"It is the personal thoughtfulness, the warm human awareness, the reaching out of the self to one's fellow man that makes giving worthy of the Christmas spirit."

Charlton Heston

"My first copies of 'Treasure Island' and 'Huckleberry Finn' still have some blue-spruce needles scattered in the pages. They smell of Christmas still."

Charlotte Carpenter

"Remember, if Christmas isn't found in your heart, you won't find it under a tree."

Hugh Downs

"Something about an old-fashioned Christmas is hard to forget."

Phillips Brooks

"The earth has grown old with its burden of care But at Christmas it always is young, The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair And its soul full of music breaks the air, When the song of angels is sung." 

Charles N. Barnard

"The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect!" 

Erma Bombeck

"There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child." 

Mrs. Paul M. Ell

"They err who think Santa Claus comes down through the chimney; he really enters through the heart." 

Taylor Caldwell

"This is the message of Christmas: We are never alone."

Calvin Coolidge

"To the American People: Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world."

Bing Crosby

"Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it 'white'." 

Marjorie Holmes

"At Christmas, all roads lead home." 

Majorie Holmes

"It comes every year and will go on forever. And along with Christmas belong the keepsakes and the customs. Those humble, everyday things a mother clings to, and ponders, like Mary in the secret spaces of her heart."

Bob Hope

"My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?"

Bob Hope

"When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things — not the great occasions — give off the greatest glow of happiness."

Washington Irving

"Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart."

W.C. Jones

"The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each other's burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas." 

Garrison Keillor

"A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together."

Robert Lynd

"Were I a philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys, showing that nothing else in life need to be taken seriously and that Christmas Day in the company of children is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive."

Hamilton Wright Mabie

"Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love."

Harlan Miller

"I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month."

Joan Mills

"Christmas is the keeping-place for memories of our innocence."

Garry Moore

"Christmas is, of course, the time to be home — in heart as well as body."

Agnes M. Pahro

"What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace."

Norman Vincent Peale

"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful."

Norman Vincent Peale

"I truly believe that if we keep telling the Christmas story, singing the Christmas songs, and living the Christmas spirit, we can bring joy and happiness and peace to this world."

Andy Rooney

"One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly."

Andy Rooney

"The best Christmas trees come very close to exceeding nature."

Augusta E. Rundell

"Christmas — that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance — a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved."

Eric Sevareid

"As long as we know in our hearts what Christmas ought to be, Christmas is."

Eric Sevareid

"Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves."

Ralph Sockman

"Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion."

Margaret Thatcher

"Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends."

Thomas Tusser

"At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year."

Lenora Mattingly Weber

"Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts."

Joanne Woodward

"Which Christmas is the most vivid to me? It's always the next Christmas."