It’s Christmas! The holiday season is in full swing. This collection of Christmas quotes from classic literature has been picked from books like Little Women and A Christmas Carol and from authors like H. P. Lovecraft and George Eliot. They are sure to add a little festive sparkle to your everyday world and are perfect for reading over the holidays.

“Christmas! ‘Tis the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.” – Washington Irving

“This is quite the season indeed for friendly meetings. At Christmas, everybody invites their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst weather. I was snowed up at a friend’s house once for a week. Nothing could be pleasanter.“ – Jane Austen, Emma

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton

“Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away.” – Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

“The rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.” – Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!” – Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

“Christmas day is the children’s, but the holidays are youth’s dancing-time.” – Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons

“It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind.” – H.P. Lovecraft, The Festival

“He had been to see Mrs. Erlich just before starting home for the holidays, and found her making German Christmas cakes. She took him into the kitchen and explained the almost holy traditions that governed this complicated cookery. Her excitement and seriousness as she beat and stirred were very pretty, Claude thought. She told off on her fingers the many ingredients, but he believed there were things she did not name: the fragrance of old friendships, the glow of early memories, belief in wonder-working rhymes and songs.” – Willa Cather, One of Ours

“Fine old Christmas, with the snowy hair and ruddy face, has done his duty that year in the noblest fashion, and had set off his rich gifts of warmth and colour with all the heightening contrast of frost and snow.” – George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss