It’s cold outside.

Like furry boots and puffy coats and satin-lined hats and frozen noses from being outside for only 10 minutes kind of cold.

And while I don’t always like to be out in the elements, I love the coziness that comes with the winter months. The way I don’t need an excuse for staying indoors, for pulling the blankets up high, for spending hours cuddled up (sometimes with others and sometimes with myself) with no plans to do anything else.

The world itself also feels cold.

Like disconnection and division and a lack of humanity and overwhelming grief and loss everywhere we look kind of cold.

And while I am not the type of person to look away when life is painful, I know that it’s important to take time to rest. To warm my own heart so I’m better able to show up for myself and others.

So I embrace the calm that comes in winter. The ability to hibernate, physically and emotionally, so that I don’t burn out.

Here are 11 quotes that can keep us warm when the world feels cold:

“I will remember your small room, the feel of you, the light in the window, your records, your books, our morning coffee, our noons, our nights, our bodies spilled together, sleeping, the tiny flowing currents, immediate and forever. Your leg, my leg, your arm, my arm, your smile and the warmth of you who made me laugh again.” ~ Charles Bukowski

“When life descends into the pit
I must become my own candle
Willingly burning myself
To light up the darkness
Around me.” ~ Alice Walker

“We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

“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

“Always there comes an hour when one is weary of one’s work and devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.” ~ Albert Camus

“Your hair is winter fire
January embers
My heart burns there, too.” ~ Stephen King

“I don’t want learning, or dignity, or respectability. I want this music, and this dawn, and the warmth of your cheek against mine.” ~ Rumi

“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.” ~ James Baldwin

“I am not promiscuous with my warmth, but when I share it, my warmth can be as hot as the sun.” ~ Roxane Gay

“But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

“Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.” ~ Mary Oliver

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