Quotes About Festive

“The city most believed to be the handsomest in Kentucky never failed to impress ... The streets, lined with booths and wagons from which people displayed their wares, had a festive air.”

— Jan Watson

“This faulty light fitting at the front door with the dangerously flickering bulb looks rather festive. Who says I don't do Christmas?”

— R.D. Ronald

“Bastian looked at the book.
'I wonder,' he said to himself, 'what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures, deeds and battles. And sometimes there are storms at sea, or it takes you to strange cities and countries. All those things are somehow shut in a book. Of course you have to read it to find out. But it's already there, that's the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be.'
Suddenly an almost festive mood came over him.
He settled himself down, picked up the book, opened it to the first page, and began to read ...”

— Michael Ende

“Truth, an objective thing, is usually conceived of as something simple. Quite the opposite is correct: truth is enormously complicated; it calls for effort on several levels to arrive at its definition; it demands the utmost devotion in its service.
Do you doubt it? Then resolve evermore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You must hurt your friends, suffer the most pitiless scrutiny and persecution, turn the festive occasion into a nightmare of share words and recriminations. You will be called "a sour-puss," a curmudgeon, a difficult man, and very possibly a knave and an untruthful braggart.
The world, as it is organized, is a conspiracy against truth. Individuals, communities, nations, they are all afraid of the truth as if it were a medusa head which froze men to stone, even as it froze them to virtue.”

— Francis Beauchesne Thornton

“If you desire to find the true spirit of Christmas and partake of the sweetness of it, let me make this suggestion to you. During the hurry of the festive occasion of this Christmas season, find time to turn your heart to God. Perhaps in the quiet hours, and in a quiet place, and on your knees-alone or with loved ones-give thanks for the good things that have come to you, and ask that His Spirit might dwell in you as you earnestly strive to serve Him and keep His commandments. He will take you by the hand and His promises will be kept.”

— Howard W. Hunter

“Potato salad in the South is nothing less than the principal smuggler of cholesterol into the festive, careless heart. It is pure poison beneath the facade of bland puritan propriety. It is the food of choice at any food banquet of smiling relatives who celebrate tacitly among themselves the dark twining of two of their promising youth.”

— Padgett Powell

“The festive music died down and the granite pillars were replaced with rotted wooden beams as he continued down the alleyways. The scent of fresh flowers turned to mold, and the colorful mosiacs of honor and nobility were nonexistent. Run-down tenements were shadowed by its surrounding buildings, as if the capital itself wanted to conceal its existence.”

— Evan Meekins

“I may plan to make Christ the center of Christmas, but when I wait until December to focus on celebrating His birthday, I become entangled in Christmas lights, holiday baking, and festive engagements, often wondering if I've experienced the illusive "true meaning" of Christmas.”

— Ann Marie Stewart

“You can say anything with a Post-It.
I'm not entirely sure why that is.
Maybe the friendliness of the squares makes it easier. A square is nicely compact and less intimidating than a full page.
And they come in cheerful colors. Non-white paper is kind of inherently festive.
Or maybe paper that sticks feels more important than paper that can blow away.
(Though you can move them, if you need to put them somewhere else.)
They might not be as lasting as words carved in stone, but Post-It thoughts will stay.
For awhile, at least.”

— Erin Morgenstern

“My sister and I didn't know what that meant either but we were not equal to two questions in a row. And I knew that wasn't what rape meant anyway; it meant something dirty. "Purse. Purse stolen," said my mother in a festive but cautioning tone. Talk in our house was genteel.”

— Alice Munro

“The tarps Ken Weinrich's crew used has yellow and royal blue stripes, not unlike those for a circus, and this had lent a festive yet undignified mood to the proceedings.”

— Curtis Sittenfeld

“Continually amazed at just how many skills and crafts could go into making "a lovely home"-the patchwork quilts you could sew, the curtains you could ruffle, the cucumbers you could pickle, the rhubarb you could make into jam, the icing-sugar decorations you could create for your Christmas cake-which you were supposed to make in September at the latest (for heaven's sake)-and at the same time remember to plant your indoor bulbs so they would also be ready for "the festive season," and it just went on and on, every month a list of tasks that would have defeated Hercules and that was without the everyday preparation of meals,”

— Kate Atkinson

“Learn to win a lady's faith
Nobly, as the thing is high;
Bravely as for life and death -
With a loyal gravity.
Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Most of me was glad when my mother died. She was a handful, but not in a cute, festive way. More in a life-threatening way, that had caused me a long time ago to give up all hope of ever feeling good about having had her as a mother.”

— Anne Lamott

“Experts say you should never hit your children in anger. When is a good time? When you're feeling festive?”

— Roseanne Barr

“As regards structure, comedy has come a long way since Shakespeare, who in his festive conclusions could pair off any old shit and any old fudge-brained slag (see Claudio and Hero in Much Ado) and get away with it. But the final kiss no longer symbolizes anything and well-oiled nuptials have ceased to be a plausible image of desire. That kiss is now the beginning of the comic action, not the end that promises another beginning from which the audience is prepared to exclude itself. All right? We have got into the habit of going further and further beyond the happy-ever-more promise: relationships in decay, aftermaths, but with everyone being told a thing or two about themselves, busy learning from their mistakes. So, in the following phase, with the obstructive elements out of the way (DeForest, Gloria) and the consummation in sight, the comic action would have been due to end, happily. But who is going to believe that any more?”

— Martin Amis

“Santa is like a queen bee. All the elves are his drones, who exist to feed him royal jelly, which I guess would be milk and cookies. If an elf escapes and eats royal cookies, it will turn into another Santa. That's what all those mall Santas are. They're trying to start their own festive colonies.”

— Thomm Quackenbush

“It's quite nice to have a bit more color on the lips during wintertime. And it's festive, isn't it?”

— Lara Stone

“The best time to release a film is on a festive date like Divali or Eid, or at a time when there are no big films three to four weeks before or after.”

— Salman Khan

“An aurora borealis rises over festive orchards; the branches of the trees immediately begin to bud, to blossom, to bend under the weight of their fruit. The child runs through the wild grass, heading for the Wall. It collapses like a big cardboard box, broadening the horizon and exorcising the fields, which extend over the plains as far as the eye can see ... Run ... And the child runs, laughing all the while, his arms spread out like a bird's wings.”

— Yasmina Khadra

“Our thoughts fly therefore by themselves in this festive hour of our plant community, to the man whom we thank for the ressurection of our Nation: Adolf Hitler, the patron of German labour and German art.”

— Gustav Krupp

“I always look forward to the holidays because I love dressing up in festive, shimmery evening dresses.”

— Hilary Rhoda

“I'm very much into the Gypsy Kings. It's rumba and very festive, very passionate music, rhythmic guitar, passionate singing about love from happy people.”

— Sofia Milos

“Remembrance, like Rembrandt, is dark but festive.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“A square, flat-roofed hovel, neatly frescoed, with its wall-tops gallantly bastioned and turreted with dried camel-refuse, gives to a landscape a feature that is exceedingly festive and picturesque, especially if one is careful to remember to stick in a cat wherever, about the premises, there is room for a cat to sit.”

— Mark Twain

“When I was just a boy, my father was teaching me to mix bilewort, holly seeds, and elephant ear to make a draft that would plant the seeds in the subject's stomach, resulting in a very festive arrangement bursting from their mouths a few weeks after application. When we finished, he spread a bit of the stuff on my tongue, like a sacrament-for my parents believed sincerely that death was a sacred covenant between poisoner and condemned, and like all sacred things, required due reverence. We give a person the world distilled, and thus deliver them from it. What more profound act can there be?”

— Catherynne M. Valente

“Festive cocktails mean color, lots of color.”

— Danny Meyer

“In my experience, the universe falls in with worthy plans and most especially with festive and expansive ones. I have seldom conceived a delicious plan without being given the means to accomplish it. Understand that the what must come before the how. First choose what you would do. The how usually falls into place of itself.”

— Julia Cameron

“Indoors, the evening gets you'd say festive, with Maxine riding Horst for the better part of an hour, not that it's anybody's business of course, and coming a number of times, at last fiercely in sync with Horst, not long after which, owing to some extrasensory cue from the television, whose mute feature has been engaged, they surface from their post-orgy daze in time to witness Derek Jeter's clutch tenth-inning homer and another trademark Yankee win. "Yes!" Horst beginning to scream in delighted disbelief. "And it better be Keanu Reeves in the biopic!”

— Thomas Pynchon

“Dozens of people who'd been boo-hooing their eyeballs out an hour earlier were laughing like overcaffeinated hyenas, stuffing their face with a whole week's worth of SQ-rationed food. Dak wondered whether funerals for old people always ended up being such festive affairs.”

— James Dashner

“Her maternal feelings were unlikely to be assuaged by hearing that the marriage had been performed in the middle of the night on a West Indian beach by a disgraced-if not actually defrocked-priest, witnessed by twenty-five seamen, ten French horses, a small flock of sheep-all gaily beribboned in honor of the occasion-and a King Charles spaniel, who added to the generally festive feeling by attempting to copulate with Murphy's wooden leg at every opportunity. The only thing that could make things worse, in Laoghaire's view, would be to hear that I had participated in the ceremony.”

— Diana Gabaldon

“This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's world contracted, day by day, into the microcosmic single festive household, each with its own rituals and obsessions, rules and dreams. You didn't feel you could call people. They didn't feel they could phone you. How does one cry for help from these seasonal prisons?”

— Zadie Smith

“I don't suppose I can wear the flamingo tie," he said as he pulled on black socks.
"It's a bit festive, given the occasion," I responded.
"Can't wear it to the opera," said the Colonel, almost smiling. "Can't wear it to a funeral. Can't use it to hang myself. It's a bit useless, as ties go." I gave him a tie.”

— John Green

“When I cook for my family on Christmas, I make feijoada, a South American dish of roasted and smoked meats like ham, pork, beef, lamb, and bacon - all served with black beans and rice. It's festive but different.”

— Maya Angelou

“The story is told of Lincoln's first meeting with Mary at a festive party. Captivated by her lively manner, intelligent face, clear blue eyes, and dimpled smile, Lincoln reportedly said, "I want to dance with you in the worst way." And, Mary laughingly told her cousin later that night, "he certainly did.”

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

“There was a dead mouse in the sink. Maybe someone had left it there to welcome them. Maybe it was a festive gift.”

— Cassandra Clare

“Is not the festive season when families and friends exchange gifts in memory of The Gift laid on the altar of the world for the redemption of the human race, the most appropriate time to consecrate a portion from abounding riches and scant poverty to send forth the good tidings of great joy into all the earth?”

— Lottie Moon

“I'm a festive guy to begin with and Halloween is my favorite holiday. I went all out on this one costume. It's a ghoul that makes me approximately 10 feet tall when I wear it. I actually got an offer to work at a haunted house because the costume is so great, and I did it for about an hour and a half before I got too cold and had to quit to go inside. Michigan winters are no joke.”

— Andre Dirrell

“Play: It is an an activity which proceeds within certain limits of time and space, in a visible order, according to rules freely accepted, and outside the sphere of necessity or material utility. The play-mood is one of rapture and enthusiasm, and is sacred or festive in accordance with the occasion. A feeling of exaltation and tension accompanies the action.”

— Johan Huizinga

“My field-mouse had made a set of brand-new tracks; here and there they etched themselves, following the brown flowers. It seemed as if uncommon spirits had seized their little maker, for sometimes he had leaped a yard, the festive mite! There was no other track pursuing; the leaps must have been mere joy.”

— Anne Bosworth Greene

“When people have asked me in the past if I'm gay, I've said "I'm not gay, but I'm festive."”

— Sharon Gless

“Swirls of antique stained glass, blazes of brass, forests of carved wood and waterfalls of crystal combine to make up the city's most fabulously festive interior.”

— Mimi Sheraton

“It's no secret that I am not afraid to shine bright and be festive, and I like to encourage that in others.”

— Cam Newton

“Form displays the relation [to beings] itself as the state of original comportment toward beings, the festive state in which the being itself in its essence is celebrated and thus for the first time placed in the open.”

— Martin Heidegger

“I offer gentle understanding to myself. I position myself in love, not fear. I look behind me with forgiveness. I look forward with festive anticipation. I embrace this holy moment and assert, "Now. This moment is the moment to love, the moment to serve, the moment to seize the legacy instead of the small. Now. Now I will live large, love boldly, reach to the edges of my unfurled heart and fully enrolled hope."”

— Mary Anne Radmacher

“Festive alcohol sometimes leads to an excess of honesty.”

— John Donne

“Without cruelty there is no festival: thus the longest and most ancient part of human history teaches and in punishment there is so much that is festive!”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

“So your life becomes a vital celebration, your relationship becomes a festive thing. Whatsoever you do, every moment is a festival. You eat, and eating becomes a celebration; you take a bath, and bathing becomes a celebration; you talk, and talking becomes a celebration; relationship becomes a celebration. Your outer life becomes festive, there is no sadness in it. How can sadness exist with silence?”

— Rajneesh

“Let this be the criterion always: anything that makes you festive, anything that gives you celebration, anything that makes you dance and sing to such an extent that you disappear in your dancing, in your singing, in your celebration ... is the only true religion I know of.”

— Rajneesh

“The society of the energetic class, in their friendly and festive meetings, is full of courage, and of attempts, which intimidatethe pale scholar.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson