Our destiny often looks like a fruit-tree in winter. Who would think from its pitiable aspect that those rigid boughs, those rough twigs could next spring again be green, bloom, and even bear fruit? Yet we hope it, we know it. – Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Travels, translated from German

One of my current pet theories is that the winter is a kind of evangelist, more subtle than Billy Graham, of course, but of the same stuff. – Shirley Ann Grau

In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold. – Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes