You can press the old year betwixt the pages of a book, but alas! the new chapter always gets written. – Terri Guillemets, “Pressed for time,” 2005

I found that a new oath holds pretty well; but… when it is become old and frayed out and damaged by a dozen annual retryings of its remains, it ceases to be serviceable; any little strain will snap it. – Mark Twain (1835–1910), speech, Tile Club Dinner for Laurence Hutton, New

The old year cracks under the burdensome weight of twelve heavy months, and the next year emerges fresh and anew from its shell. – Terri Guillemets, “A cracked bell still tolls,” 2010

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. – Bill Vaughan (1915–1977), in The Kansas City Star