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 only way to spend New Years Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears. – W. H. Auden

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