100 Splendid Snow Quotes that Capture the Wonder of Winter

Jared dela Cruz

A Korean proverb said it best, ‘There is no winter without snow…’. Snow is the essence of winter. It is the stuff that renders erstwhile familiar landscapes into sceneries new and novel to the eye; the stuff that pares all the colors of the world into simplicity, distilling them into a small but stunning palette of white, black, and wintry blues; the stuff that hushes all the noise and confusion in the world, cloaking everything in a mantle of sleep and silence. Indeed, snow, in all its forms and appearances, is the very reason why winter is a magnificent and magical season.

Small wonder then, that there are a multitude of quotes and sayings on snow and all the forms it takes, from snowfalls to snowflakes to snowmen. In fact, I have a hundred of such splendid snow quotes compiled here, all marvelous, all meaningful, all memorable. Some of the snow quotes here are lyrics or verses from songs or poems; some are excerpts from the pages of books; while still others are remarks and observations about snow, some literal and some metaphorical. Moreover, some of the snow quotes here were uttered or written by their authors in melancholy, some in longing, some in excitement, and others in hilarity. All, however, regardless of source or emotion, perfectly capture the beauty and wonder of winter. If you’re looking for a snow quote or two, you will surely find something here that speaks to you.

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“A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air, and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

“A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.” – Carl Reiner

“A small and sinister snow seems to be coming down relentlessly at present. The radio says it is eventually going to be sleet and rain, but I don’t think so; I think it is just going to go on and on, coming down, until the whole world…etc. It has that look.” – Edward Gorey

“A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky – unbidden – and seems like a thing of wonder.” – Susan Orlean

“A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.” – Markus Zusak

“Advice is like snow – the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“All Heaven and Earth
Flowered white obliterate…
Snow…unceasing snow” – Hashin

“As many days old as is the moon on the first snow, there will be that many snowfalls by crop planting time. If ant hills are high in July, winter will be snowy. If the first week in August is unusually warm, the coming winter will be snowy and long. For every fog in August, there will be a snowfall the following winter. Squirrels gathering nuts in a flurry will cause snow to gather in a hurry. As high as the weeds grow, so will the bank of snow. A green Christmas = a white Easter. If the first snowfall lands on unfrozen ground, winter will be mild. If there is thunder in winter, it will snow seven days later.” – Peter Geiger

“Are ye the ghosts of fallen leaves,
O flakes of snow,
For which, through naked trees, the winds
A-mourning go?” – John Banister Tabb

“Be like snow – cold, but beautiful.” – Lana Del Rey

“But pleasures are like poppies spread –
You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river –
A moment white – then melts for ever.” – Robert Burns

“Despite all I have seen and experienced, I still get the same simple thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow.” – Edmund Hillary

“Even in winter an isolated patch of snow has a special quality.” – Andy Goldworthy

“Every Autumn now my thoughts return to snow. Snow is something I identify myself with. Like my father, I am a snow person.” – Charlie English

“For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.” – Wallace Stevens

“Getting only an inch of snow is like winning a nickel in a poker game.” – George Moon

“I am younger each year at the first snow. When I see it, suddenly, in the air, all little and white and moving; then I am in love again and very young and I believe everything.” – Anne Sexton

“I leaned out one last time and caught a snowflake on my tongue. They tasted so good, so pure and so divine, like nothing I had ever tasted from the sky. It was as if happiness spread through your body with the cold, but then disappeared and brought depression, all in less than two seconds. It was unbelievable, and yet, addicting.” – Shannon A. Thompson

“I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas. It brings people together while time stands still.” – Rachel Cohn

“I love snow, snow, and all the forms of radiant frost.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

“I miss the snow. I miss looking at it, walking in it, tasting it. I used to love those days when it was so cold everyone else would be tucked away inside trying to stay warm. I would be the only one out walking, so I could look across the fields and see miles of snow without a single footprint in it. It would be completely silent – no cars, no birds singing, no doors slamming. Just silence and snow. God, I miss snow. The stars, the moon, the wind, and blankets of pure, pristine snow.” – Damien Echols

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’” – Lewis Carroll

“I’d like to build a snowman
Like the other children do
I’ve got an old top hat and a walking cane
Got a big long cigar too
Yes, everything is ready
And I’m all set to go
How can I build a snowman
When I haven’t any snow.” – Burl Ives
“If snow melts down to water, does it still remember being snow?” – Jennifer McMahon

“I’ll soon be there with snow
I’ll wash my hair with snow
And with a spade of snow
I’ll build a man that’s made of snow
I’d love to stay up with you but I recommend a little shuteye
Go to sleep
And dream
Of snow.” – Irving Berlin

“Imagine if fire extinguishers were full of snow. Imagine the fun we could have.” – Neil Hilborn

“In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter, long ago.” – Christina Rossetti

“In the darkness and the snow, the street is empty and it is just the night, the ice and me.” – Miriam Joy

“In your hands winter
is a book with cloud pages
that snow pearls of love.” – Aberjhani

“Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. It’s late afternoon – the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you.” – Jean Webster

“It is growing cold. Winter is putting footsteps in the meadow. What whiteness boasts that sun that comes into this wood! One would say milk-colored maidens are dancing on the petals of orchids. How coldly burns our sun! One would say its rays of light are shards of snow, one imagines the sun lives upon a snow crested peak on this day. One would say she is a woman who wears a gown of winter frost that blinds the eyes. Helplessness has weakened me. Wandering has wearied my legs.” – Roman Payne

“It snowed all week. Wheels and footsteps moved soundlessly on the street, as if the business of living continued secretly behind a pale but impenetrable curtain. In the falling quiet there was no sky or earth, only snow lifting in the wind, frosting the window glass, chilling the rooms, deadening and hushing the city.” – Truman Capote

“It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.” – Dylan Thomas

“It takes a snowflake two hours to fall from cloud to earth. Can’t you just see its slow, peaceful descent?” – Amy Krouse Rosenthal

“January brings the snow, makes our feet and fingers glow.” – Sara Coleridge

“Kindness is like snow – it beautifies everything it covers.” – Kahlil Gibran

“Let every man shovel out his own snow, and the whole city will be passable.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“My old grandmother always used to say, summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.” – George R. R. Martin

“Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, ‘I’m going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that’s tough. I am going to snow anyway.” – Maya Angelou

“Nature is full of genius, full of divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.” – Samuel Cahn, Jule Styne

“Or as a little snow, tumbled about,
Anon becomes a mountain.” – William Shakespeare

“Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Outside, snow solidified itself into graceful forms. The peace of winter stars seemed permanent.” – Toni Morrison

“Silently, like thoughts that come and go, the snowflakes fall, each one a gem.” – William Hamilton Gibson

“Snow brings a special quality with it — the power to stop life as you know it dead in its tracks.” – Nancy Hatch Woodward

“Snow falling soundlessly in the middle of the night will always fill my heart with sweet clarity.” – Novala Takemoto

“Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people’s legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world.” – Sarah Addison Allen

“Snow is…both brush and dust. It sweeps as it falls, cleans as it covers.” – Sean Hurley

“Snow is both our best friend and worst enemy. Best friend because it shows us in a concrete form the paths other have taken to get where they are. Worst enemy because it will tell such tales of us if we chance upon it.” – Thomm Quackenbush

“Snow is…like a bed over the land. Mattress thick and layered with soft cotton sheets and rumpled comforters. But this bed sleeps on us.” – Sean Hurley

“Snow is my first memory. And again and again, I tried to make paintings of the snow and never could. So everything comes. It takes sometimes a lifetime to get there.” – Francoise Gilot

“Snow isn’t just pretty. It also cleanses our world and our senses, not just of the soot and grime of a mining town, but also of a kind of weary familiarity, a taken-for-granted quality to which our eyes are all too susceptible.” – John Burnside

“Snow is…one part moonlight, one part wind.” – Sean Hurley

“Snow is…the once upon a time of weather. Every snowflake a dislodged coordinate, a glass second from a century ago.” – Sean Hurley

“Snow makes a soft bed, but no man wakes from it. That was the wisdom of the North.” – Mark Lawrence

“Snow makes cities innocent again, reveals the frailty of the human gesture against the void.” – Glenn Duncan

“Snow not falling but flying sidewise, and sudden, not signaled by the slow curdling of clouds all day and a flake or two drifting downward, but rushing forward all at once as though sent for…. And filling up the world’s concavities, pillowing up in the gloaming, making night light with its whiteness, and then falling still in every one’s dreams, falling for pages and pages…” – John Crowley

“Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.” – Andy Goldsworthy

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

“Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.” – Vesta M. Kelly

“Snowing is an attempt of God to make the dirty world look clean.” – Mehmet Murat ildan

“Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, nor time unmake what poets know.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Suppose we did our work
like the snow, quietly, quietly,
leaving nothing out.” – Wendell Berry

“Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder – no matter how old you became and how much you’d seen, things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered.” – Candace Bushnell

“The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.” – Doug Larson

“The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love.” – Margaret Atwood

“The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?” – J. B. Priestley

“The first snow is like the first love. Do you remember your first snow?” – Lara Biyuts

“The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitants of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The hollowness was in his arms and the world was snowing.” – William Goldman

“The larger a man’s roof, the more snow it collects.” – Persian proverb

“The light made the snowballs look yellow. Or at least I hoped that was the cause.” – Gary D. Schmidt

“The smallest snowstorm on record took place an hour ago in my back yard. It was approximately two flakes. I waited for more to fall, but that was it. The entire storm was two flakes.” – Richard Brautigan

“The snow began to fall again, drifting against the windows, politely begging entrance and then falling with disappointment to the ground.” – Jamie McGuire

“The snow did not even whisper its way to earth, but seemed to salt the night with silence.” – Dean Koontz

“The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.” – E. E. Miller

“The snow is sparkling like a million little suns.” – Lama Willa

“The snow itself is lonely or, if you prefer, self-sufficient. There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.” – Joseph Wood Krutch

“The snow was endless, a heavy blanket on the outdoors; it had a way about it. A beauty. But I knew that, like many things, beauty could be deceiving.” – Cambria Hebert

“The snow was too light to stay, the ground too warm to keep it. And the strange spring snow fell only in that golden moment of dawn, the turning of the page between night and day.” – Shannon Hale

“The trouble with the last snowfall of the season is that you can’t be sure.” – Doug Larson

“The very fact of snow is such an amazement.” – Roger Ebert

“The wind crooned softly as it dusted the snow against the windows, wrapping them in a thick and fluffy cotton blanket.” – Soheir Khashoggi

“The wonder of a single snowflake outweighs the wisdom of a million meteorologists.” – Francis Bacon

“There’s just something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on. It makes you believe you’re special.” – Carol Rifka Brunt

“There is no winter without snow, no spring without sunshine, and no happiness without companions.” – Korean proverb

“This is my first snow at Smith. It is like any other snow, but from a different window, and there lies the singular charm of it.” – Sylvia Plath

“To a tracker, a fresh blanket of snow is like a newspaper delivered to your door.” – John Van Niel

“Waking up to a blanket of snow is like a morning lullaby, a soft dreamlike state that is almost magical.” – Nancy Hatch Woodward

“We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt.” – Walter Scott

“Well, I know now. I know a little more how much a simple thing like a snowfall can mean to a person.” – Sylvia Plath

“What is snow? Is it that the angels are shedding their feathers on the earth; or is the sky showering its blossoms on the grave of the departed year? In it we see that if the earth is to be arrayed in this vesture of purity, her raiment must descend on her from above. Alas, too! we see in it how soon that pure garment becomes spotted and sullied, how soon it mostly passes away.” – Julius Charles Hare

“When I no longer thrill to the first snow of the season, I’ll know I’m growing old.” – Lady Bird Johnson

“When men were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town.” – Robert Bridges

“When snow falls, nature listens.” – Antoinette Van Kleef

“When the snow falls with that supernatural slowness it has, it seems that the reasons for dying are more subtle than the reasons for living. But perhaps these latter are more numerous.” – Jean Baudrillard

“With every falling flake, a unique spark of interest falls from heaven.” – P. Miller

“With melted snow I boil fragrant tea.” – Mencius

“You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there–the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.” – Frederick Buechner