gifts Quotes

“One can never have enough socks.”

“Time, as far as my father was concerned, was a gift you gave to other people.”

“I beg of you,” said Bilbo stammering and standing on one foot, “to accept this gift!” and he brought out a necklace of silver and pearls that Dain had given him at their parting. “In what way have I earned such a gift, O hobbit?” said the king. “Well, er, I thought, don’t you know,” said Bilbo rather confused, “that, er, some little return should be made for your, er, hospitality. I mean even a burglar has his feelings. I have drunk much of your wine and eaten much of your bread.” “I will take your gift, O Bilbo the Magnificent,” said the king gravely.

“Now let me see,” he thought, as he took his last lick of the inside of the jar, “where was I going, Ah, yes, Eeyore.” He got up slowly. And then, suddenly, he remembered. He had eaten Eeyore’s present!

The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.

Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication.

And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. . . . Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling—something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out.

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. . . . Eight dollars a week or a million a year—what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer.

“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ’em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs.”

“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. . . . Say ‘Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice—what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”

He stood, holding the bell high above him, and called out, “The first gift of Christmas!”

She hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.” . . . “Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ’em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs.”

What I wanted more than anything was one silver bell from Santa’s sleigh.

“They are gathering at the center of the city . . . That is where Santa will give the first gift of Christmas.”

“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now.”

Sarah found one last small box behind the tree. It had my name on it. Inside was the silver bell!

“Found this on the seat of my sleigh. Fix that hole in your pocket.” Signed, “Mr. C.”

“Oil! What kind of a cheap king hands out oil for a present? You get better presents from the firemen!”

“Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant, Around the whole room, and he took every present!”

“Packed it up with their presents, their ribbons, their wrappings, Their snoof and their fuzzles, their tringlers and trappings! Ten thousand feet up, up the side of Mount Crumpet, He rode with his load to the tiptop to dump it!”

And now the folding doors were thrown open, and a troop of children rushed in as if they intended to upset the tree; they were followed more silently by their elders. For a moment the little ones stood silent with astonishment, and then they shouted for joy, till the room rang, and they danced merrily round the tree, while one present after another was taken from it.

″‘Your soul is a beautiful thing, child.’ replied the grave man’s voice, ‘and I thank you. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept to-night.”

“Her gifts were mixed with good and evil both.”

“Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise.”

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more!”

“But see, the thing is, when I looked up . . . Connor was there. That’s the gift that he gave me. To show me that I wasn’t alone. To show me that I matter. That everybody does.”

“She wished, not for the first time, that she had been born with the gift of people-speaking. Ani was sure that Selia could have gotten past those guards with a few seductive words.”

“Since life is our most precious gift And since it is given to us to live but once, Let us so live that we will not regret.”

“That day, I learned that I could be a giver by simply bringing a smile to another person. The ensuing years have taught me that a kind word, a vote of support is a charitable gift. I can move over and make another place for someone. I can turn my music up if it pleases, or down if it is annoying. I may never be known as a philanthropist, but I certainly am a lover of mankind, and I will give freely of my resources.”

“Don’t wait until people are dead to give them flowers.”

″‘What the [heck],’ Dad said. ‘It’s Christmas. You can have a planet if you want.’ And he gave me Venus.”

“For at least two hours the Boy loved him, and then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, and there was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit was forgotten.”

“I want to be five years old again for an hour. I want to laugh a lot and cry a lot. I want to be picked up and rocked to sleep in someone’s arms, and carried up to bed just one more time. I know what I really want for Christmas. I want my childhood back.”

“At twelve I had already known how to think for at least four years. In teaching me independence of thought, they had given me the greatest gift an adult can give to a child besides love, and they had given me that also.”

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away!”

“She had been given a wonderful gift: life. Sometimes it was cruelly taken away too soon, but it’s what you did with it that counted, not how long it lasted.”

“At the deepest level, there is no giver, no gift, and no recipient... only the universe rearranging itself.”

“The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver because of their scarcity; whereas, on the contrary, it is their opinion that Nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless.”

“The racehorse, by virtue of his awesome physical gifts, freed the jockey from himself. When a horse and a jockey flew over the track together, there were moments in which the man’s mind wedded itself to the animal’s body to form something greater than the sum of both parts.”

“In this house we do not give away what loved ones give to us. Now go bring me that coat.”

“Thank you most of all for friends. We appreciate the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other.”

“Self-care is never a selfish act - it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others.”

“I had failed to understand the perverse comfort we sometimes get from choosing death in life, exempting ourselves from the challenge of using our gifts, of living our lives in authentic relationship with others.”

“For this is the last best gift that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness.”

“Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.”

“Something had to be done, so people like myself created places where young peculiars could live apart from common folk—physically and temporally isolated enclaves like this one, of which I am enormously proud.”

“Michael’s gift is that the Good Lord gave him the ability to forget. He’s mad at no one and doesn’t really care what happened. His story might be sad, but he’s not sad.”

“Has not one of the poets said that a noble friend is the best gift and a noble enemy the next best?”

“And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning me, who am his gift to you.”

“But do thou have a care, my son, that I be not the occasion of a gift fatal to thee, and while the matter still permits, alter thy intentions.”

“Wholeness is arguably the richest state of being you can find yourself in. Many people in life often think that another person can make them complete. That is false. Only when you can embrace you fully that’s when you get to experience the joy of life. Wholeness is a remarkable gift.”

“I need you to understand something. I wrote this for you. I wrote this for you and only you. Everyone else who reads it, doesn’t get it. They may think they get it, but they don’t. This is the sign you’ve been looking for. You were meant to read these words.”

″‘Hmm!’ said the Fairy Crustacea. ‘Wit, Charm, Courage, Health, Wisdom, Grace ... Good gracious, poor child! Well, thank goodness my magic is stronger than anyone else’s.’ She raised her twisty coral stick and waved it three times over the cradle of the seventh princess. ‘My child,’ said the Fairy Crustacea, ‘I am going to give you something that will probably bring you more happiness than all these fal-lals and fripperies put together. You shall be Ordinary!’

“What greater gift could you offer your children than an inherent ability to earn a living just by being themselves?”

“I’ve nobody to spin for just at present. I never spin without knowing for whom I am spinning.”

“What you are is God’s gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.”

“Joseph was bound by his circumstances. But he overcame them by using his gifts. He transcended from the mundane to the miraculous”

“My breath catches in my throat. A tingle starts in my fingertips. No. I won’t be pulled under. Begone.”

“We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we’re given.”

“To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person.”

“If I offer you the moon on a string, will you give me a kiss, too?”

“One of the best gifts you can give you you daughter as a mother of the bride is to make her feel special.”

“Too many people are living far below their potential. They have more gifts and talents, and so much more going for them.”

“One monstrous diamond […] Bestowed upon him, as the public learned; And, to say truth, it had been fairly earned”

“Remember: The pain isn’t the enemy. Pain is the indicator that brokenness exists. Pain is the reminder that the real enemy is trying to take us out and bring us down by keeping us stuck in broken places. Pain is the gift that motivates us to fight with brave tenacity and fierce determination knowing there’s healing on the other side.”

“For my last birthday, Dad bought me a pocket-sized Collins English Dictionary. It would only fit in a pocket that had been specially designed.”

“That was the key to my grandmother’s jewel box, that she got from Florence. It was made of red leather and it fell to bits at last, but she kept the key and gave it to me. She was most terribly poor when she died, poor old sweetie, and kept crying because she had nothing to leave me, so in the end I said I’d rather have this little key than all the jewels in the world.”

“This is a birthday present from my Uncle Ry,” Stillwater said. “He always gives presents on his birthday, to celebrate the day he was born.”

“A knife, Alec, comes in handy sometimes.”

Ry never lets anyone leave empty-handed, he looked around the tiny hut for a gift for the robber. But there was nothing to give.”

“He goes out for an automobile ride every day. The Old Lady has given him the car. She gives him whatever he wants.”

“The colors in the dress were so vivid she had scarcely noticed the face and head of the drawing. But it looked like her, Maddie! It really did. The same short blond hair, blue eyes, and wide straight mouth. Why, it really looked like her own self! Wanda had really drawn this for her.”

“His hands were trembling so that he could scarcely lift off the last of the wrappings. There was not the slightest doubt about it. It was a penguin.”

“I hope that this fortune-telling gift the stone seems to have given you is as accurate as your bow’s arrows. If you are wrong, I am afraid a curse will follow us like the Devil’s shadow follows a possessed mortal’s flesh.”

″‘Always expecting the worst, you are.’ ‘If you expect terrible things, then they don’t surprise you, and all good things are like wonderful gifts.‘”

“Master Crispin, In this box you will find the only thing you do not have. It’s the very best thing in the whole wide world. -S”

“Ben gave me a. . . It has a little brush. I like making pictures with it!”

“A gift creates ongoing relationship.”

“It’s funny how the nature of an object—let’s say a strawberry or a pair of socks—is so changed by the way it has come into your hands, as a gift or as a commodity.”

“Well, Daddy is going to own that building, ‘cause I’m gonna fly over it and give it to him. Then it won’t matter that he’s not in their old union, or whether he’s colored a half-breed Indian, like they say.”

“The people gave them fine things to wear: colorful blankets and decorated saddles. They painted designs on their bodies and tied eagle feathers and ribbons in their manes and tails.”

“The girl gave the colt to her parents. Everyone was joyful.”

“Our experiences are nothing but a series of gifts and the less we resist them, the better things get.”

″‘Twins,’ he murmured, ‘twins’. He touched their red hair. ‘Yes, yes, our colour’. He looked into their minds. ‘And with the gift. They will be the ones.‘”

“It was indeed a gift to have someone to love.”

“I visit all the Dead, but particularly the Folded-Up Child. I bring them food, water and water lilies from the Drowned Halls. I speak to them, telling them what I have been doing and I describe any Wonders that I have seen in the House. In this way they know that they are not alone.”

“That day, I learned that I could be a giver simply by bringing a smile to another person. The ensuing years have taught me that a kind word or a vote of support can be a charitable gift. I can move over and make another place for another to sit. I can turn my music up if it pleases, or down if it is annoying. I may never be known as a philanthropist, but I certainly want to be known as charitable.”

“Don’t be angry with me, Pagan. Don’t let your temper cripple your intelligence. To squander your gifts in such a way... do you think, having found you, I would let you stray down the wrong path again?”

“Everything which she has about her is of gold - tables, chairs, dishes, glasses, bowls, and household furniture. Among your treasures are five tons of gold; let one of the goldsmiths fo the kingdom fashion these into all manner of vessels and utensils, into all kinds of birds, wild beasts and strange animals, such as may please her, and we will go there with them and try our luck.”

“You have a gift, lad. It is a treasure very few are blessed with, a mind which is capable of so much. Such a head is a dangerous thing upon young shoulders.”

“But it so happened that Nature had given to the youngest sons gifts that she had not bestowed upon his elder brothers. He had a beautiful face and fine, strong, graceful figure; he had a bright smile a sweet, gay voice; he was brave and generous, and had the kindest heart in the world, and seemed to have the power to make everyone love him.”

“One of the greatest gifts you can give your husband is your own wholeness.”

“This giving you a colt is a kind of bargain between us. I give you the colt, you give me more obedience, more efficiency, than you ever have in your life before. Is it a bargain?”

“They’re a present. They think we came on board specially to ask for them and they’ll be as upset as two coots if we don’t take them with us.”

“She was very proud of them, not because they were really any better than anybody else’s ballet shoes, but because they had been given her by her mother, and she was the only one with a mother, so it seemed rather grand.”

“My dear, if Jean would like him she can have him as a gift. Honestly he isn’t worth anything.”

“I don’t sell these things for money, little lady. I give them to my friends.”

“Father took the egg offered to him. It wasn’t a very good Easter egg, being a tiny bit smeary, but to father it was the most beautiful gift in the world.”

“It was always repugnant to him to use for his own private gain that wonderful gift of invention he had received from nature.”

″...fortune holds some gifts in store for those who try;”

Madame Danglars received a most flattering epistle from the count, in which he entreated her to receive back her favorite “dappled grays,” protesting that he could not endure the idea of making his entry into the Parisian world of fashion with the knowledge that his splendid equipage had been obtained at the price of a lovely woman’s regrets.