“You made plenty, Abby. We just wanted to tide ourselves over until next year…unless you’d like to do this all over again at Christmas. You’re a Maddox, now. I expect you at every holiday, and not to cook.”

“Christmas is never over,unless you want it to be... Christmas is a state of mind.”

“With every lecture, you’re forced to look again at every choice you’ve made over the lesson-by-lesson chain of your entire life. And after all these years, you see how little you have to work with, how limited your life and education have been. How scant was your courage and curiosity. Not to mention your expectations.”

“I’m going to kill you, Abby Abernathy!” America cried. “Kill you!”“Technically, it’s Abby Maddox, now,” I said, smiling at my new husband.”

“What do you think of Christmas?""I like it," she said. "I think we should have it every year.”

“I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays - let them overtake me unexpectedly - waking up some find morning and suddenly saying to myself: 'Why, this is Christmas Day!”