Hibernation Quotes

“the comfort of reclusion, the poetry of hibernation”
― Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

“I'm afraid we shall waste an awful lot of time."
"Don't worry," answered Snufkin, "we shall have wonderful dreams, and when we wake up it'll be spring.”
― Tove Jansson, Finn Family Moomintroll

“A hibernating snail is not necessarily dead”
― Messaoud Mohammed

“Snake's Lullaby

Brother, sister, flick your tongue
and taste the flakes of autumn sun.

Use these last few hours of gold
to travel, travel toward the cold.

Before your coils grow stiff and dull,
your heartbeat slows to winter's lull,

seek the sink of sheltered stones
that safely cradle sleeping bones.

Brother, sister, find the ways
back to the deep and tranquil bays,

and 'round each other twist and fold
to weave a heavy cloak of cold.”
― Joyce Sidman, Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold

“If he could sleep, she thought, sleep through the unhappy months, the heart's hunger, the months of death and cold and not having what you most want, and wake with time gone past and blurred and a new year coming. But perhaps it is too early in the year, she thought after that, and besides, he is not a bear.”
― Naomi Mitchison, Travel Light

“Long sleeps the summer in the seed.

Verse CIV”
― Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam

“A hibernating snail doe not necessarily mean it is dead”
― Messaoud Mohammed

“You want to stay here and sleep your life away? That's it?"

"If you knew what would make you happy, wouldn't you do it?" I asked her.

"See, you do want to be happy. Then why did you tell me that being happy is dumb?" she asked. "You said that to me more than once."

"Let me be dumb," I said, glugging the NyQuil. "You go be smart and tell me how great it is. I'll be here, hibernating."

Reva rolled her eyes.

"It's natural," I told her. "People used to hibernate all the time."

"People never hibernated. Where are you getting this?"

She could look really pathetic when she was outraged. She got up and stood there holding her stupid knockoff Kate Spade bag or whatever it was, her hair pulled back into a ponytail and crowned with a useless, plastic, tortoiseshell headband. She was always getting her hair blown out, her eyebrows waxed into thin, arched, parentheses, her fingernails painted various shades of pink and purple, as though all of this made her a wonderful person.

"It's not up for discussion, Reva. This is what I'm doing. If you can't accept it, then you don't have to.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“Of all the Winter Service Industries, the Winter Consul was the most dangerous. Few who joined expected to last out the decade, yet recruitment was never much of a problem. You didn't find the job, they said, it found you. No-one ever who entered the Winter voluntarily wasn't trying to leave something behind.”
― Jasper Fforde, Early Riser

“Usefulness is a useless concept when it comes to humans. I don't think we were ever meant to think about others in terms of their use to us. We keep pets for the pleasure of looking after them; we voluntarily feed extra mouths and scoop up excrement in little plastic bags, declaring it relaxing. We channel our adoration towards the most helpless citizens of all—babies and children—for reasons that have nothing to do with their future utility. We flourish in caring, on doling out love. The most helpless members of our families and communities are what stick us together. It's how we thrive. Our winters are social glue.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

“The path of least resistance led to hibernation.”
― Ranjani Rao, Rewriting My Happily Ever After - A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery

“I will hibernate with you anytime!”
― Steven Magee

“Call me Jack-the-Bear, for I am in a state of hibernation.”
― Ralph Ellison

“As we know, bears hibernate in caves. They appear almost lifeless. This is an analog to the practices of ancient shamans, and to Sufis who practice the forty-day halvet (retreat), in which the Shaman would enter a cave, have an experience of dying, explore the spiritual realms, and then is reborn as the Initiate or Master (just as the bear is reborn each spring as it “wakes up” and leaves its cave).”
― Laurence Galian, The Sun at Midnight: The Revealed Mysteries of the Ahlul Bayt Sufis

“Living with Justin in his childhood home, my love and I had formed an island—a nation-state of two, sleepy and safe. We had only planned to stay with his family for a few weeks after the wedding—three months had passed. Days in our private culture were peaceful, smooth as a frozen lake, our souls stilled. This life with my in-laws was a comfortable hibernation, easy.”
― Aspen Matis, Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir

“As our little corner of the world prepares for a lengthy winter slumber, many of our animals are already snug in their deep dark burrows sleeping peacefully, while those of us not destined to hibernate remain awake throughout the long dark months that lie ahead.”
― Arlene Stafford-Wilson, Lanark County Christmas

“Fasting is natural, in wintertime most animals do it through hibernation.”
― Steven Magee

“I was researching light deficiency for the book Toxic Light. I closed all my window blinds and kept the home interior relatively dark for several months. It made me super sick, then I started to feel better than before I started and then I became sensitive to sunlight. After my gradual return to sunlight I felt better than before I started.”
― Steven Magee, Toxic Light

“After researching light deficiency in my body, I was severely vitamin D deficient at just 9 ng/mL when I got tested later that year. I started sunbathing to try and fix it and when that did not work, I took high dosing vitamin D supplements for several months and that fixed it.”
― Steven Magee, Toxic Light