After August’s late summer humidity and September’s lingering light comes brisk, breezy October. The month is considered autumn’s peak in the Northern Hemisphere, where it’s usually accompanied by fall foliage at its most colorful and resplendent. Many also associate the month and its increasingly lengthy nights with its trademark holiday, Halloween. While ghosts, ghouls, and other such spookiness may indeed abound, there’s a more wondrous side to October, too.
Cloudless blue skies and falling jewel-toned leaves lend October’s transitional weather an ethereal, even exhilarating feel. Depending on where we live, children being back in school and local Friday night football games can also induce an air of nostalgia. Author A.A. Milne of Winnie-the-Pooh fame once compared the “essence of October” to the “crispness [of] celery.” There’s plenty to appreciate as the quieter seasons settle in, from all things apple- and pumpkin-flavored to cozy, chilly evenings spent curled up at home.
Whether you’re struggling to let go of summer or you’re thrilled to welcome cooler days, we hope these quotes help you embrace the month of October in all its splendor.
I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t they give you a thrill?Lucy Maud Montgomery
O hushed October morning mild, / Begin the hours of this day slow. / Make the day seem to us less brief. / Hearts not averse to being beguiled, / Beguile us in the way you know.Robert Frost
I remember it as October days are always remembered, cloudless, maple-flavored, the air gold and so clean it quivers.Leif Enger
October had tremendous possibility. The summer's oppressive heat was a distant memory, and the golden leaves promised a world full of beautiful adventures. They made me believe in miracles.Sarah Guillory
October, crisp, misty, golden October, when the light is sweet and heavy.Angela Carter
O suns and skies and clouds of June, / And flowers of June together, / Ye cannot rival for one hour / October's bright blue weather.Helen Hunt Jackson
It was one of those last wonderful days in October, when the air is balmy and the faded sun tries to pretend it's spring.Jacqueline Susann
October is a fine and dangerous season … It is dry and cool and the land is wild with red and gold and crimson, and all the lassitudes of August have seeped out of your blood, and you are full of ambition. It is a wonderful time to begin anything at all.Thomas Merton
Listen! the wind is rising, / and the air is wild with leaves, / we have had our summer evenings: / now for October eves!Humbert Wolfe
The last warm sun of the year slanted red through the sugar maples … You don’t waste October sunshine.Katherine Arden
Today, in October sun, it’s all gold — sky and tree and water. Everything just before it changes looks to be made of gold.Eudora Welty
Featured image credit: Aneta_Gu/ Shutterstock
