Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If you look at Christmas movies, there are certain things in them that lend themselves to a 'Harold & Kumar' movie. In particular, the more out-of-this-world things like Santa Claus and flying reindeer.
My dad was a slightly stricter version of Richard Dawkins. The worldview was that there are idiots out there who believe in Santa Claus and fairies and magic and elves, and we're not joining that nonsense.
I was sending off my plays almost like an 8-year-old would send letters to Santa Claus. So it was a bit of a miracle when the Blank Theatre Company actually called and selected a terrible little play that I wrote.
I'm writing a book called 'The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus' about the maths of Christmas: how to set up a secret Santa so it's totally fair; how to decorate your tree mathematically; how to win at Monopoly.
As children, we have vivid imaginations. We stay up late waiting for Santa Claus, dream of becoming president, and have ideas that defy physics. Then something happens. As we grow older, we start editing our imagination.
I remember arguing with kids on the street who were talking about Santa Claus. I said don't be so daft - Santa Claus doesn't come down our chimney. He's an economic Santa Claus; he goes down chimneys where they've got money.
I have memories of the time when I was younger and when I believed in Santa Claus, which was the best part of Christmas. Back then, I wrote to Santa every year, hoping that my mom would post the letter with a stamp to the North Pole!
Obama's gonna play Santa Claus with the minimum wage. He's got no successes to brag about. He cannot talk about a robust job market. In fact, the very fact he's talking about the minimum wage is evidence there is no robust job market.
The idea of God as a fatherly figure who looks down on us and worries about how we're doing or takes sides when we have fights - it's more irritating than Santa Claus. The world and the universe are far more wonderful if there's not a puppet master.
The Grateful Dead were very kind. It was Santa Claus. It did good things. It allowed other people to benefit. The benefits that we played were enormous, and we played free. So you've got a band that loves to play free, and that was a wonderful thing.
The first sort of big present I remember getting from Santa Claus was quite a small telescope that I remember going into our backyard with my parents and figuring out how to assemble, and staring at the night sky, just for hours, with both of my parents.
When we were growing up, Christmas used to be very different and Santa Claus used to come to us with so many gifts and we'd have a whole bunch of gifts waiting at our bedside. I still remember the thrill that we felt when we would open the wrapped gifts.
For me growing up, Christmas time was always the most fantastic, exciting time of year, and you'd stay up until three in the morning. You'd hear the parents wrapping in the other room but you knew that also, maybe, they were in collusion with Santa Claus.
We have domesticated God's transcendence. We often learn about God at about the same time as we are learning about Santa Claus; but our ideas about Santa Claus change, mature and become more nuanced, whereas our ideas of God can remain at a rather infantile level.
When I was a child, I always went to my grandmother's house in Nuremberg for Christmas. My uncle would leave the room, saying he needed the toilet, and then he would reappear dressed as Santa Claus. I was really scared - I'd have to go and hide behind an armchair.
When I was 21 years old, I had a job playing Santa Claus in a shopping centre in Sacramento. I was rail thin, so it's not like I was a traditional Santa Claus even then. I had a square stomach; that was the shape of the sofa cushion that I had stuffed into my pants.
I don't really care what people tell children - when you believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, one more fib won't hurt. But I am infuriated by the growing notion, posited in some touchy-feely quarters, that all women are, or can be, beautiful.
As Michael Scheuer, who ran the C.I.A.'s bin Laden unit until 1999, has pointed out, if bin Laden believed in Christmas, the Iraq war would be his perfect present from Santa Claus. The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan severely damaged bin Laden's organization.
I'm concerned about my daughter because she will not believe in Santa Claus. No matter what I say to her, she just doesn't buy it, and she's 2. I refuse to give it up. I say, 'There is a Santa Claus,' and she says, 'Okay, Mommy. In pretend world, right?' She really doesn't believe.
When I was 17, I grew from being something like 5'2'' to 6 foot - I grew a lot - and I don't remember growing... I feel like the same thing is true of writing. You're waiting for Santa Claus to come down the chimney, but you just fall asleep at some point, and then the magic happens.
I decided to grow my hair out during college, and it's kind of stuck ever since. Even when I thought about cutting it or trimming it, common sense kicks in, and I don't think the fans would recognize me; people wouldn't know who I am. It would almost be like Santa Claus losing his powers.
No matter what, I always make it home for Christmas. I love to go to my Tennessee Mountain Home and invite all of my nieces and nephews and their spouses and kids and do what we all like to do - eat, laugh, trade presents and just enjoy each other... and sometimes I even dress up like Santa Claus!
For a time, I believed not in God nor Santa Claus, but in mermaids. They seemed as logical and possible to me as the brittle twig of a seahorse in the zoo aquarium or the skates lugged up on the lines of cursing Sunday fishermen - skates the shape of old pillowslips with the full, coy lips of women.
When I was little, my mom would dress me up and take me downtown on the Carondelet bus, which in itself was exciting. We would go to see Santa Claus at Famous-Barr. The decorations were so pretty. The line was long, but that just gave me more time to enjoy Santa's Toyland. I loved every minute of it.
When I was a kid, I really wanted a metal detector for Christmas, convinced I was going to find buried treasure and could retire at 12. Santa Claus brought me one, but sadly, that treasure was never realized. It's amazing how many bottle caps you have to dig up. But to be honest, that dream is still alive.
I think we've taken the meaning of Christmas out. People don't stop and think about Jesus or the birth of Jesus. When they think of Christmas, they think of Santa Claus and - for the children, and they think of giving gifts and out-giving the next person of spending their time looking for the right thing for somebody who has everything.
I had this grand idea that Elvira's kind of the Santa Claus of Halloween - at the malls, you'd have an Elvira there. Girls would dress as Elvira just like guys dress as Santa Claus, and it's not the real thing, but they'll pose for pictures, sign autographs. Of course, I couldn't go around to every mall, so we'd have to get more Elviras.
At the heart of every really good Christmas movie is the threat, I suppose, to Christmas. Something is wrong with Christmas, in all of these movies. In 'The Polar Express,' there's a kid that doesn't really believe, and that's the threat to Christmas. In 'Santa Claus: The Movie,' jealousy and greed are threatening to overrun his Christmas.