In Celebration of Summer: Songs, Quotes & Photos

What do I love about summer? I love that time passes as slowly and sweetly as honey. I love the way that the world looks when it’s drenched in golden light. I love falling asleep to the steady drone of cicadas and frogs. I love reading in my hammock on lazy summer afternoons. I love the smell of homegrown tomatoes and strawberries (and the taste, it goes without saying!). I love the feeling of sand getting pulled out from beneath my feet at the edge of the ocean.

This post is in honor of summer’s ability to make relaxation a virtue. I’ve curated a selection of summer photos (mine) and summer quotes (not mine) that capture summer’s spirit perfectly. Let me know which summer quotes, photos & songs are your favorites—and enjoy your summer!

F. Scott Fitzgerald:

“With the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”

Roman Payne:

“Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.”

Alison Croggon:

“At these times, the things that troubled her seemed far away and unimportant: All that mattered was the hum of the bees and the chirp of birdsong, the way the sun gleamed on the edge of a blue wildflower.”

Erik Tomblin:

“The morning heat had already soaked through the walls, rising up from the floor like a ghost of summers past.”

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Dan Simmons:

“The beauty of that June day was almost staggering. After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction. The breezes were so caressingly soft and intimate on the skin as to be embarrassing.”

Deb Caletti:

“Summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people. For those few months, you’re not required to be who everyone thinks you are, and that cut-grass smell in the air and the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool give you a courage you don’t have the rest of the year. You can be grateful and easy, with no eyes on you, and no past. Summer just opens the door and lets you out.”

Anna Godbersen:

“How effervescent and free we all felt that summer. Everything fades: the shimmer of gold over White Cove; the laughter in the night air; the lavender early morning light on the faces of skyscrapers, which had suddenly become so heroically tall. Every dawn seemed to promise fresh miracles.”

John Lubbock:

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”

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Shanti:

“At the end of the day your feet should be dirty, your hair messy, and your eyes sparkling.”

John Keats:

“I almost wish we were butterflies and lived but three summer days—three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”

Natalie Babbitt:

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days.”

Adriana Trigiani:

“Summers were always our favorite times; we would eat outdoors under the shade of a tree. After having our fill of food and laughter, we’d pluck ripe figs right off the trees, peel and eat them until the sun disappeared into the blue. I can still taste those summer days, and will always do everything in my power to re-create them.”

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Giovanna Fletcher:

“I love the arrival of a new season—each one bringing with it its own emotion: Spring is full of hope; summer is freedom; autumn is a colourful release, and winter brings an enchanting peace. It’s hard to pick which one I enjoy the most—each time the new one arrives, I remember its beauty and forget the previous one whose qualities have started to dim.”

Haruki Murakami:

“The whiff of ocean on the southern breeze and the smell of burning asphalt brought back memories of summers past. It had seemed as though those sweet dreams of summer would last forever: the warmth of a girl’s skin, an old rock ‘n’ roll song, a freshly washed button-down shirt, the odor of cigarette smoke in a pool changing room, a fleeting premonition.”

Carew Papritz:

“The sun. The heat. The thousand echoes of a timelessness before time, when every day seems longer than the next and no day seems likely to ever truly end.”

Fredrik Sjöberg:

“Every summer there are a number of nights, not many, but a number, when everything is perfect. The light, the warmth, the smells, the mist, the birdsong, the moths. Who can sleep? Who wants to?”

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Ray Bradbury:

“The cicadas sang louder and yet louder. The sun did not rise, it overflowed.”

Ada Louise Huxtable:

“Summer is the time when one sheds one’s tensions with one’s clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all’s right with the world.”

Gertrude Jekyll:

“What is one to say about June? The time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade.”

Nayyirah Waheed:

“If the ocean can calm itself, so can you. We are both salt water mixed with air.”

L.M. Montgomery:

“All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer—one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going—one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.”

John F. Kennedy:

“I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it’s because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it’s because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea—whether it is to sail or to watch it—we are going back from whence we came.”

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Which summer quotes, photos & songs best capture the season’s beauty, in your opinion? What are your favorite ways to celebrate the season? What are you most looking forward to now that the weather’s warming up? Let me know in the comments!

P.S. For more gorgeous summer photos, check out my summer-inspired Pinterest board below!

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