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Dear Readers: Happy New Year! May the following thoughts encourage, enlighten and inspire you as we begin anew in the chapter of 2022.

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language

And next year’s words await another voice.”

— T.S. Eliot, “Four Quartets”

• • •

“In the New Year, never forget to thank your past years because they enabled you to reach today! Without the stairs of the past, you cannot arrive at the future!”

— Mehmet Murat ildan

• • •

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.”

— G.K. Chesterton, “A Chesterton Calendar”

• • •

“We should celebrate every year that we made it through and every year that we’re happier and healthier.”

— Ellen DeGeneres, “Seriously… I’m Kidding”

• • •

“This year, let’s take ownership of our lives and pursue our goals by taking 100 percent responsibility for their realization.”

— Richie Norton

• • •

“New year is another opportunity of seeing life with little more caring, compassion, maturity and beauty.”

• • •

— Amit Ray, “Peace Bliss Beauty and Truth: Living with Positivity”

“You can’t get to where today needs to take you if you’re holding on to yesterday.”

— Toni Sorenson

• • •

“The present is too often squandered grieving the past or fearing the future, which makes the present nothing more than a cheap facsimile of what was or what will be instead of what it could be.”

— Craig D.

Lounsbrough, “An

Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life

and Jesus”

• • •

“Well, we have a whole new year ahead of us. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all be a little more gentle with each other, a little more loving, and have a little more empathy, and maybe, next year at this time we’d like each other a little more.”

— Judy Garland

• • •

“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one!”

— Brad Paisley

• • •

“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke

• • •

And for those of you who are not particularly fond of New Year’s resolutions, some humor to brighten up your day:

“Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever.”

— Mark Twain

Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@creators.com.