Some book lovers prefer springtime reading above any other season. It makes sense, especially after a long, dark, cold winter. When spring has sprung, readers head outside to read in gardens. To celebrate the season, here are 10 of the best literary quotes about spring.

1. “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”―Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard’s Egg

2. “It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”―Rainer Maria Rilke

3. “I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older.”―Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room

4. “Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.”―Vladimir Nabokov, Mary

5. “The deep roots never doubt spring will come.”―Marty Rubin

6. “That is one good thing about this world…there are always sure to be more springs.”―L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

7. “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”―Pablo Neruda

8. “What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms.”
― Kobayashi Issa, Poems

9. “Spring is the time of plans and projects.”―Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

10. “It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want—oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”―Mark Twain

Related: 10 Reasons Why Spring Is The Best Season To Read