Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting
and autumn a mosaic of them all.

— Stanley Horowitz

Today, as Jeff also has noted, is the autumn equinox, also known in the pagan calendar as Mabon. Today is the day of equal light and darkness; from now until the winter solstice the nights will begin to lengthen as the days grow shorter.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns.

— George Eliot

August is my favorite season of the year. I relish the crisp tang in the air and deliciously musty smells of fading leaves and rising smoke, the cooling temperatures as the heat and humidity of the DC summer begin to abate, the opportunity to break out my turtlenecks and sweaters (though I miss my camp and Hawaiian shirts), the beautiful fall colors, crisp apples and yummy yams, and Halloween. I truly feel more alive in October and November than any other time of the year.

There is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been!

— Percy Bysshe Shelley