One of the most perfect feasts of the year is the one called April Fool's Day. It is the day of practical jokes, and by that perfect artistic instinct that endures in the heart of humanity it was fixed for a day in early spring.

For spring is a practical joke. You cannot imagine anyone trying to make anyone an April Fool in October. The April Fool symbolises (and experiences) the three great qualities of April, its expectancy, its gaiety, and its disappointment. Mankind made this joke at this particular time of the year because this particular time of the year is full of such bright uncertainty. I put my head out of window and see white patches which, by this time of the year, might well be white narcissus. Then I find they are only snow: and Nature, rocking with laughter down to her remotest chasms and caves, roars with laughter and thunders 'April Fool!'

-Lunacy and Letters (collection of essays published posthumously in 1958)