An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.

(Bill Vaughn) 

New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.

(Hamilton Wright Mabie, American writer)