“Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect”

Brooks Atkinson (1894-1984),  the New York (NY) Times theatre critic from 1925 to 1960, wrote in the book Once Around the Sun (1951):
 
“Drop the last year in the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go….Let us remember it as something that must never be repeated….Tomorrow comes to us untarnished by human living….The Chinese word for tomorrow means ‘bright day.’ There is the wisdom of sages and the rapture of poets in that cheerful image.”
 
Atkinson’s lines have been frequently cited every New Year’s Eve.
   
 
Wikipedia: Brooks Atkinson
Justin Brooks Atkinson (November 28, 1894 – January 14, 1984) was an American theatre critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1925 to 1960. In his obituary, the Times called him “the theater’s most influential reviewer of his time.”
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Once around the sun.
Author: Brooks Atkinson
Publisher: New York, Harcourt, Brace [1951]
Edition/Format:   Print book : English : [1st ed.]
   
28 May 1951, St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch. pg. 28, col. 6:
Day by Day Musings
ONCE AROUND THE SUN, by Brooks Atkinson. (Harcourt, Brace & Co., 376 pgs., $4.)
(...)
“Drop the last year in the silent limbo of the past,” he concludes on Dec. 31. “Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go….Let us remember it as something that must never be repeated….Tomorrow comes to us untarnished by human living….The Chinese word for tomorrow means ‘bright day.’ There is the wisdom of sages and the rapture of poets in that cheerful image.”
 
So be it.
ALVIN H. GOLDSTEIN
   
Google Books
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teacher Tales:
101 Inspirational Stories from Great Teachers and Appreciative Students
By Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Amy Newmark
Cos Cob, CT: Chicken Soup for the Soul Pub.
2009
Pg. ?:
Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go. ~Brooks Atkinson
 
Google Books
Resolutions & Reflections for the New Year:
A Time for Creative Change
By Alicia Brent
Published by author
2014
Pg. ?:
Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.
Brooks Atkinson
 
Twitter
Ocean’s 17 YYC
‏@Oceans17YYC
Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God it can go~B. Atkinson #yycnye #yyc
6:53 PM - 28 Dec 2016 from Calgary, Alberta