Burning Quotes - Page 27

• I was taught that candles are like house cats - domesticated versions of something wild and dangerous. There's no way to know how much of that killer instinct lurks in the darkness. I used to think the house-burning paranoia was the result of some upper-middle-class fear regarding the potential destruction of a half-million-dollar Westchester house the size of a matchbox. But then I realized the fear stemmed from something far less complex: we're not used to fire. Candles are a staple of the Judaic existence and, like many suburban residents before us, we're pretty bad Jews.

  Sloane Crosley

  Cat, Thinking, Fire

  Sloane Crosley (2008). “I Was Told There'd Be Cake”, p.15, Penguin

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• Life is an adventure of passion, risk, danger, laughter, beauty, love; a burning curiosity to go with the action to see what it is all about, to go search for a pattern of meaning, to burn one's bridges because you're never going to go back anyway, and to live to the end.

  Saul Alinsky

  Laughter, Passion, Adventure

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• It was a bad one, the Winter of 1933. Wading home that night through flames of snow, my toes burning, my ears on fire, the snow swirling around me like a flock of angry nuns, I stopped dead in my tracks. The time had come to take stock. Fair weather or foul, certain forces in the world were at work trying to destroy me.

  John Fante

  Home, Winter, Night

  John Fante (2013). “1933 Was A Bad Year”, p.1, Canongate Books

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• There are those who believe destiny rests at the feet of the gods, but the truth is that it confronts the conscious of man with a burning challenge.

  Eduardo Galeano

  Believe, Destiny, Men

  "Open Letter to Joseph Stiglitz, Time to Start 'Re-writing the Rules,' Instead of 'Playing the Old Game!' - Part 2" by Quenby Wilcox, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 20, 2016.

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• A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity.

  Penelope Fitzgerald

  Book, Blood, Purpose

  Penelope Fitzgerald (1978). “The Bookshop”, p.87, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• My young sisters, we have such hope for you. We have such great expectations for you. Don't settle for less than what the Lord wants you to be... Give me a young woman who loves home and family, who reads and ponders the scriptures daily, who has a burning testimony of the Book of Mormon... Give me a young woman who is virtuous and who has maintained her personal purity, who will not settle for less than a temple marriage, and I will give you a young woman who will perform miracles for the Lord now and throughout eternity.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Book, Home, Giving

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• Down the hall came the wife. She was glorious, burning. She didn't know yet that her husband was dead. We knew. That's what gave her such power over us. The doctor took her into a room with a desk at the end of the hall, and from under the closed door a slab of brilliance radiated as if, by some stupendous process, diamonds were being incinerated in there. What a pair of lungs! She shrieked as I imagined an eagle would shriek. It felt wonderful to be alive to hear it! I've gone looking for that feeling everywhere.

  Denis Johnson

  Husband, Doctors, Doors

  "'What a Pair of Lungs!': Denis Johnson’s Ecstatic American Voice" by Philip Gourevitch, www.newyorker.com. May 27, 2017.

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• Blue as the evening sky, blue as cranesbill flowers, blue as the lips of drowned men and the heart of a blaze burning with too hot a flame. Yes, sometimes it was hot in this world, too. Hot and cold, light and dark, terrible and beautiful, it was everything all at once. It wasn't true that you felt nothing in the land of Death. You felt and heard and smelled and saw, but your heart remained strangely calm, as if it were resting before the dance began again. Peace. Was that the word?

  Cornelia Funke

  Beautiful, Flower, Heart

  Cornelia Funke (2011). “Inkdeath”, p.230, Scholastic Inc.

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• The first building she reached appeared to be an old barn. Only one young guard stood before its bolted door, staring at her with wide eyes, holding up his sword in defense, She heated his sword and he dropped it, his expression barely changing, as if he had been expecting that. She held up her two swords to his throat, but they were two heavy, so she dropped one and held the other with both hands. "Where are the two Bayern boys kept?" The soldier shook his head. BURN HIM, prompted the fire. The excitement of burning was simmering in her, heating her up for more action.

  Shannon Hale

  Eye, Boys, Two

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• Funny thing about those Middle Ages, said Joseph. "They just keep coming back. Mortals keep thinking they're in Modern Times, you know, they get all this neat technology and pass all these humanitarian laws, and then something happens: there's an economic crisis, or science makes some discovery people can't deal with. And boom, people go right back to burning Jews and selling pieces of the true Cross. Don't you ever make the mistake of thinking that mortals want to live in a golden age. They hate thinking.

  Kage Baker

  Mistake, Hate, Technology

  Kage Baker (2005). “In the Garden of Iden”, p.217, Macmillan

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• Violence up close has a smell. Like copper blood and charcoal burning.

  Jodi Picoult

  Blood, Smell, Violence

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• No one can give a definition of the soul. But we know what it feels like. The soul is the sense of something higher than ourselves, something that stirs in us thoughts, hopes, and aspirations which go out to the world of goodness, truth and beauty. The soul is a burning desire to breathe in this world of light and never to lose it--to remain children of light.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Children, Light, Giving

  Albert Schweitzer (1979). “Reverence for Life”, p.78, Ardent Media

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• You don't know. When I'm out there at night I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and fingernails, everything, it's like I'm full of electricity and I'm glowing in the dark - I'm on fire almost - I'm burning away into nothing - but it doesn't matter because I know exactly who I am.

  Tim O'Brien

  Moving, Dark, Night

  Tim O'Brien (2009). “The Things They Carried”, p.106, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• You cannot lift another soul until you are standing on higher ground than he is. You cannot light a fire in another soul unless it is burning in your own soul.

  Harold B. Lee

  Fire, Light, Higher Ground

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• The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding--which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together--blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author . . .

  Daniel Handler

  Book, Sadness, Thinking

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• In any case, fire burns; that's its nature, and you can't expect to change that. You can use it to cook your meat or to burn down your neighbor's house. And is the fire you use for cooking any different from the one you use for burning? And does that mean you should eat your supper raw?" Maddy shook her head, still puzzled. "So what you're saying is . . . I shouldn't play with fire," she said at last. Of course you should," said One-Eye gently. "But don't be surprised if the fire plays back.

  Joanne Harris

  Eye, Mean, Fire

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• Have you ever seen the dawn? Not a dawn groggy with lack of sleep or hectic with mindless obligations and you about to rush off on an early adventure or business, but full of deep silence and absolute clarity of perception? A dawning which you truly observe, degree by degree. It is the most amazing moment of birth. And more than anything it can spur you to action. Have a burning day.

  Vera Nazarian

  Good Morning, Sleep, Adventure

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• He was alone in the darkness once more, but the darkness became brighter and brighter until it was burning like the sun.

  Neil Gaiman

  Darkness, Sun, Brighter

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• This is the worst problem with living history museums. They always leave the best parts out. Like typhus. And opium. And scarlet letters. Shunning. Witch-burning.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Museums, Letters, Shunning

  Chuck Palahniuk (2011). “Choke”, p.29, Random House

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• There's one tiny little gap in the universe left, just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection. I'm in orbit around a supernova. I'm burning up a sun just to say good bye.

  Russell T Davies

  Goodbye, Orbit, Littles

  "Fictional character: The Doctor". TV Series "Doctor Who" ("Doomsday", 2006), www.imdb.com. (2005 - ).

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• Atheism, true 'existential' atheism burning with hatred of a seemingly unjust or unmerciful God, is a spiritual state; it is a real attempt to grapple with the true God.… Nietzsche, in calling himself Antichrist, proved thereby his intense hunger for Christ.

  Seraphim Rose

  Spiritual, Real, Hatred

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• Roxane: His face is like yours, burning with spirit and imagination. He is proud and noble and young and fearless and beautiful- Cyrano:(losing all his colour.) Beautiful! Roxane: Yes. What's wrong? Cyrano: With me? Nothing. It's only... only... (Displaying his bandaged hand, with a little smile.) This fatal wound.

  Edmond Rostand

  Beautiful, Hands, Imagination

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• And why does it make you sad to see how everything hangs by such thin and whimsical threads? Because you’re a dreamer, an incredible dreamer, with a tiny spark hidden somewhere inside you which cannot die, which even you cannot kill or quench and which tortures you horribly because all the odds are against its continual burning. In the midst of the foulest decay and putrid savagery, this spark speaks to you of beauty, of human warmth and kindness, of goodness, of greatness, of heroism, of martyrdom, and it speaks to you of love.

  Eldridge Cleaver

  Love, Kindness, Greatness

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• It was Lorraine in her nightie and Mo in his cap. They'd just settled their brains for a long winter's nap in front of the television. When out in the lot there arose such a clatter, they sprang from their recliners to see what was the matter. Away to the window they flew like a flash, tore open the blinds and threw up the sash. And what to their wondering eyes should appear, but Stephanie Plum and yet another of her cars burning front to rear.

  Janet Evanovich

  Eye, Winter, Naps

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• You are working up to Mr. Fantastic Fiction levels of Zombie Expert, which is like playing Guitar Hero on some level that actually melts the guitar controller, burning your fingers with searing hot plastic till you scream in pain. Only with words. And zombies.

  Libba Bray

  Pain, Hero, Guitar

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