Burning Quotes

“They say a good love is one that sits you down, gives you a drink of water, and pats you on top of the head. But I say a good love is one that casts you into the wind, sets you ablaze, makes you burn through the skies and ignite the night like a phoenix; the kind that cuts you loose like a wildfire and you can't stop running simply because you keep on burning everything that you touch! I say that's a good love; one that burns and flies, and you run with it!”
― C. JoyBell C.

“We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.”
― Tennessee Williams, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

“The stars are brilliant at this time of night
and I wander these streets like a ritual I don’t dare to break
for darling, the times are quite glorious.

I left him by the water’s edge,
still waving long after the ship was gone
and if someone would have screamed my name I wouldn’t have heard for I’ve said goodbye so many times in my short life that farewells are a muscular task and I’ve taught them well.
There’s a place by the side of the railway near the lake where I grew up and I used to go there to burry things and start anew.
I used to go there to say goodbye.
I was young and did not know many people but I had hidden things inside that I never dared to show and in silence I tried to kill them,
one way or the other,
leaving sin on my body
scrubbing tears off with salt
and I built my rituals in farewells.
Endings I still cling to.

So I go to the ocean to say goodbye.

He left that morning, the last words still echoing in my head
and though he said he’d come back one day I know a broken promise from a right one
for I have used them myself and there is no coming back.
Minds like ours are can’t be tamed and the price for freedom is the price we pay.

I turned away from the ocean
as not to fall for its plea
for it used to seduce and consume me
and there was this one night
a few years back and I was not yet accustomed to farewells
and just like now I stood waving long after the ship was gone.
But I was younger then and easily fooled
and the ocean was deep and dark and blue
and I took my shoes off to let the water freeze my bones.
I waded until I could no longer walk and it was too cold to swim but still I kept on walking at the bottom of the sea for I could not tell the difference between the ocean and the lack of someone I loved and I had not yet learned how the task of moving on is as necessary as survival.

Then days passed by and I spent them with my work
and now I’m writing letters I will never dare to send.
But there is this one day every year or so
when the burden gets too heavy
and I collect my belongings I no longer need
and make my way to the ocean to burn and drown and start anew
and it is quite wonderful, setting fire to my chains and flames on written words
and I stand there, starring deep into the heat until they’re all gone.
Nothing left to hold me back.

You kissed me that morning as if you’d never done it before and never would again and now I write another letter that I will never dare to send, collecting memories of loss
like chains wrapped around my veins,
and if you see a fire from the shore tonight
it’s my chains going up in flames.

The time of moon i quite glorious.
We could have been so glorious.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, You're Doing Just Fine

“It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“It occurred to me that my cheek was probably right over his tattoo. Without thinking, I lifted my face and tugged at the neckline of his T-shirt. This time, the stark black-and-gold mark wasn't hidden. No need for that spell anymore, I guess. Still, I covered it with my palm. Archer's hands clutched reflexively on my waist. Our eyes met. "It doesn't burn this time," I whispered.

His breathing was ragged. "Beg to differ, Mercer.”
― Rachel Hawkins, Demonglass

“I often find that people confuse inner peace with some sense of insensibility whenever something goes wrong. In such cases inner peace is a permit for destruction: The unyielding optimist will pretend that the forest is not burning either because he is too lazy or too afraid to go and put the fire out.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“The world is violent and mercurial--it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love--love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.”
― Tennessee Williams

“Maybe you who condemn me are in greater fear than I who am condemned.”
― Giordano Bruno

“the intensity
in your eyes

burns my pen
as i write.”
― Sanober Khan, A touch, a tear, a tempest

“You kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire. He had wondered once why love was always phrased in terms of burning. The conflagration in his own veins, now, gave the answer.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I'm right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women and children. There will be no survivors." The shock I've been feeling begins to give way to fury. "I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there's a cease-fire, you're deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do." My hands go out automatically, as if to indicate the whole horror around me. "This is what they do and we must fight back!"

"President Snow says he's sending a message. Well I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?" One of the cameras follows where I point to the planes burning on the roof of a warehouse across from us. "Fire is catching!" I am shouting now, determined he will not miss a word of it, "And if we burn, you burn with us!”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“and everything burned in blue, everything a star”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

“my dear, I have nothing to say.
my heart burns
like the evening sky.”
― Sanober Khan

“The moment we feel smothered by an unbearable emptiness in our lives, let us give way to the burning urge to 'suspend time,' and create space to build 'content' and ‘scope’ for a new reality. ("Words had disappeared”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“At the end of her life she was aware of heat but not pain. She had time to consider his eyes, eyes of that blue which is the color of the sky at first light of the morning. She had time to think of him on the Drop, riding Rusher flat out with his black hair flying back from his temples and his neckerchief rippling; to see him laughing with an ease and freedom he would never find again in the long life which stretched out for him beyond hers, and it was his laughter she took with her as she went out, fleeing the light and heat in to the silkly, consoling dark, calling to him over and over as she went, calling bird and bear and hare and fish.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“How I wish I was like the water,
Flowing so freely with every drop
Let my every emotion wonder,
No need to start, nor even stop
How I wish I was like the fire,
Burning with every flame up
Leaving a trace of hot desire
As a Phoenix raises its' wings up
How I wish I was like the earth,
Raising each flower from the ground
Seeing the beauty of death and birth
And then returning to the ground
How I wish I was like the wind,
Hearing each whisper, sound and thought
A lonesome and wandering little wind,
Shattering all that has been sought
Oh, how I wish I was where you are,
Not separated by empty space, so far
It seems like we're galaxies apart,
But we find hope within our heart
And how I wish I was all of the above,
So I can come below and yet forget,
The beauty of angels which come down like a dove
And demons who love with no regret.”
― Virgil Kalyana Mittata Iordache

“I am Envy...I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned.”
― Christopher Marlowe

“Too bad we don't have marshmallows. This is an amazing fire." Howard emerged through the smoke behind Edilio.”
― Michael Grant, Lies

“Books want to burn,' he says. 'They go up like that because - they're unstable, memories don't want to stay...”
― Bridget Collins, The Binding

“It's just me throwing myself at you,
romance as usual, us times us,

not lust but moxibustion,
a substance burning close

to the body as possible
without risk of immolation.”
― Alice Fulton

“It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree.”
― Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

“The world has a very serious problem, my friend' Shiva went on. 'Poor children still die by their millions. Westerners and the global rich -- like me -- live in post-scarcity society, while a billion people struggle to get enough to eat. And we're pushing the planet towards a tipping point, where the corals die and the forests burn and life becomes much, much harder. We have the resources to solve those problems, even now, but politics and economics and nationalism all get in the way. If we could access all those minds, though...”
― Ramez Naam, Crux

“I feel like a campfire, like I could burn for days.”
― Becky Albertalli, Leah on the Offbeat

“I burned all our bridges - not knowing that love knows how to swim.”
― Laura Chouette

“the two girls emanated an incorrigible idle inertia.”
― William Faulkner, Barn Burning and other stories

“Everything burns...you just gotta know what kind of fire to set.”
― Obie Williams, The Crimes of Orphans

“Burning the witch Giordano Bruno is one more wound inflicted on Christ’s body.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, The Sun Watches the Sun

“Is it a world in the making

that turns as it whistles to the depths of my being

It is burning

Suppose it were to appear

A bleeding rosary at the window

a sun setting on the marshlands

("Silver Clasp")”
― Paul Dermée, The Cubist Poets in Paris: An Anthology

“When you sever ties with the unit purely for self-serving intentions, you are likely to find yourself stranded and struggling to survive; fighting to keep your head above water. What’s more, there is no one to save you because you’ve turned your back on your comrades and snubbed your support system.”
― Carlos Wallace, The Other 99 T.Y.M.E.S: Train Your Mind to Enjoy Serenity

“He was a late night
shot of bourbon
the taste of him
left me burning
with mouth on fire
body full of desire.”
― Melody Lee, Moon Gypsy