Quotes about burning
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“She remember her granny telling her, 'Men are like coal boilers, Ellie. If you find a man you reckon to keep, you got to feed his belly every day, make him burn for you, then release some steam purty regular, or you ain't ever gonna get him to work.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Lothaire

Men

“Your lifeline…oh, the burning stick. Right.” Leo resisted the urge to set his hand ablaze and yell: Bwah ha ha! The idea was sort of funny, but he wasn’t that cruel.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Idea

“I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Queen of the Black Coast" (1934)
Source: Conan the Barbarian Omnibus -The Original Stories
Context: He shrugged his shoulders. "I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."

Love, Life

“The good die first, and they whose hearts are dry as summer dust, burn to the socket.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Heart, Summer

“Some men go a lifetime and never have their kid blow up a car, but I have a daughter who's knocked off three cars and burned down a funeral home. Maybe that's some kind of record.”

Janet Evanovich Four to Score

Source: Four to Score

Men, Cars, Home, Daughters

“When life descends into the pit
I must become my own candle
Willingly burning my self
To light up the darkness around me.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Life, Light

“I hope your bacon burns.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Hope

“remember that every fire will burn itself out, even without your help.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Help

“Behind every erotic condemnation there's a burning hypocrite.”

Susie Bright (1958) American writer and feminist

“I was the girl he had chosen to kiss. He wanted, somehow to set me free. He didn't want to burn my photo or toss it away, but he didn't want to look at me anymore, either.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Photo, Girl, Kiss

“When I got the chance
I asked them a slew of questions.
They offered to burn me;
it was the only thing they knew.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Question, Chance

“Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge book The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Source: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Heart

“I learned that in each of us there burns a flame of independence that must never be allowed to go out. That as long as it exists within us we cannot be destroyed.”

Bryce Courtenay The Power of One

Source: The Power of One

Learning

“Fiery the Angels rose, and as they rose deep thunder roll'd
Around their shores: indignant burning with the fires of Orc.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

America, A Prophecy.
1800s
Source: America: A Prophecy/Europe: A Prophecy: Facsimile Reproductions of Two Illuminated Books

Angels

“Those who don't build must burn. It's as old as history and juvenile delinquents.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Variant: Those who don't build must burn.
Source: Fahrenheit 451

History

“Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth

People, Books, Time, Reading

“She's a librarian, Sim said. They're not teachers; don't give you half as much hassle. If there's a fire in the school and I've got to choose who I'm gonna save - a teacher or a librarian - the teacher's gonna burn every time.
(p. 24)”

Keith Gray (1963) American basketball player

Source: Ostrich Boys

School, Teachers, Time

“As it stands right now, I lead Richard Pryor in heart attacks, two to one. However, Richard still leads me, one to nothing, in burning yourself up.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Heart

“Coloured people don't like. Burn it. White people don't feel good about. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

People, Books, Feeling

“Rae burned me. She has matches or something. Look, look…" Tori pulled down the collar of her T-shirt.
"Leave your cloths on, Tori," Simon said, raising his hands to his eyes. "Please.”

Kelley Armstrong book The Summoning

Source: The Summoning

Clothes

“The entire time I'm burning in Hell, I'll regret each tear I made you weep. But if Hell were the price for twenty days with you, I'd condemn myself again and again.

- Cian MacKeltar”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Spell of the Highlander

Hell, Tear, Time

“Love is a fire/It burns everyone/It disfigures everyone/It is the world's excuse for being ugly.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Love, World

“And a special thanks for not burning up the whole ship. Including yourself, you daft bum-rag.”

Scott Westerfeld book Leviathan

Source: Leviathan

“Oh Lord please don't burn us don't kill or toast your flock. Don't put us on the barbecue or simmer us in stock. Don't bake or baste or boil us or stir-fry us in a wok.”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

“ANYTHING will burn with enough gasoline and dynamite.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

“I am burning myself up and will always do so.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

“my candle burns at both ends it will not last the night but arh my friends and oh my foes it gives a lovely light”

Roald Dahl book Boy

Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); said to be a motto Roald Dahl lived by.
Misattributed
Variant: My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.
Source: Boy: Tales of Childhood

Love, Light, Night

“The orange flames waved at the crowd as paper and print dissolved inside them. Burning words were torn from their sentences.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“Like a flame is real enough, isn't it, while it's burning?-even if there's a time it goes out?”

Joyce Carol Oates book Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang

Source: Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang

Time

“Letters are just pieces of paper," I said. "Burn them, and what stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Heart

“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.”

Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker

Motivation, Light, Chance, Motivational

“In terms of evolutionary history, it was only yesterday that men learned to walk around on two legs and get in trouble thinking complicated thoughts. So don't worry, you'll burn out.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Men, History, Thinking, Learning

“A need for revenge can burn long and hot. Especially if every glance in a mirror reinforces it.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Revenge

“The last time I was at a supernatural shindig, I got poisoned and then everything there tried to kill me. So I burned the whole place to the ground.”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Time

“That thing that looks like me but isn't? He'll burn down the world if Sebastian wants him to, and laugh while he's doing it. That's what you're saving, Clary.. Don't you understand? I'd rather be dead”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

World, Understanding, Dead

“the way to create art is to burn and destroy
ordinary concepts and to substitute them
with new truths that run down from the top of the head
and out of the heart”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Truth, Art, Way, Heart

“I wish I had cancer. I will burn in hell for that, but it's true.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

Hell

“And we must fight back! President Snow says he's sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that? Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss (pp. 105-106)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Context: "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. [... ] 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. [... ] This is what they do! And we must fight back! [... ] President Snow says he's sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?" We're with the camera, tracking to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse. Tight on the Capitol seal on a wing, which melts back into the image of my face, shouting at the president. "Fire is catching! And if we burn... you burn with us!"

Fight

“Not a visible enthusiasm but a hidden one, an excitement burning with a cold flame.”

Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter

Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“Burned and squashed to death in a silver vat of soup. There must be worst ways to go. But not many.”

Jonathan Stroud book Ptolemy's Gate

Source: Ptolemy's Gate

Death, Way

“I'm a candle flame that sways in currents of air you can't see. You need to be the one who steadies me to burn.”

Nadine Gordimer book The House Gun

Source: The House Gun

“He wanted to hit something or someone. He wanted to burn up the whole world, heal it, and burn it down again.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

World

“I know that sometimes the things we carry become too much for us. We are burned down, but somehow we have to pick ourselves up and keep going”

Paullina Simons book The Summer Garden

Source: The Summer Garden

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl

Howl (1956)

Madness, Night

“You think I'm not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you'll burn.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Thinking

“the fallen leaves in the forest seemed to make even the ground glow and burn with light”

Malcolm Lowry (1909–1957) British writer

Source: October Ferry To Gabriola

Light

“Is it fair your life burns so short and bright? Death had asked.

"No such thing as fair," Frank told himself. "If I'm going to burn, it might as well be bright.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Life, Death

“Melt all the guns, I thought, break the knives, burn the guillotines-and the malicious will still write letters that kill.”

Ray Bradbury book Death Is a Lonely Business

Source: Death Is a Lonely Business

“I will make Maggie safe. If the world burns because of that then so be it. Me and the kid will roast some marshmallows.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

World

“I burn the way money burns.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Money, Way

“Remember in elementary school you were told that in case of fire you have to line up quietly in a single file from smallest to tallest? What is the logic in that? What, do tall people burn slower?”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

People, School

“I'm not senile," I snapped. "If I burn the house down it will be on purpose.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

Housing

“If I run or breathe too deep, the cheap stitches holding me together will snap, and all the stickiness inside will pour out and burn through the concrete.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“He'd burn the whole world down til he could dig out you of the ashes.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

World

“Magnus thought of James Herondale, burning up with too much light, too much love, too much, too much- while the boy in the portrait was as lovely as a dying poet, with the fragile beauty of a candle about to gutter out.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Source: The Bane Chronicles

Love, Beauty, Boy, Light

“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 book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Love

“Mark my words, nothing smells worse than burned scorpion.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Anger

“Cast me into a dungeon;, burn me at the state, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

Men, God, Happiness

“If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Life, Books, Soul

“… some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Michael Caine movie The Dark Knight

Movie The Dark Knight, character Alfred Pennyworth

Men, Money, World

“Regrets and apologies are all very well, but there's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them. They're like brands.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

Source: Mutiny on the Bounty

Life, Memory, Heart, Personality

“I am not like
other people.
I am
burning in hell. the hell of
myself.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

People, Hell

“That though he is weak, he can still burn.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Bright star,” Magnus said, and his eyes were thoughtful, as if he were remembering something, or someone. “Those of you who are mortal, you burn so fiercely. And you fiercer than most, Will. I will not ever forget you.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Star, Forgetting

“Sir Beldevere: What makes you think she's a witch?
Peasant 3: Well, she turned me into a newt!
Sir Beldevere: A newt?
Peasant 3: [meekly after a long pause]… I got better.
Crowd: [shouts] Burn her anyway!”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

Source: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Book): Mønti Pythøn Ik Den Hølie Gräilen

Thinking

“And if we burn, you burn with us.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Variant: Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!
Source: Mockingjay

“And how I watched my little sister become a human torch. Closing my eyes doesn't help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Sister, Help

“There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

World, Light, Heart

“Up in my business Always burning Oracles Romans gonna hate”

Rick Riordan book The Hidden Oracle

Source: The Hidden Oracle

Hate, Business

“Mad people = People who stand alone and burn.
I'm attracted to them because they give me permission to do the same.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

People, Madness

“Every man or woman who makes a stand helps keep the flame of freedom burning.”

Juliet Marillier book Shadowfell

Source: Shadowfell

Freedom, Help

“Do you ever read any of the books you burn?"
He laughed. "That's against the law!"
"Oh. Of course.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Books, Law, Reading

“No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

“You have never loved me as I love you--never--never! Yours is not a passionate heart--your heart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, a sort of fay, or sprite-- not a woman!”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Source: Jude the Obscure

Love, Passion, Heart

“All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

“I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all mean are created free and equal.”

Seth Grahame-Smith (1976) US fiction author

Source: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Hope

“If she’d been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Source: A&P: Lust in the Aisles

Time

“I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips.”

Violette Leduc (1907–1972) French writer

Source: Mad in Pursuit

Music, Solitude, Grass, Summer

“We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

We Didn't Start the Fire.
Song lyrics, Storm Front (1989)

World, Light, Fight

“Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window, and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22 (1961)
Context: Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably.... It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.

Secret

“Love is not a candle burning down. Life is. And love and life are not the same or else Love, having choice, nobody would ever die.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

Love, Life

“The heart may freeze, or it can burn. The pain will ease and I can learn. There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as, my last.”

Jonathan Larson (1960–1996) American composer and playwright

Source: Rent: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical

Pain, Learning, Past, Future

“I wondered if I should start a small fire in Percy Jackson's sink, perhaps burn some bandages in thanks, but I decided that might strain that Jackson's hospitality.”

Rick Riordan book The Hidden Oracle

Source: The Hidden Oracle