Quotes about fire
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“Hey, Mr. Nakata. Gramps. Fire! Flood! Earthquake! Revolution! Godzilla's on the loose! Get!”
Source: Kafka on the Shore
“When the fire goes out, you'll start feeling the cold. You'll wake up whether you want to or not.”
Source: After the Quake
1850s, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852)
Context: At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
“I must feel the fire of my soul so my intellectual blues can set others on fire.”
Source: Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, A Memoir
“Sometimes you don't need lightning to start a fire. Sometimes, it builds on its own.”
Source: Ten Things We Did
“When you have been burned by fire once, you don't leap into the flames again.”
Source: Between the Lines
“Get on fire for God and men will come and see you burn.”
Letter to James E. Yeatman of St. Louis, Vice-President of the Western Sanitary Commission (21 May 1865). As quoted on p. 358, and footnoted on p. 562, in Sherman: A Soldier's Passion For Order https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/080938762X (2007), John F. Marszalek, Southern Illinois University Press, Chapter 15 ('Fame Tarnished')
Variant text: I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers […] it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated […] that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation. […] I declare before God, as a man and a soldier, I will not strike a foe who stands unarmed and submissive before me, but would rather say—‘Go, and sin no more.’
As quoted in Sherman: Merchant of Terror, Advocate of Peace https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1455611891 (1992), Charles Edmund Vetter, Pelican Publishing, p. 289
See the Discussion Page for more extensive sourcing information.
1860s, 1865, Letter to James E. Yeatman (May 1865)
Context: I confess without shame that I am tired & sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. Even success, the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies […] It is only those who have not heard a shot, nor heard the shrills & groans of the wounded & lacerated (friend or foe) that cry aloud for more blood & more vengeance, more desolation & so help me God as a man & soldier I will not strike a foe who stands unarmed & submissive before me but will say ‘Go sin no more.
“I'm playing with fire, with something I don't understand.”
Source: The Awakening
Source: Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants
“Your trousers are on fire. I would have told you, but you so dislike advice…”
The Expanding Universe (1963)
Source: A Wrinkle in Time
Source: The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims
“Our problems started in Dallas, when the fire-breathing sheep destroyed the King Tut exhibit.”
Source: The Serpent's Shadow
Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
“A fire eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself.”
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951), Part III, The Mayors, section 9
Source: Dark Visions
Source: Lover Eternal
Source: Heart-Shaped Box
“I am ashes where once I was fire…”
Source: Selected Poems
“We feel free when we escape, even if it be from the frying pan into the fire.”
Source: Magic Burns
Source: The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film
“Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?”
Doin' It Again, Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics (1990)
Context: Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins. It's as simple as that. The CIA doesn't kill anybody anymore, they neutralize people, or they depopulate the area. The government doesn't lie, it engages in disinformation. The Pentagon actually measures nuclear radiation in something they call sunshine units. Israeli murderers are called commandos, Arab commandos are called terrorists. Contra killers are called freedom fighters. Well, if crime fighters fight crime, and firefighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?
“Water is powerful. It can wash away earth, put out fire, and even destroy iron.”
Source: Memoirs of a Geisha
“Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.”
"Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day" ( full text online http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/calmly-we-walk-through-this-april-s-day/); this poem has also been printed under the title "For Rhoda"
Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge (1959)
Context: Each minute bursts in the burning room,
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
(How all things flash! How all things flare!)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.
“It is one of the great joys of home ownership to fire a pistol in one's own bedroom”
“Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.”
Source: The Road
“Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.”
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