Bonfire Quotes & Sayings

I walk through the streets as if I was burning in some eternal bonfire. — Floriano Martins

There's a very big part of me that just wants to take all of comics history and toss it on the bonfire. I'd sort of like to get on to the future. — Scott McCloud

On this night of the Harvest Moon. They tossed bones into the "Bone Fire" and asked the yellow moon to shine its protection over them. (Today we call it a "Bonfire") — Nancy B. Brewer

The yogi offers his labyrinthine human longings to a monotheistic bonfire dedicated to the unparalleled God. This is indeed the true yogic fire ceremony, in which all past and present desires are fuel consumed by love divine. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Real zeal is standing still and letting God be a bonfire in you. — Catherine Doherty

Then I reached the second building and saw the conflagration. A bonfire twenty feet high. The wreck of a Hummer, its carcass barely visible behind the veil of flame. — Joseph Finder

Burn like a bonfire in whatever you do — Keith Lamb

A woman isn't all that different from a bonfire. A fire's a beautiful thing, right? Something you can't take your eyes off, when it's burning. If you can keep it contained, it'll throw light and heat for you. It's only when it gets out of control that you have to go on the offensive. — Jodi Picoult

The guys from the board are at a smaller bonfire near the tree line. They're laughing. Talking shit. Enjoying the fact that they've tried to play with my life. Yelling. Loud shouts. It's near me, but the chaos controlling me makes it incoherent. — Katie McGarry

We have also an edition of The Trial, by the notorious Jew, Kafka. Berlin would appreciate it, I am thinking, if this too was added to the bonfire. Also the works of that decadent lesbian Bolshevik, Jane Austen. — Stephen Fry

It was not a monster that lay sleeping on the white sheets. Nor a faceless horror. Nor even the white bear.
It was a man.
His hair was golden, glowing bright as a bonfire in the light of the candle. And his features were fair, I suppose, but he was a stranger and that somehow was the greatest shock of all- that I had been lying all these months beside a complete stranger. — Edith Pattou

I remember the noise of the bells ringing at school as the effigy of Guy Fawkes we'd prepared earlier was carried out on a canvas stretcher, hoisted on to the huge bonfire and set alight. Then the revelry would begin. My school friends and I would all have sparklers we passed around, lighting one from another. — Pippa Middleton

If I could write words
Like leaves on an autumn forest floor,
What a bonfire my letters would make.
If I could speak words of water,
You would drown when I said
I love you. — Spike Milligan

I think you cannot root out love entirely. I think where there has been love, there will always be embers, as the remains of a bonfire outlast the flame. — Cassandra Clare

Hope throws a smokescreen. Smoke gets in your eyes and so no one is prepared for it, but suddenly it;s there, like an out-of-control bonfire - like murder, only multiplied. It's in full spate. — Margaret Atwood

The lye clinging in the exact shape of Tyler's kiss is a bonfire or a branding iron or an atomic pile meltdown on my hand at the end of a long, long road I picture miles away from me. Tyler tells me to come back and be with him. My hand is leaving, tiny and on the horizon at the end of the road. — Chuck Palahniuk

The words make sense, but deeper than the words is the truth. She's right. If Mabel's talking about the girl who hugged her good-bye before she left for Los Angeles, who laced fingers with her at the last bonfire of the summer and accepted shells from almost-strangers, who analyzed novels for fun and lives with her grandfather in a pink, rent-controlled house in the Sunset that often smelled like cake and was often filled with elderly, gambling men - if she's talking about that girl, then yes, I dissapeared. — Nina LaCour

This used to be about sex. The literature of my people was pornography, filled with cries for mercy, drama enacted on people without prolonged negotiation, partners engaged in a dance in the middle of a bonfire. Now, it's 300-page manuals about how to make sure nothing bad will happen. — Laura Antoniou

I will be a bonfire and dare the world to put me out. — Laurence G. Boldt

Everyone had something disparaging to say about the unfortunate Maltyshcheva, and the conversation began crackling merrily like a kindling bonfire. — Leo Tolstoy

Come on, Aimee! If it's not Kes hauling you off to have his wicked way with you, then you're giving him these scorching looks across the bonfire. Hell, it makes me want to go take a cold shower, which is interesting seeing as you're a girl and I'm gay. — Jane Harvey-Berrick

In order not to leave any traces, when you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do. You will have something remaining which is not completely burned out. Zen activity is activity which is completely burned out, with nothing remaining but ashes. This is the goal of our practice. That is what Dogen meant when he said, "Ashes do not come back to firewood." Ash is ash. Ash should be completely ash. The firewood should be firewood. When this kind of activity takes place, one activity covers everything. — Shunryu Suzuki

When my son David was a high school senior in 2003, his graduating class went on a camping trip in the desert. A creative writing educator visited the camp and led the group through an exercise designed to develop their sensitivity and imaginations. Each student was given a pen, a notebook, a candle, and matches. They were told to walk a short distance into the desert, sit down alone, and "discover themselves." The girls followed instructions. The boys, baffled by the assignment, gathered together, threw the notebooks into a pile, lit them with the matches, and made a little bonfire. — Christina Hoff Sommers

You light the Spark in my Bonfire Heart. — James Blunt

When you know you are dying, self-deceptions fly from your bedside like embers off a bonfire. — Darin Strauss

Love doesn't spurt up like an instant bonfire, consuming all reason, it flickers and falters, and sometimes almost goes out. The fact that it doesn't go out, despite all the rain that fall on it
that's love. — V.C. Andrews

It was the first time Junko felt a certain "something" as she watched the flames of a bonfire: "something" deep down, a "wad" of feeling, she might have called it, because it was too raw, too heavy, to real to be called an idea. It coursed through her body and vanished, leaving behind a sweet-sad, chest-gripping, strange sort of feeling. — Haruki Murakami

I jumped as Finn seemingly materialized next to me. I couldn't tell if he was talking about the ocean or my desire to be close to him. I lost all train of thought as he fixed his blue eyes on me.

"What are you doing here?" I said, a little too spastic.

"Baking cookies," he smirked at me.

"You shouldn't tease me like that, it's dangerous. I take baked goods very seriously." A slow smile formed on his lips.

"Dangerous happens to be my specialty," he said in a low voice, taking a step closer to me. My entire body warmed. He was like my own personal bonfire. — Kristen Day

The dog sniffed at the bonfire like a ship with a wet nose docking at a foreign port. -Mgru — Stephen Moles

Knowledge and education are the key to this human tragedy which is a bonfire of hate fueled by ignorance. — Christina Engela

And because we look for the bonfire, we miss the candle. Because we listen for the shout, we miss the whisper. But it is in burnished candles that God comes, and through whispered promises he speaks: "When you doubt, look around; I am closer than you think. — Max Lucado

Emeth came walking forward into the open strip of grass between the bonfire and the Stable. His eyes were shining, his face was solemn, his hand was on his sword-hilt, and he carried his head high. Jill felt like crying when she looked at his face. And Jewel whispered in the King's ear, By the Lion's Mane, I almost love this young warrior, Calormene though he be. He is worthy of a better god than Tash. — C.S. Lewis

The same way that I know that I'll never do a movie as good or as celebrated as 'Forrest Gump,' I know that I'll never do a movie as bad as 'Bonfire of the Vanities.' — Tom Hanks

Where the Flame was burning

By the long grey road
there is ash after a fire gone out
and signs of departure
in dust and heat.

That is all.
But the flame that burned
in the circle of the travellers
whirled only before the eye
in unextinguished longing.

They were travelling for a dream
and could give all,
and must go on in their searchings
and their unease,
and the bonfire burned on
in every edge of sight,
whilst new searchers dug in the ashes
and in the ground under the ashes,
and it is dream
that is happiness
for those journeying. — Tarjei Vesaas

I hadn't done any professional singing. I had sung in the shower and in my car and sometimes at a family bonfire if there was enough alcoholized wine. — Jessica Pare

A strong reputation is like a good bonfire. When you have one kindled it's easy to keep the flame burning, even if someone comes along and tries to piss on it. But if you fall asleep and neglect it ... You'll wake up with ashes. — Zachary Taylor

To-day I think
Only with scents, - scents dead leaves yield,
And bracken, and wild carrot's seed,
And the square mustard field;
Odours that rise
When the spade wounds the root of tree,
Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,
Rhubarb or celery;
The smoke's smell, too,
Flowing from where a bonfire burns
The dead, the waste, the dangerous,
And all to sweetness turns.
It is enough
To smell, to crumble the dark earth,
While the robin sings over again
Sad songs of Autumn mirth.
- A poem called DIGGING. — Edward Thomas

The 1950s felt so safe and smug, the '60s so raw and raucous, the revolutions stacked one on top of another, in race relations, gender roles, generational conflict, the clash of church and state - so many values and vanities tossed on the bonfire, and no one had a concordance to explain why it was all happening at once. — Nancy Gibbs

Mosquitos There were many dead in the Nootkas village. In each dead body there was a hole through which blood had been stolen. The murderer, a child who was already killing before he learned to walk, received his sentence roaring with laughter. They pierced him with lances and he laughingly picked them out of his body like thorns. "I'll teach you to kill me," said the child. He suggested to his executioners that they should light a big bonfire and throw him into it. His ashes scattered through the air, anxious to do harm, and thus the first mosquitos started to fly. (174) — Eduardo Galeano

I should be getting back to the bonfire. They're going to think I've been kidnapped." He pulled me toward him in one quick motion.

"Kidnapped insinuates some sort of struggle." He said in a low voice with a sexy grin. "You'd enjoy being captured by me." My heart jumped in my throat, but I tried to remain cool.

"I'd like to see you try," I threw back at him, "but first you'll have to escape your own sandy death trap" I wiggled my feet out of the sand, stood up and washed my hands off in the water. He followed my every move with curious eyes.

"Sweet dreams, Anastasia." I wasn't sure if there was an underlying meaning to his words. "Sweet dreams, Finn," I responded, breathlessly. — Kristen Day

Obstacles can arise from good as well as bad circumstances, but they should never deter or overpower you. Be like the earth, which supports all living creatures indiscriminately, without distinguishing good from bad. The earth is simply there. Your practice should be strengthened by the difficult situations you encounter, just as a bonfire in a strong wind is not blown out, but blazes even brighter. — Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Daniel was slow to take up the cheer. But when he did, he meant it. This was politics. It was ugly, it was irrational, but it was preferable to war. Roger was being cheered because he had won. What did it mean to win? It meant being cheered. So Daniel huzzahed, as lustily as his dry pipes and creaky ribs would permit, and was astounded to see the way people came a-running: not only the Quality from their town-houses, but hooligans and Vagabonds from bonfire-strewn fields to the north, to throng around Roger and cheer him. Not because they agreed with his positions, or even knew who he was, but because he was plainly enough the man of the hour. — Neal Stephenson

A bonfire was burning nearby, and love was Ty's hand around mine, warm and fast, binding us together. — Ann Aguirre

A great man once wrote, "Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire."
If only I were as eloquent as Mr. de la Rochefoucauld ... I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. And I want you. And I need your kiss. And your touch on my skin like a man needs water. Always. — Karen White

Many lions is a pride; many crows is a murder; many bumbles is a throcket; many dragons is a bonfire. — Stephen King

Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I think fear neutralizes alcohol, weakens its anesthetic power. It's good for small fears; your boss, your wife, your bills, your dentist; all right then to take a drink. But for big ones it doesn't do any good. Like water on blazing gasoline, it will only quicken and compound it. It takes sand, in the literal and the slang sense, to smother the bonfire that is fear. And if you're out of sand, then you must burn up.
("New York Blues") — Cornell Woolrich

Going to high school in rural Florida, we always partied down in the woods. Somebody - one of the rednecks - would leave class and mow a path out to a field, and we'd drive out there. Dude, every party I went to was lit by a bonfire. Acoustic guitar. — Miles Teller

The theory of relativity doesn't amount to a hill of beans when there's a bonfire in your shorts. — Lois Greiman

If there is no fog on the day you come home I will build a bonfire
So the smoke will make the cedars look the way you like them — Matthea Harvey

This man threatened the volunteer then returned twenty minutes later to beat him up. At a charity bonfire. In Wilford. It's not the Middle East," she said, "it's Wilford, Nottingham. I don't want to be among these people. They complain about a charity bonfire, and right on their doorstep there are children as young as eleven selling drugs along the river. — Richard House

If Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana were "candles in the wind," and Anna Nicole Smith was a bonfire in a hailstorm, and Lindsay Lohan is an electric toaster thrown intentionally into a Jacuzzi, then Paris Hilton s a strobe light in an epilepsy ward. — Cintra Wilson

But this tree in the yard-this tree that men chopped down ... this tree that they built a bonfire around, trying to burn up it's stump-this tree lived!
It lived! And nothing could destroy it. — Betty Smith

Wait. What? You kissed at the bonfire?" Ellen flushes and nods. "Seriously? You didn't tell me? What kind of crap best-friend rule book did you read, Ellen, because the one I've got has way different chapters as to how information is supposed to be handed over. — Anne Eliot

Tucked in the back of one of the shelves is a small bottle, rounded with a short neck and closed with a matching glass stopper. He picks it up carefully. It is heavier than he had expected. Removing the stopper, he is confused, for at first the scent and the sensation do not change. Then comes the aroma of caramel, wafting on the crisp breeze of an autumn wind. The scent of wool and sweat makes him feel as though he is wearing a heavy coat, with the warmth of a scarf around his neck. There is the impression of people wearing masks. The smell of a bonfire mixes with the caramel. And then there is a shift, a movement in front of him. Something grey. A sharp pain in his chest. The sensation of falling. A sound like howling wind, or a screaming girl. — Erin Morgenstern

It wasn't that she necessarily wanted to "socialize" at the bonfire, but she wanted to broadcast to the general population that her antisocial behavior was a personal choice not a sentence to social leprosy. — J.D. Stroube

I was once more face to face with the big bonfire that occupies the kernel of our system. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Building a little bonfire at night on the beach and lying on a blanket with my wife under the stars is not only sexy, it's romantic. — Benjamin Bratt

The whole campfire idea freaked Piper out. It made her think of that huge purple bonfire in the dreams, and her father tied to a stake.
What she got instead was almost as terrifying: a sing-along. — Rick Riordan

Live a life of love, of passion of desire, of free will. Take a chance, take the leap, and jump head first into the abyss. Start a flame in your bonfire
heart, and show the world your passion. — Steven Aitchison

All night I dreamt of bonfires and burn piles
and ghosts of men, and spirits
behind those birds of flame.
I cannot tell anymore when a door opens or closes,
I can only hear the frame saying, Walk through. — Ada Limon

Next year, when you return, you'll bring the ashes back and toss them onto that year's bonfire. In this way, each of us comes back to this place, bringing some of the past, leaving with some of the future. — Lurlene McDaniel

The flames of the luau bonfire burned brightly. Sparks flew into the sky and disappeared before they reached the stars above. Near the horizon, the moon was large and round and flawless as porcelain. — Victoria Kahler

Yeah? What're you planning?"
"She nixed the keg and the strippers, so I don't know. Maybe we'll have a bonfire and torch some furniture. — Jessica Martinez

The box room. No bigger than a coffin. It would be like being buried. Maybe she wouldn't keep her Barbies after all. She would make a huge bonfire in the back garden. She would burn her clothes. She would burn all her old toys (except for her old teddy bear Rasputin, obviously - he was more of a guru and personal trainer than a toy). She would burn her CDs and her CD player. She would burn all her makeup. She would shave all her hair off and burn that. She would wear only a pair of Oriental black pajamas. She would sleep in the box room on a small mat made out of rushes. The only item in the room would be a plain white saucer for her tears. Then they'd be sorry. — Sue Limb

Even the smallest act of discipleship or the tiniest ember of belief can become a blazing bonfire of a consecrated life. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I am quite prepared, if we can do it without any disrespect to the Crown of England, to bring our titles to the marketplace and make a bonfire of them. — Wilfrid Laurier

Marco moves to close the distance between them, kissing away her tears before catching her lip with his own.
As he kisses her, the bonfire glows brighter. The acrobats catch the light perfectly as they spin. The entire circus sparkles, dazzling every patron. — Erin Morgenstern

You three looking for something specific?" Her voice was surprisingly melodious.
"Any sacrificial knives?" Hi raised an index finger. "Nothing too fancy, and I'll need a no-slip grip. Me and the coven have some goats lined up for Saturday's bonfire."
I could've kicked him. I think I tried. — Kathy Reichs

You go to pray; to become a bonfire, a living flame, giving light and heat. — Josemaria Escriva

in this you have failed
you have invalidated your dysfunctional efforts
of innocence
of perverted virginity
with a mangy face before the eye of God
not even summations of crawling
not even rust cutters or combustion
as if to test your blue vaginal mirrors
inside a Protestant Crimea
listening to your fallacious absorption neurosis

you've forfeited your flames
you've cast into the moat
salacious bonfire bathing
you've given up the power of deepened torturing rums
of magnetic chromosomal nerves
for a weakly neutered clairaudience of failure — Will Alexander

What most people find festive - a weekend at a beach shack with friends, a boat trip down a river, a crackling bonfire on a summer night - I see as a bleak nightmare to be grimly endured. I would sooner put lit cigarettes in my eyes than share a vacation house with a crowd. — Jancee Dunn

I considered the British as our natural enemies, and as the only nation on earth who wished us ill from the bottom of their souls. And I am satisfied that were our continent to be swallowed up by the ocean, Great Britain would be in a bonfire from one end to the other. — Thomas Jefferson

What Waringa tried hard to avoid was looking at the pictures of the walls and windows of the church. Many of the pictures showed Jesus in the arms of the virgin Mary or on the cross. But others depicted the devil, with two cow-like horns and a tail like a monkey's, raising one leg in a dance of evil, while his angels, armed with burning pitchforks, turned over human beings on a bonfire. The Virgin Mary, Jesus and God's angels were white, like European, but the devil and his angels were black. — Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Life is a bonfire where everyone else has brought marshmallows, and you - a stick. — Richelle E. Goodrich

What happened?" Bailey asks.
"That is somewhat difficult to explain," Tsukiko answers. "It is a long and complicated story."
"And you're not going to tell me, are you?"
She tilts her head a bit ... "No, I am not," she says.
"Great," Bailey mutters under his breath ... "The bonfire exploded? How?"
"Remember when I said it was difficult to explain? That has not changed. — Erin Morgenstern

I won't be at the bonfire," Dair repeated stubbornly....
But Dair would not go. He didn't dare. Fia in firelight would drive even the sanest man to sin. — Lecia Cornwall

I never saw any people who appeared to live so much without amusement as the Cincinnatians ... Were it not for the churches, ... Ithink there might be a general bonfire of best bonnets, for I never could discover any other use for them. — Frances Trollope

Sometimes love can happen in the blink of an eye. So fast that you barely notice it at first. It flickers like a tiny spark before roaring into a raging bonfire. And then it finally reaches that point you're covered in flames. I've been that way for a while. I feel like I've been burning forever. — Lauren Hammond

Edward Campbell Lowe was a radical in his blood and in his bones... his maternal grandfather had famously made a bonfire with a valuable portrait of the Marquess of Bute because, he had declared, it was more than a man could stomach to encounter a Tory every morning before breakfast. — Clare Clark

If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement, the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or - like Boris - is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name? It's — Donna Tartt

Are you going to the bonfire tonight?" he asked, shoving his papers in his bag. He had no organization at all. "No." He glanced up in surprise. "No?" Then he smiled. "Is fun not your thing?" I stuck out my tongue. "I didn't realize a fire in the middle of a field was considered fun." He was already standing, towering over me, but once I spoke, he dropped back into his chair and rotated so his body faced me. "It's not necessarily what you're doing. It's who you're doing it with."
-Romeo & Rimmel — Cambria Hebert

The passageway smelled of smoke: burning wood, a torch, acrid. His head ached. Blood was wet and sticky upon his arm and on his fingers, and the orange glow of torchlight played from behind his back and over the corridor walls, leaping like a bonfire. There was a strange familiarity to it: the narrow walls in around him. And when he came to a wooden door set in the wall, he put his hand upon it and pushed it open.
There was a room, and a pallet inside it; a small torch burned low in a socket upon the wall. A man lay upon the cot, his face bruised and battered, his hands curled against his chest bloody: and Laurence knew him; knew him and knew himself. He remembered another door opening, in Bristol, three years before, and a voice asking him to come outside his prison, in a Britain under siege.
"Tenzing," Laurence said, and, as Tharkay opened feverish eyes, went to help him stand. — Naomi Novik

You've transformed from a rabbit into a furious kitten. Well, you scratched me deeply today, my kitten. You drew blood with every word. Are you happy now? Now that you've humiliated me in front of my students by reciting all my secret sins? It was a true bonfire of the vanities, with you lighting the flame. — Sylvain Reynard

This is another thing I think of, turning it over, try to put together two pictures of it, but this time it's about me, it's myself I'm trying to figure. Because one sounds so disgusting, not even able to tell Al about it, win the big game, take the virgin to her first bonfire, feed her a beer or two, and then the two of us in someone's car with your hand between my legs, unbuttoned and hiked down and the noises I made, before I finally, gasping, stopped you. It sounds terrible and it's probably the truth, the real picture, gross when I write it down and shamed about it. But it's the real, whole truth I'm trying to get down, how it happened, and honestly it felt different then, different from that bad picture. I can see it, so gentle the way you moved, the thrill that was there with us as no one knew where we were or what we were doing. — Daniel Handler

Absense diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Of course nothing is ever done about a [presidential] commission report, except, they say, once a man at the state prison for the criminally insane actually read one once clear through. Then he did something about it. He made a bonfire that lasted a week. — Will Rogers

Love is who you are. Your true self is pure love, infinite awareness, and unbounded joy ... As you realize this, you will feel a small light in your heart. At first it will be the size of a spark, then a candle flame, then a raging bonfire. — Deepak Chopra

It would not be until darkness had taken indisputable control over the land, until the flames of the bonfire created an unreal world of shadows, until tequila and mescal untied men from their somber selves. — Warren Eyster

Bryce Colton is telling everyone you hooked up after the bonfire Friday night."
"What?" Everyone in the parking lot turned and stared. Okay, maybe I said that a little loud. I hooked my arm through Jane's and steered her toward the sidewalk.
"I went to the bonfire with you. Do you remember seeing me naked with Bryce Colton?"
She pouted and kicked a rock off the sidewalk. "I thought maybe you went back after you dropped me off."
"Why do you sound disappointed?"
"It would be nice if one of us had a sex life."
I laughed so hard I snorted. That's one of the reasons I'm best friends with Jane. I never know what she's going to say. — Chris Cannon

When you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do. — Shunryu Suzuki

I destroyed all my geek stuff because I didn't want to be a geek, and I regret it to this day. Consumed in the geek bonfire of the vanities was a collection of autographs and letters from Peter Cushing, Spike Milligan and Frankie Howerd, the first Doctor Whos, actual astronauts, and many more. — Peter Capaldi

Gaze not on beauty too much, lest it blast thee; nor too long, lest it blind thee; nor too near, lest it burn thee. If thou like it, it deceives thee; if thou love it, it disturbs thee; if thou hunt after it, it destroys thee. If virtue accompany it, it is the heart's paradise; if vice associate it, it is the soul's purgatory. It is the wise man's bonfire, and the fool's furnace. — Francis Quarles

So what is the best vegetable? Well, we all know that: it's the potato. The vegetable you can't screw up. You can throw a potato into a bonfire, run away from it - and, an hour later, it's turned into a meal. Try doing that with broccoli, or a trifle, and it will laugh in your face. — Caitlin Moran

I was astonished at the effect my successful landing in France had on the nations of the world. To me, it was like a match lighting a bonfire. — Charles Lindbergh

Who destroys books? Cities, churches, dictators and fanatics. Their fingers itch to build a pyre and strike the match. On 10 May 1933, students gathered in Berlin to dance around a bonfire of 25,000 volumes of 'un-German' books. They burned, amongst many others, Bertolt Brecht, Otto Dix, Heinrich Heine, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and H.G. Wells. They destroyed them because the contents were too dangerous. — Linda Grant

When I met you on the beach, it was chance. When we sat together at the bonfire, it was circumstance; but when you fell in love with me, it was fate. — Mia Castile

The bigger you build the bonfire, the more darkness is revealed. — Terence McKenna

The caterpillars are coming. They're coming. As they passed a blunt rolled with marijuana shake around the bonfire, filled plastic cups with beer from a keg in the back of John Anderson's Bronco, snuck cigarettes at the red doors that led to the make-out woods behind school. As they waited on line at the cafeteria for pizza and Tater Tots, warmed up during choral practice, and changed for gym in the locker room. Until Maddie felt something titanic rushing toward the island, gathering steam like a nor'easter barreling toward shore, and the waiting filled with a tingling urgency she knew they all felt. She felt it. Car engines revved harder, highs soared higher, buzzes and crushes burned brighter. "Look." She lifted her palm as the insect inched across. The two lines of blue and red dots on its back glimmered like spots of blood rising after a pinprick. "They're here. — Julia Fierro

I'd chosen this spot. We'd tried to get out in the water once, but it was summer and people were everywhere. Even at night, there were bonfire parties and midnight surfers. We'd all snuck out and come here at three in the morning a few weeks ago, but nothing had worked right. It was too hard to concentrate and work to stay afloat offshore. Plus, there were jellyfish everywhere, and once Eli got stung, he refused to go back in. — Elizabeth Norris