Eyes Like A Flame Quotes & Sayings

Will, meet Thammuz, a minor demon from the eighth dimension. Thammuz, meet Will, a minor Shadowhunter from-Wales, was it?"
"I will rip out your eyes," hissed the creature. "I will tear the skin from your face." "Don't be rude, Thammuz," said Magnus "Will has questions. You will answer them."
Will shook his head. "I don't know, Magnus," he said. "He doesn't look like the right one to me."
"You said he was blue. This one's blue."
"He is blue," Will acknowledged, stepping closer to the circle of flame. "But the demon I need-well, he was really a cobalt blue. This one's more ...
periwinkle."
"What did you call me?" The demon roared with rage. "Come closer, little Shadowhunter, and let me feast upon your liver! I will tear it from your body while you scream. — Cassandra Clare

No matter how long I live, I will always remember the way the light went out of her eyes, like a candle flame caught in an unexpected wind. — Jodi Picoult

then coiling his length together, roaring like thunder underground, he sped from his deep lair through its great door, out into the huge passages of the mountain-palace and up towards the Front Gate. To hunt the whole mountain till he had caught the thief and had torn and trampled him was his one thought. He issued from the Gate, the waters rose in fierce whistling steam, and up he soared blazing into the air and settled on the mountain-top in a spout of green and scarlet flame. The dwarves heard the awful rumour of his flight, and they crouched against the walls of the grassy terrace cringing under boulders, hoping somehow to escape the frightful eyes of the hunting dragon. There they would have all been killed, if it had not been for Bilbo once again. "Quick! Quick!" he gasped. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Who's Richard?" he asked me calmly. "What?" "You called me Richard just now." My smile was not quite natural. "Did I? I can't imagine why. Sorry." "Old flame, is he?" He clung to it, persistent. "Something like that." I nodded, trying to turn it into a joke. "Why, are you jealous?" Instead of smiling back, as I had expected, he kept his eyes hard on my face for a long moment before answering. "I'm not sure," he said slowly. After another moment the smile came, the one I had been waiting to see. "Come on," he invited, turning his horse towards the tall chimneys of Crofton Hall, "I'll race you back to the stables. — Susanna Kearsley

Her eyes burnt like the blue in a gas flame. They were ferocious things. For some moments her eyes were all he was aware of. And they were looking at him. But there was no look in them. It was as if she were just drinking him up. Was she assessing him? Judging him? He didn't know. Maybe it was this sureness that made him both resentful and unsure. — Richard Flanagan

He cuddled her back into his arms and sighed, closing his eyes as the flames in the gas logs danced like sugar-plums. Gracie watched them across his broad chest, feeling the happiness like a flame inside her heart. Somewhere she heard Christmas carols being sung and a dog barking in the distance. Closer, she heard the strong, regular beat of Jason's heart under her ear. Christmas wasn't only in her heart. It was in her arms. — Diana Palmer

His eyes darted over the surface of my face. Like a moth to a blaze he was hesitant, seeming to crave my warmth but not its inevitable burn. He explored me from a distance with his unspoken desire, with the fear that touching me would set him to flame. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to prove very much the opposite. — Shawn Kirsten Maravel

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

Make some light, dear."
Garion fumbled for one of the candles, bumped his sleeve against it, and then deftly caught it before it hit the floor.He was sort of proud of that.
"Don't play with it, Garion Just light it."
Her tone was so familiar and so commonplace that he began to laugh, and with the little surge of will that he directed at the candle was a stuttering sort of thing. The flame that appeared bobbled and hiccuped at the end of the wick in a soundless chortle.
Polgara looked steadily at the giggling candle, then closed her eyes, " oh, Garion," she sighed in resignation.
*
"Garion, why is that candle acting like that?"
"Don't worry about it, dear. — David Eddings

He stared at her, his dark eyes unfathomable. "You could meet a better, worthier man."
She laughed, a strained, harsh sound. "I've already met one--he's marrying my sister!"
The words blazed forth, hanging in the air as though etched in fire, impossible to recall or deny. They stared at each other, scarcely breathing--then, in an instant, Trevenan closed the distance between them in one stride and pulled her to him, arms banding around her like iron.
Their mouths met in a fierce mutual claiming, and the world went white around them--white as lightning, white as the heart of a flame. Closing her eyes, Aurelia let herself fall, deep into a void where all that existed was his touch, his taste, and the hot, urgent press of his lips against hers. This, she thought hazily. Yes, this. And knew by his response, the guttural moan in his throat, that it was the same for him. Love, that is first and last of all things made...
"Damn you, James! Why couldn't you wait for me? — Pamela Sherwood

The long lids of her eyes closed halfway, like a basking cat's, but the smile remained on that wide, soft mouth - those lips that hurt, then healed. The light glowed in her skin, bronzed the tiny brown mole beneath her right ear. He could have watched her forever, but the match was burning low. Just before the flame touched his fingers, she leaned forward and blew it out. And in the smoke-wisped dark, whispered in his ear, "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. So there. — Diana Gabaldon

The Black was looking out on the open sea; his ears pricked forward, his thin-skinned nostrils quivering, his black mane flowing like windswept flame. Alec could not turn his eyes away; he could not believe such a perfect creature existed. — Walter Farley

Elegant self-control concealing from the world's eyes until the very last moment a state of inner disintegration and biological decay; sallow ugliness, sensuously marred and worsted, which nevertheless is able to fan its smouldering concupiscence to a pure flame, and even to exalt itself to mastery in the realm of beauty; pallid impotence, which from the glowing depths of the spirit draws strength to cast down a whole proud people at the foot of the Cross and set its own foot upon them as well; gracious poise and composure in the empty austere service of form; the false, dangerous life of the born deceiver, his ambition and his art which lead so soon to exhaustion - to contemplate all these destinies, and many others like them, was to doubt if there is any other heroism at all but the heroism of weakness. In any case, what other heroism could be more in keeping with the times? — Thomas Mann

She stepped toward Anna.
"I can get you a night with an accomplished male whore or a virginal schoolboy." Coral's eyes widened and seemed to flame. "Famous libertines or ragpickers off the street. One very special man or ten complete strangers. Dark men, red men, yellow men, men you've only dreamed of in the black of night, lonely in your bed, snug under your covers. Whatever you long for. Whatever you desire. Whatever you crave. You have only to ask me."
Anna stared at Coral like a mesmerized mouse before a particularly beautiful snake. — Elizabeth Hoyt

His hands lay flat on either side of him, his arms at his sides. He seemed barely to be breathing; she wasn't sure she was breathing herself. She slid her own hand across the bedsheet, just far enough that their fingers touched-so lightly that she would have probably hardly been aware of it had she been touching anyone but Jace; as it was, the nerve endings in her fingertips pricked softly, as if she were holding them over a low flame. She felt him tense beside her and then relax. He had shut his eyes, and his lashes cast fine shadows against the curve of his cheekbones. His mouth curled into a smile as if he sensed her watching him, and she wondered how he would look in the morning, with his hair messed and sleep circles under his eyes. Despite everything, the thought gave her a jolt of happiness.
She laced her fingers through his. "Good night," she whispered. With their hands clasped like children in a fairy tale, she fell asleep beside him in the dark. — Cassandra Clare

In appearance Sachish gives the impression of a celestial being. His eyes glow; his long, slender fingers are like tongues of flame; the colour of his skin is more a luminescence than a colour. As soon as I set eyes on him I seemed to glimpse his inner self; and from that moment I loved him. — Rabindranath Tagore

Today you are encouraged to work towards your dream! Each of us has a fire in our hearts burning for something. It's our responsibility in life to find it and keep it lit. This is your life and it's a short one. Don't let others extinguish your flame. You must follow your heart. Try what you want to try. Go where you want to go. Follow your own intuition. Dream with your eyes open until you know exactly what it looks like. Then do at least one thing every day to make it a reality. Don't waste your life fulfilling someone else's dreams and desires. Believe in yourself and your abilities! — John Geiger

Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw. — Madeline Miller

It takes will power and nerve to hold the stick that way, to keep his eyes open and watch the rocky face of the cliff, pine-bearded, rush up at them. O'Shaughnessy's mouth flattens, his face goes white. And then in that final fraction of a moment, he laughs, a little crazily - a laugh of defiance, of mocking farewell, and, somehow, of conquest.
'Here we go, baby!' he shouts, teeth bared. 'Now I'm going to find out what it really feels like to fly into the side of a mountain! ... '
There is only the storm to hear the smash of the plane as it splinters itself against the rock - and the storm drowns the sound out with thunder, just as the lightning turns pale the flame that rises, like a hungry tongue, from the wreckage. ("Jane Browns Body") — Cornell Woolrich

Lance rolled his eyes. "I'm already sorrier than you could possibly imagine. Now you promise me you won't interfere, or mention it to anyone, or poke your nose in, or follow Mr. Traynor along the street when he comes into town, ... "
Lily snorted. "As if I would tell anyone! You think I want it spread around that my son's into puppy play?"
Lance felt his temper supernova. Yes, that was really quite an interesting sensation, the way the cells inside his chest spontaneously burst into flame. "I AM NOT INTO PUPPY PLAY! AND HOW DO YOU EVEN KNOW THAT TERM?"
Lily waved her hand as if he was being silly. "Please. Like I was born fifty years old."
"I want to be stricken dead. Right now," Lance groaned and hid his face.
"Oh, all right. Fine! You're doing some reconnaissance in your dog form, and that's all it is, and it's none of my business, and I've always been a virgin. You and your brothers and sister were all conceived by supernatural means. Happy? — Eli Easton

My eyes kept skipping back to her, drawn to her face like a lone candle flame in the dark — Alexandra Bracken

For she is my love, and other women are but big bodies of flame. who in the world would have thot of her like that? when most people looked they only saw a certain collection of bones, a selection of forms filling space. but he saw past the mouth and the eyes. the archetecture of the body, her fleshy masquerade. other boys were happy enuf to enjoy the show, they just wanted to be entertained by the bodys shadow theater but he had to come backstage. he went down into the mines. into the dark, brot up the gold. your new self, a better self. but wat good was it if he was jus gonna leave her behind. his poets lady, his silver lilly. he was a boy who knew things, things that looked one way but proved to be another. — Janet Fitch

Incendiary

That one small boy with a face like pallid cheese
And burnt-out little eyes could make a blaze
As brazen, fierce and huge, as red and gold
And zany yellow as the one that spoiled
Three thousand guineas' worth of property
And crops at Godwin's Farm on Saturday
Is frightening---as fact and metaphor:
An ordinary match intended for
The lighting of a pipe or kitchen fire
Misused may set a whole menagerie
Of flame-fanged tigers roaring hungrily.
And frightening, too, that one small boy should set
The sky on fire and choke the stars to heat
Such skinny limbs and such a little heart
Which would have been content with one warm kiss
Had there been anyone to offer this. — Vernon Scannell

I would watch Gonzalez play and he mesmerized you. It would be like looking into the flame of a fire. You know you couldn't take your eyes off him because you never knew what he would do next. — Jimmy Connors

Out of the apartment houses come women who should be young but have faces like stale beer; men with pulled down hats and quick eyes that look the street over behind the cupped hand that shields the match flame; worn intellectuals with cigarette coughs and no money in the bank; fly cops with granite faces and unwavering eyes; cookies and coke peddlers; people who look like nothing in particular and know it, and once in a while even men that actually go to work. But they come out early, when the wide cracked sidewalks are empty and still have dew on them. (from) The High Window — Raymond Chandler

And he married the Echo one fortunate morn,
And Woman, their beautiful daughter, was born!
The daughter of Sunshine and Echo she came
With a voice like a song, with a face like a flame;
With a face like a flame, and a voice like a song,
And happy was Man, but it was not for long!
For weather's a painfully changeable thing,
Not always the child of the Echo would sing;
And the face of the Sun may be hidden with mist,
And his child can be terribly cross if she list.
And unfortunate man had to learn with surprise
That a frown's not peculiar to masculine eyes;
That the sweetest of voices can scold and sneer,
And cannot be answered - like men - with a spear — Andrew Lang

Jeff opened blue eyes, grinned at me. "If you're feeling left out ... " I almost threw out an instinctive no, but I decided to throw him a bone. "Oh, Jeff. It'd be too good - you and me. Too powerful, too much emotion, too much heat. We'd come together and boom" - I clapped my hands together - "like a moth to a flame, there'd be nothing left." His eyes glazed over. "Combustion?" "Totally." He was quiet for a moment, his index finger tracing a pattern on the knee of his jeans. Then he nodded. "Too powerful. It'd destroy us both." I nodded solemnly. "Probably so." But I leaned over, pressed my lips to his forehead. "We'll always have Chicago." "Chicago," he dreamily repeated. "Yeah. Definitely." He cleared his throat, seemed to regain a little composure. "When I tell this story later, you kissed me on the mouth. With tongue. And you were handsy." I chuckled. "Fair enough. — Chloe Neill

A person does not, as I had imagined, stand motionless and clear before our eyes with his merits, his defects, his plans, his intentions with regard to ourselves (like a garden at which we gaze through a railing with all its borders spread out before us), but is a shadow which we can never penetrate, of which there can be no such thing as direct knowledge, with respect to which we form countless beliefs, based upon words and sometimes actions, neither of which can give us anything but inadequate and as it proves contradictory information - a shadow behind which we can alternately imagine with equal justification, that there burns the flame of hatred and of love. — Marcel Proust

Because she could feel what he felt. And along with the gratitude, the sheer satisfaction and relief, were other emotions. Appreciation, joy, wonder, and-oh, dear God, LOVE ...
Gabriel loved her.
She could see herself in his mind, an image so cloaked in glamourand ethereal grace that she could scarcely recognize it. A girl with red-gold hair like a meteor trail and smokey-blue eyes with strange rings in them. An exotic creature that burned like an eager flame. More witch than human.
Kaitlyn — L.J.Smith

14The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. — Anonymous

Sirius looked out of the fire at Harry, a crease between his sunken eyes.
"You're less like your father than I thought," he said finally, a definite coolness in his voice. "The risk would've been what made it fun for James."
"Look - "
"Well, I'd better get going ... I'll write to tell you a time I can make it back into the fire, then, shall I? If you can stand to risk it?"
There was a tiny pop, and the place where Sirius's head had been was flickering flame once more. — J.K. Rowling

I will not mince words. There's been enough mincing for one day. Therefore, I shall ask my question bluntly: How does a man know that his body has been turned inside out? ... His eyes can see the back of his skull with an alarming clarity. I am told it hurts like hell. Especially when he refuses to explain why he has been investigating the hangman's replacement — Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

With her eyes alone she could give this response, this absolutely erotic response, as if febrile waves were trembling there, pools of madness ... something devouring that could lick a man all over like a flame, annihilate him, with a pleasure never known before. — Anais Nin

I don't understand." Except, truthfully, I just didn't want to understand.
Pain shadowed across his face. "Darkness lives in me, Theia. Inside of me. Like a sickness. And right next to it, intertwined with it, are my feelings for you. If I act on one, I'll act on the other. The darkness in me wants you the way a black hole eats stars. I dream of tasting you, devouring you." His eyes darkened terribly.
"Haden, stop trying to frighten me."
He carried on as if he hadn't heard me. "This isn't a crush; it's an obsession. You are never not in my thoughts. Your scent carries across a room and paralyzes me with longing. I don't want to hold your hand. Part of me wants to set you on fire and hold you while the flame consumes us both, to eat your heart so I know that only I possess it entirely. Are you scared now? Does your human mind comprehend the danger at last? I'm not like you. I'm not human, not completely anyway. — Gwen Hayes

The trees were tinted exquisitely to an uncertain glory as the great red sinking sun flashed its rays on their crystal mantle. The vale of Aylesbury was drowsing beneath a slowly deepening shroud of mist. Above it the hills, their crests rounded and shaded by silver and rose coppices, seemed to have set in them great smoky eyes of flame where the last rays burned in them.
'It is like some dream world,' thought Mr. Cort. 'It is curious how, wherever the sun strikes, it seems to make an eye, and each one fixed on me; those hills, even those windows. But, judging from that mist, I shall have a slow journey home ...
("Blind Man's Bluff") — H.R. Wakefield

The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
with silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door! — Emma Lazarus

If I did not move and dance between them the three would turn to stone, for they are passive [ ... ] They would fall asleep if I lay still somewhere. Henry, Gonzalo, Hugh. [ ... ] It is only my dancing, my dancing which animates them. I slide out of Gonzalo's bed like a snake. I slide out of Henry's bed. I slide out of Hugh's bed. [ ... ]
I dance untrammeled - return to each full of the space in between, that change of air. Dancing, I find my flame and my joy, because I dance, slide, run, to the boat, to quai de Passy, to Villa Seurat; I keep the wind in the folds of my dress, the rain on my hair, and light in my eyes. — Anais Nin

Maybe he sees it on my face, that fraction of a second when
I let my guard down, because in that moment his expression softens and his eyes
go bright as flame and even though I barely see him move, suddenly he has
closed the space between us and he's wrapping his warm hands over my
shoulders - fingers so warm and strong I almost cry out - and saying, "Lena. I
like you, okay? That's it. That's all. I like you." His voice is so low and hypnotic
it reminds me of a song. I think of predators dropping silently from trees: I think
of enormous cats with glowing amber eyes, just like his. — Lauren Oliver

Hearts are like tapers, which at beauteous eyes Kindle a flame of love that never dies; And beauty is a flame, where hearts, like moths, Offer themselves a burning sacrifice. — Omar Khayyam

All I had to do was die a little, and you get a new planet!"
I expected her to laugh, or at least smile. I did not expect her to slap my arm. "You stupid idiot!" she says, smacking me again. "I don't want the new planet without you!"
Her eyes round as she realizes what she just said. Anytime we'd gotten this close to talking about us before, Amy has shied away from the topic. But now, instead of drawing away from me, she leans closer. Her hair spills over her shoulders, brushing my chest as she leans down. Her fiery joy at learning about the planet is replaced with something else, something warmer like a slow-burning but steady flame.
"It wouldn't be worth it without you," she says, her voice low. — Beth Revis

In the great meteor shower of August, the Perseid, I wail all day for the shooting stars I miss. They're out there showering down, committing hari-kiri in a flame of fatal attraction, and hissing perhaps into the ocean. But at dawn what looks like a blue dome clamps down over me like a lid on a pot. The stars and planets could smash and I'd never know. Only a piece of ashen moon occasionally climbs up or down the inside of the dome, and our local star without surcease explodes on our heads. We have really only that one light, one source for all power, and yet we must turn away from it by universal decree. Nobody here on the planet seems aware of that strange, powerful taboo, that we all walk about carefully averting our faces, this way and that, lest our eyes be blasted forever. — Annie Dillard

I watched, enthralled, as he painted a large silver heart with flames edging one side. The whole design was Celtic in style. It was beautiful.
"Where did you get that from?" I asked in awe. I'd seen a lot of his work but never anything like this.
His eyes were on his heart, completely caught up in his work. "Just something kicking around in my head. Reminds me of you. Fiery and sweet, all at the same time. A flame in the dark, lighting my way." His voice ... his words ... I recognized one of his spirit-driven moments. It should've unnerved me, but there was something sensual about the way he spoke, something that made my breath catch. A flame in the dark.
He swapped out the silver paintbrush for a black one. Before I could stop him, he wrote over the heart: AYE. Underneath it, in smaller letters, he added: HONORARY MEMBER. — Richelle Mead

The reindeer are immortal. They are, in fact, the eight demiurges of reindeer-kind, and this accounts for their flying. Their names might sound whimsical, but they are the closest the human tongue can come to approximating the true names of the caribou lords. Rudolph, far from being the adorable, earnest fellow of the tale, is in fact Ruyd-al-Olafforid, the All-Destroying Flame of the Yukon. His mother was Kali and his father was an ice floe. His nose appears red because his body is full of coals, and his eyes flare with a terrible conflagration of the soul. The tips of his antlers are like candles in the snowy wind. He is not vengeful, but he is the light in the dark of winter, consuming and giving life at the same time. Your carrots only make the lord of flame stronger. — Catherynne M Valente

Melkor's envy grew then the greater within him; and he also took visible form, but because of his mood and the malice that burned in him that form was dark and terrible. And he descended upon Arda in power and majesty greater than any other of the Valar, as a mountain that wades in the sea and has its head above the clouds and is clad in ice and crowned with smoke and fire; and the light of the eyes of Melkor was like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Am I pushing or dying? the light up there, the immense round blazing white light is drinking me. It drinks me slowly, inspires me into space. If I do not close my eyes, it will drink all of me. I seep upward, in long icy threads, too light, and yet inside me there is a fire too, the nerves are twisted, there is no rest from this long tunnel dragging me, or am I pushing myself out of the tunnel, or is the child being pushed out of me, or is the light drinking me. Am I dying? The ice in the veins, the cracking of the bones, this pushing in darkness, with a small shaft of light in the eyes like the edge of the knife, the feeling of a knife cutting the flesh, the flesh somewhere is tearing as if it were burned through by a flame, somewhere my flesh is tearing and the blood is spilling out. I am pushing in the darkness, in utter darkness. — Anais Nin

If I'd had a mirror I'd have looked at the whole of myself, though, as a matter of fact, I knew what I looked like already. A fat man of forty-five, in a grey herring-bone suit a bit the worse for wear and a bowler hat. Wife, two kids, and a house in the suburbs written all over me. Red face and boiled blue eyes. I know, you don't have to tell me. But the thing that struck me, as I gave my dental plate the once-over before slipping it back into my mouth, was that it doesn't matter. Even false teeth don't matter. I'm fat - yes. I look like a bookie's unsuccessful brother - yes. No woman will ever go to bed with me again unless she's paid to. I know all that. But I tell you I don't care. I don't want the women, I don't even want to be young again. I only want to be alive. And I was alive that moment when I stood looking at the primroses and the red embers under the hedge. It's a feeling inside you, a kind of peaceful feeling, and yet it's like a flame. — George Orwell

All over him a flaking, and the flakes tiny creatures, clawed and with mouths, all light, that crawled into the cracks that had been opened in him, seeking bone. Only when a shadow of cloud passed over did the many mouths of the light desist.

Tries to hold it, the shadow; to make at least the memory of it last on his flesh, and cool and calm the furious activity all over the surface of him. But his mind lets the cloud slide away like everything else it has held. All that remains in his skull, behind the blind eyes, is sky, and that too burns, shakes out flame. Cloud after cloud rolls over, touches, cools, and is gone. Beyond hold. — David Malouf

Djinn," she said. "We go to review the troops. Clothe me as befits a queen."
"Silks and satins?" he asked, eyes sparkling like sapphires. "White brocade?"
"Armor," she said. "And flame. — Elizabeth Bear

The Child Angel
Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my child,
unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence.
They are cruel in their greed and their envy,
their words are like hidden knives thirsting for blood.
Go and stand amidst their scowling hearts, my child,
and let your gentle eyes fall upon them like the
forgiving peace of the evening over the strife of the day.
Let them see your face, my child, and thus know the
meaning of all things, let them love you and love each other.
Come and take your seat in the bosom of the limitless, my child.
At sunrise open and raise your heart like a blossoming flower,
and at sunset bend your head and in silence
complete the worship of the day. — Rabindranath Tagore

His aster-blue eyes shown out from a face blackened by bruises and soot, his fair hair glittering in the firelight. Dressed all in black, silhouetted against flame, he looked rather like a demon, raised from the dead, trading for souls on the other side. — Cinda Williams Chima

Like a ghost that dances on the tip of a lit cigarette,
I know what romance is, but it hasn't happened yet.
Watch it floating up to heaven only knows,
Disappearing before you get too close-
It's only smoke. You might say a flame was burning, only smoke--
but my heart is more discerning,
I keep dreaming of a fire
But when I wake up to the cold--
It's only smoke.

Eyes are hypnotizing when they hold you within their embrace.
Words are mezmerizing even when they've got nothing to say.
The game is charming in an empty kind of way.
What's the harm in asking me to play?
It's only smoke. You might say a flame was burning, only smoke--
but my heart is more discerning,
I keep dreaming of a fire
But when I wake up to the cold--
It's only smoke. — Jane Monheit