Flared Quotes & Sayings

I felt rotten. Dead butterfly floating on the surface of the pool. Audible machine hum. Drowned crickets and beetles swirling in the plastic filter baskets. Above, the setting sun flared gaudy and inhuman, blood-red shelves of cloud that suggested end-times footage of catastrophe and ruin: detonations on Pacific atolls, wildlife running before sheets of flame. — Donna Tartt

His nostrils flared then,and he lifted his head."Oh,God,Princess.Your scent.As much as I would love to see you work your cunt again,up close and personal this time,I must have you,taste you.Fuck,I want to drown in you,bury my face in your pussy and lap up every drop."

~Lucian Roman — Laura Wright

Ringil, preparing to hand out some straightforward reassurance, felt mischief sparkle through him instead. It was the call of impending risk, he knew, the itch to action - and a long building irritation with Nyanar that finally flared to life. He put on a breezy grin. But my lord Nyanar! That's what gives life its savor, is it not? Where would we be if the future were always known? — Richard K. Morgan

I can smell arousal, Talin. You get hot every time you see me half-naked."
The erotic need that flared through her body was mortifying. Perhaps that explained the stupidity of her next words. "Maybe I get that way for every half-naked man. — Nalini Singh

The thought occurred to me that I was in danger of becoming a slave to a tiger as well. Hah! I'd probably like it too. I rolled my eyes at the thought. I disgust myself. I'm so darn weak! I hated the idea that all he'd have to do was crook his finger at me, beckon me to come to him, and I probably would. The fiercely independent side of me flared up. That's it! No more! I'm going to talk it all out with him when we get back and hope that we can still be friends.
This was pretty much my line of thought for the entire trip home. I'd daydream and then stop, lecture myself, and repeat my stubborn mantra. I tried to read, but I kept rereading the same paragraph over and over. Eventually, I gave up and napped a little. — Colleen Houck

Once in power, Stalin's campaign to succeed Lenin required a legitimate heroic career which he did not possess because of his experience in what he called 'the dirty business' of politics: this could not be told, either because it was too gangsterish for a great, paternalistic statesman or because it was too Georgian for a Russian leader. His solution was a clumsy but all-embracing cult of personality that invented, distorted and concealed the truth. Ironically this self-promotion was so grotesque that it fanned sparks, sometimes innocent ones, which flared up into colossal anti-Stalin conspiracy-theories. It was easy for his political opponents, and later for us historians, to believe that it was all invented and that he had done nothing much at all - particularly since few historians had researched in the Caucasus where so much of his early career took place. An anti-cult, as erroneous as the cult itself, grew up around these conspiracy-theories. — Simon Sebag Montefiore

A dread of white people now came to live permanently in my feelings and imagination. As the war drew to a close, racial conflict flared over the entire South, and though I did not witness any of it, I could not have been more thoroughly affected by it if I had participated directly in every clash. The war itself had been unreal to me, but I had grown able to respond emotionally to every hint, whisper, word, inflection, news, gossip, and rumor regarding conflicts between the races. Nothing challenged the totality of my personality so much as this pressure of hate and threat that stemmed from the invisible whites. I would stand for hours on the doorsteps of neighbors' houses listening to their talk, learning how a white woman had slapped a black woman, how a white man had killed a black man. It filled me with awe, wonder, and fear, and I asked ceaseless questions. One evening I heard a tale that rendered — Richard Wright

A knock came at the door. Everyone looked up. Elena's nostrils flared and she leaned over to whisper something to Clay.
"Fuck," he muttered. "Keep talking, Jaime. It's only Cassandra. She can wait. Forever, if we're lucky."
"I heard that, Clayton," Cassandra said as she walked in.
"Who the hell forgot to lock the door?" Clay said.
"You were the last one in," Elena murmured.
"Damn. — Kelley Armstrong

They may have convinced you all these years that you are nothing, unworthy of love, but I am telling you you are, and I love you." His eyes flared a deep green color and he leaned in closer to her. "You are starved for it, Lady Graven, starved, just as much as I am. — Cat Porter

Come here into the warmth," he said easily. He reached for her, taking her hand and pulling her toward him. "I've been waiting for you." He stroked her hair, shifting a bit to let the light fall on her. "For a very long time."
She, too, reached for him, following a line in the air along the length of the forming scar that marred his chest. A corona flared around him until she moved past the point where the sunlight hit her eyes. She stared at his chest, at the gashed and ill-healed flesh, and he, seeing her attention, took her hand and brought her fingers to his mouth. She felt the warmth of his breath, the pressure of his lips, soft and warm. "I wish you had never been wounded," she said. "Even though it brought you home to me. — Carolyn Jewel

How handsome he must have been before he was burned. Heat flared over my skin. How handsome he was now. — Elly Blake

A slow, wry smile teased Daemon's lips. "Simmer down, Kitten, before I have to get you a ball of yarn to play with."
Annoyance flared deep inside me. "Don't start with me, jerk-face. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

An oceanic expanse of pre-dawn gray white below obscures a checkered grid of Saskatchewan, a snow plain nicked by the dark, unruly lines of woody swales. One might imagine that little is to be seen from a plane at night, but above the clouds the Milky Way is a dense, blazing arch. A full moon often lights the planet freshly, and patterns of human culture, artificially lit, are striking in ways not visible in daylight. One evening I saw the distinctive glows of cities around Delhi diffused like spiral galaxies in a continuous deck of stratus clouds far below us. In Algeria and on the Asian steppes, wind-whipped pennants of gas flared. The jungle burned in incandescent spots in Malaysia and Brazil. One clear evening at 20,000 feet over Manhattan, I could see, it seemed, every streetlight halfway to the end of Long Island. A summer lightning bolt unexpectedly revealed thousands of bright dots on the ink-black veld of the northern Transvaal: sheep. — Barry Lopez

Hey. She said, looking up from an open book propped up on one knee. She brushed a few strands of pale hair out of her face. Her boyfriend, Christian, lay on the floor near her, his head propped up on her other knee. He greeted me by way of a nod. Concidering the antagonism the sometimes flared up between us, that was almost on par with him giving me a bear hug. — Richelle Mead

Now now," he said, setting his hand on her shoulder. He didn't even see her turn. One moment she had her back to him, and the next her face was in his. Tears streamed from narrow, red eyes, her nostrils flared, and her mouth was twisted in a vicious snarl. She could have bitten his nose off if she wanted to. — Matt Tomerlin

An awful, heartbroken cackling from the reeds behind. A vortex formed. A hole in the water. Into this, tufts of feathers disappeared. Turning, Henry saw the fish inhale two ducklings. The others broke into the main river and were swept downstream, their mother with them. The thrashing fish threw water like a canoe blade. Gills flared as it wolfed them down. Henry looked about, frantic, but no one else was there to see, no one to assure him it was true. — Matthew Neill Null

There is a beautiful consistency about Buzzard; he is a porcupine among men, with his quills always flared. If he won a new car with a raffle ticket bought in his name by some momentary girlfriend, he would recognize it at once as a trick to con him out of a license fee. He would denounce the girl as a hired slut, beat up the raffle sponsor, and trade off the car for five hundred Seconals and a gold-handled cattle prod. — Hunter S. Thompson

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night,
blown and flared by passion's storm,
and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Click.
The salamander flared, etching the room with searing white light and dark shadows.
Otto screamed. He fell to the floor, clutching at his throat. He sprang to his feet, goggle-eyed and gasping, and staggered, knock-kneed and wobbly-legged, the length of the room and back again. He sank down behind a desk , scattering paperwork with a wildly flailing hand.
"Aarghaarghaaaargh ... "
There was a shocked silence.
Otto stood up, adjusted his cravat, and dusted himself off. Only then did he look up at the row of shocked faces.
"Vel?" he said sternly. "Vat are you all looking at? It is just a normal reaction, zat is all. I am vorking on it. Light in all its forms is mine passion. Light is my canvas, shadows are my brush."
But strong light hurts you!" said Sacharissa. "It hurts vampires!"
"Yes. It iss a bit of a bugger, but zere you go. — Terry Pratchett

Rumors had their own classic epidemiology. Each started with a single germinating event. Information spread from that point, mutating and interbreeding - a conical mass of threads, expanding into the future from the apex of their common birthplace. Eventually, of course, they'd wither and die; the cone would simply dissipate at its wide end, its permutations senescent and exhausted.
There were exceptions, of course. Every now and then a single thread persisted, grew thick and gnarled and unkillable: conspiracy theories and urban legends, the hooks embedded in popular songs, the comforting Easter-bunny lies of religious doctrine. These were the memes: viral concepts, infections of conscious thought. Some flared and died like mayflies. Others lasted a thousand years or more, tricked billions into the endless propagation of parasitic half-truths. — Peter Watts

His nostrils flared with annoyance. "I prefer Ambassador Asterios, thank you very much." "Using your surname, eh?" "I requested Big Daddy Steve, but your Elders feel it isn't official enough. Tools. — Joshua Roots

Her whole body flared to life with a fiery blush. Maybe that was why the term "old flame" had been invented. Somebody always got burned. — Susan Wiggs

Simple. Pared down. Timeless. The ties were never too thick or too thin; the pants were never too flared or too skinny. In my life with Dad, he wore Western apparel because we went riding - jeans, cowboy boots, the turquoise belt buckle. But it was all very simple, and that classic look is very 'Ralph Lauren.' — Jennifer Grant

Quickly, the dragon came at him, encouraged
As Beowulf fell back; its breath flared,
And he suffered, wrapped around in swirling
Flames
a king, before, but now
A beaten warrior. None of his comrades
Came to him, helped him, his brave and noble
Followers; they ran for their lives, fled
Deep in a wood. And only one of them
Remained, stood there, miserable, remembering,
As a good man must, what kinship should mean. — Burton Raffel

the Occupy Movement flared up and began setting up tents in public parks all around the nation, from New York City to Chicago to Seattle. But it actually happened exactly eighty years earlier, when the nation was drowning in President Hoover's Great Depression, and not President Bush's Great Recession. These settlements weren't called "occupations" at the time, they were called "Hoovervilles. — Thom Hartmann

We could go back," he said. In the dome light of the car, his face looked hard as stone. "We could go back to your house. I can stay with you always. We can know each other's bodies in every way, night after night. I could love you." His nostrils flared, and he looked suddenly proud. "I could work. You would not be poor. I would help you."
"Sounds like a marriage," I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. But my voice was too shaky.
"Yes," he said. — Charlaine Harris

Imogenia's temper flared. "I was to become queen when you died, Father! He will pay," she snarled. "Honey," the king objected, "I'm not going to say I understand how you feel, but not forgiving someone hurts you, not the one you hate. — L.R.W. Lee

This is the moment. We need to take it. His breath at my ear and my own breathing seemed to match, to build. Heat flared at my back. There was no cold, there was no chill. Just him. Just heat. — Karina Halle

There was a blinding flash of magnesium and a smell of singed hair and dust. A green light flared in the boar's glass eye. — Linda Lappin

There was always an outrageousness to our response to minor events. Flamboyance and exaggeration were the tail feathers, the jaunty plumage that stretched and flared whenever a Wingo found himself eclipsed in the lampshine of a hostile world. As a family, we were instinctive, not thoughtful. We could never outsmart our adversaries but we could always surprise them with the imaginativeness of our reactions. We functioned best as connoisseurs of hazard and endangerment. We were not truly happy unless we were engaged in our own private war with the rest of the world. Even in my sister's poems, one could always feel the tension of approaching risk. Her poems all sounded as though she had composed them of thin ice and falling rock. They possessed movement, weight, dazzle and craft. Her poetry moved through streams of time, wild and rambunctious, like an old man entering the boundary waters of the Savannah River, planning to water-ski forty miles to prove he was still a man. — Pat Conroy

The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit. Their manes were braided with streamers of silver, gold, and green. They flared their nostrils and pranced and boasted to one another; they were vastly excited, the horse being the only animal who has adopted our ceremonies as his own. — Ursula K. Le Guin

A little muzhik was working on the railroad, mumbling in his beard.
And the candle by which she had read the book that was filled with fears, with deceptions, with anguish, and with evil, flared up with greater brightness than she had ever known, revealing to her all that before was in darkness, then flickered, grew faint, and went out
forever. — Leo Tolstoy

It was true. She was his soul's star. His heart ignited every time she came into the room, flared with every just-so gesture. Anything she touched became instantly talismanic. — Mark Kirkbride

You need not treat me like a child, sir. I am perfectly capable of navigating this staircase on my own."
He snorted.
Her nostrils flared. "I promise not to ask you to catch me again, all right? Now stop scowling."
Of course he did no such thing. — Karen Witemeyer

An evil spark flared in his eyes. Trade: raccoon for some answers. — Ilona Andrews

Paris flared
Paris, which the divine sun had sown with light, and where in glory waved the great future harvest of Truth and of Justice. — Emile Zola

Fuck you! Someone has tortured and killed one of your girls and you couldn't give a damn? I thought you were supposed to protect them, to be their guardian. Isn't that what pimps do?' Garcia's face flared red. — Chris Carter

AND NOW THERE REMAINS ONLY ONE FINAL QUESTION, he said. He raised his hands, and seemed to grow. Light flared in his eye sockets. When he spoke next, avalanches fell in the mountains. HAVE YOU BEEN NAUGHTY ... OR NICE? HO. HO. HO. — Terry Pratchett

At that exact moment, 6-0-0, the sun climbed over the skyline of oaks, revealing its full summer angry-god self. Its reflection flared across the river toward our house, a long, blaring finger aimed at me through our frail bedroom curtains. Accusing: You have been seen. You will be seen. — Gillian Flynn

I arched my back. "Yeah, a striptease. Take off my clothes until I was wearing nothing but a jock. You'd have to sit on your hands. No touching. And I'd bounce on your lap, shake my ass in your face until you couldn't take it anymore." His nostrils flared, the veins in his biceps bulging as he gripped my hands to the point of pain. "Then — Megan Erickson

Absorbing the rest of her shadow into his, he knuckled the wall on either side of her head, trapping her in the cage of his arms, but not touching. The cool, sweaty bricks ground into his skin. She shivered and flattened her hands as if clinging to the wall for protection. Fire flared low in his gut, spurring him on. — Kendall Grey

Beth," he whispered. "Come back to me."
He brought more of his blood to her.
"Damn it, don't you die!" Candles flared in the room. "I love you, damn you! Goddamn you, don't you let go! — J.R. Ward

Kronos couldn't have risen if it hadn't been for a lot of demigods who felt abandoned by their parents," I said. "They felt angry, resentful, and unloved, and they had a good reason."
Zeus's royal nostrils flared. "You dare accuse-"
"No more undetermined children," I said. "I want you to promise to claim your children-all your demigod children-by the time they turn thirteen. They won't be left out in the world on their own at the mercy of monsters. I want them claimed and brought to camp so they can be trained right, and survive."
"Now, wait just a moment," Apollo said, but I was on a roll.
"And the minor gods," I said. "Nemesis, Hecate, Morpheus, Janus, Hebe
they all deserve a general amnesty and a place at Camp Half-Blood. Their children shouldn't be ignored. Calypso and the other peaceful Titan-kind should be pardoned too. And Hades-"
"Are you calling me a minor god?" Hades bellowed. — Rick Riordan

I sat at a table in my shadowy kitchen, staring down a bottle of Boone's Farm
Hard Lemonade, when a magic fluctuation hit. My wards shivered and died, leaving my home stripped of its defenses. The TV flared into life, unnaturally loud in the empty house.
I raised my eyebrow at the bottle and bet it that another urgent bulletin was on.
The bottle lost.
"Urgent bulletin!" Margaret Chang announced. "The Attorney General advises all citizens that any attempt at summoning or other activities resulting in the appearance of a supernaturally powerful being can be hazardous to yourself and to other citizens."
"No shit," I told the bottle. — Ilona Andrews

Do you want me or not?"
His eyes flared as he looked into my face. "You know I want you. That's the problem. I want you but I can't have you."
I set my hands on my hips. "Well, you already have had me. Repeatedly ... We've already established how thoroughly you can have me. The question is ... are you going to keep me? — Linda Kage

Ildiko tried to embrace him and frowned when he stepped out of reach, still retaining his hold on her hand.

"I'm filthy, wife, and need a bath of my own." His nostrils flared, and his voice lowered to a more guttural timbre. "Lover of thorns, but you smell good enough to eat."

She arched an eyebrow and glanced at the platters on the table. "Considering our people's respective histories, not to mention that wolf smile when you say such a thing, I'm not sure if I should be flattered or scream for help. — Grace Draven

Well, good-bye for now," he said, rolling his neck as if we hadn't been talking about anything important at all. He bowed at the waist, those wings vanishing entirely, and had begun to fade into the nearest shadow when he went rigid.
His eyes locked on mine wide and wild, and his nostrils flared. Shock - pure shock flashed across his features at whatever he saw on my face, and he stumbled back a step. Actually stumbled.
"What is - " I began.
He disappeared - simply disappeared, not a shadow in sight - into the crisp air. — Sarah J. Maas

such a bitter taste in his mouth? He had become so accustomed to her feisty spirit and to the martial spark that flared in her eyes when she was ready to do battle, that this quiet surrender left him feeling more like a bullying lout than an officer deserving — Andrea Pickens

flared out at the bottom. She wore so — Brittainy C. Cherry

That's because we keep weapons int the attic, silly boy. Do you think this is the first time monsters have attacked our family?"
"Weapons," Frank grumbled. "Right. I've never handled weapons before."
Grandmother's nostrils flared. "Was that sarcasm, Fai Zhang?"
"Yes, Grandmother."
"Good. There may be hope for you yet. — Rick Riordan

Never be afraid to ask when you don't understand. It sounds like a little thing, but awful things have happened, international incidents have flared, and markets have collapsed just because people couldn't make sense of what was being said. They didn't ask 'why?' because they thought it would make them look stupid. — Lynda Resnick

The first year with ABT I learned 13 new roles. Most were lengthy ballets, more complicated than I was used to. I have suffered from tendinitis since I was 13, and it flared up again until the pain was paralyzing. There were times I prayed I'd be sick so I wouldn't have to go on. — Gelsey Kirkland

The rage flared up in me so fast, so strong, that I actually forgot to slap him. — Alexandra Bracken

From April 1775 to July 1776, the undeclared war between England and its American colonies smoldered, flared up, appeared to sputter out ... It was hardly, ever, a mass rebellion. — Gore Vidal

But Robin: their dear little Robs. More than ten years later, his death remained an agony; there was no glossing any detail; its horror was not subject to repair or permutation by any of the narrative devices that the Cleves knew. And - since this willful amnesia had kept Robin's death from being translated into that sweet old family vernacular which smoothed even the bitterest mysteries into comfortable, comprehensible form - the memory of that day's events had a chaotic, fragmented quality, bright mirrorshards of nightmare which flared at the smell of wisteria, the creaking of a clothes-line, a certain stormy cast of spring light. — Donna Tartt

Shutup,Caine," Edilio said in a voice so soft it was almost a whisper.
Anger, a dangerous anger, flared in Caine. "Who are you to talk to me that way?"
"You've been the problem, Caine. From the start. You're the one who kept us from ever really being able to unite, to fight this thing, You and your stupid need to control everyone. Don't you come here now all sheepish, all head hanging down and tell me you're scared." Edilio stabbed a finger in Caine's chest. It was such a un-Edilio moment it surprised them both. — Michael Grant

Grace." His head dipped toward mine. "Tell me to leave."
"No," I whispered back, relaxing into the wall, and he melted into me with a groan. "I want you to stay."
He looked into my eyes as if searching for the answer to something. "If I stay I'm going to fuck you."
I trembled in reaction to his bluntness and licked my lips before I moved my feet, widening my legs so he could fit just right between them. His eyes flared at the movement, and I reached up so our lips brushed as I whispered. "I'm counting on it. — Samantha Young

Her face flushed, her eyes flared and she poked him in the chest. "Ach, I had nae caution, you brastling gaupie! What about you? You recklessly left the sword out when there are children around!"

Anger crackled in every fibre of her body. He felt it. He saw it in the flash of her hair, the light of her eyes. But she was standing right in front of him and she was so very whole.

"Reckless!" He grabbed her arms and yanked her to him. "I'll show you reckless! — Nicole Locke

Her nostrils flared as she inhaled. There was a musky scent in the air, salty and animal, and it made her clench her legs together.
He grinned suddenly, his white teeth gritted together, as if he knew what he did to her. His fist was moving faster now, the deep red head of his cock appearing and disappearing between his fingers. It shone, fully revealed, and so big she bit her lip.
"Now," he grunted. "Now, Eve, watch me. Are you watching me?"
"Yes," she moaned.
The muscles stood out in his neck as a white liquid erupted from his cock, flowing and spurting, his legs shaking, his hand slowing.
And the entire time he watched her. — Elizabeth Hoyt

He saw a small, secondary explosion in the mushroom column. A yellow sphere flared in orange and then smoke swamped it. It had to be chemical, but what - Ah, he thought. All the iron in the buildings and soil has been thrown up in fine particles. Hot, too. It met the oxygen. "A rust bomb," he whispered. Weird, but probably right. And nobody had thought of it before. Karl — Gregory Benford

Now, Lily said, her burning voice bitter. Now you give me a choice. The ministar flared to life in her palm again. Thus do I choose, you son of a bitch. Knight of Winter, burn and die. — Jim Butcher

I felt the distance and stillness of that sprawled dawn like some endless sky waking inside me, flared against the laughter. — Don DeLillo

Open your mouth, tesoro." He angled her face higher. "Open your mouth for me."
At his raw demand, her eyes flared wide. For a drunken moment, he drowned in glorious brown, rich, autumnal, sensual. — Anna Campbell

Bree arched, trying to stretch out her muscles and Alessandro gave her a dirty look as if she was displaying herself to him on purpose. Well, maybe she was a little. Even though he blocked her from the hotel attendant's gaze with his body in the doorway, Bree was sure to cover herself with the blanket. Alessandro turned around, pulling in the tray with him and his eyes flared hungrily as he looked down at her. "You look like a beautiful debauched angel," he said, his voice rough with desire. "And you're what, the demon that's corrupted me?" Bree asked raising an eyebrow and letting the blanket fall down to her waist, baring her to him. "It's my life's work, you know?" Alessandro grinned, going down on to his knees and leaning over her. Bree placed a hand on his chest, halting him. "Is that coffee, I smell?" she asked. "The debauched angel is kind of hungry." She bit her lip and smiled up at his frustrated face. — E. Jamie

We treat racism in this country like it's a style that America went through. Like flared legs and lava lamps. Oh, that crazy thing we did. We were hanging black people. We treat it like a fad instead of a disease that eradicates millions of people. You've got to get it at a lab, and study it, and see its origins, and see what it's immune to and what breaks it down. — Chris Rock

The unnamed man's nose flared in insult as he thought to himself while the pig named Corbin prattled on. He disgusts me with his gluttonous sweat and fearful stink. He is like a swine, plumped up for the slaughter, but none I would like to eat. He sits across the table from me wheedling, desiring, wanting more and more and more. He wants assurances of safety, he wants money, he want, he wants, he wants... I am close, but not quite ready, to lean across and slit his jowls with a second smile, stand up and leave. But that is not my job...not yet. — Clifton Hill

Hey, do you want to end this right now?" Her eyes flared. "I wouldn't have asked you out if I'd wanted to end it. Sit back, eat and enjoy. Pretend I'm dead. — David Bischoff

The Fire Bug flared up at that. "You want to know what bugs me?" it said indignantly. "Nobodaddy's friendly about fire. Oh, it's fine in its place, people say, it makes a nice glow in a room, but keep an eye on it in case it gets out of control, and always put it out before you leave. Never mind how much it's needed; a few forests burned by wildfires, the occasional volcanic eruption, and there goes our reputation. Water, on the other hand! - hah! - there's no limit to the praise Water gets. Floods, rains, burst pipes, they make no difference. Water is everyone's favorite. And when they call it the Fountain of Life! - bah! - well, that just bugs me to bits." The Fire Bug dissolved briefly into a little cloud of angry, buzzing sparks, then came together again. "Fountain of Life, indeed," it hissed. "What an idea. Life is not a drip. Life is a flame. What do you imagine the sun is made of? Raindrops? I don't think so. Life is not wet, young man. Life burns. — Salman Rushdie

My first kiss ... and it was everything I'd imagined it to be, with the exception of there being an audience for it. But it was hard to acknowledge them or their cheering and whistles. Flames scorched my already heated skin. Dez's lips moved against mine, working the tight seam open. I gasped, wondering where in the world he'd learned to kiss like that. Jealousy flared like a beacon on the heels of that thought. Okay. I didn't want to know how he'd learned. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Now one day - and we know the day, August 1, 1774 - Priestley put calx of mercury underneath a glass. He focused the sun's hot rays on the calx with his new 12" diameter magnifying glass. It began to give off a gas. The calx of mercury changed back into mercury, and Priestley trapped the gas with his pneumatic trough. And then he sat and looked, and thought, and looked some more. He happened to have a lighted candle nearby. Without really thinking about it Priestley exposed the candle to the gas. The flame suddenly flared into brilliance! What was this wondrous gas? If — Benjamin Wiker

Jem raised his hand, and his witchlight flared into life, frightening a group of blackbeetles. They scurried across the floor, causing Will to grimace. "Nice place to live, isn't it? Let's hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two ... "
"Indeed. Perhaps, if we're fortunate, we can still catch syphilis."
"Or demon pox," Will suggested cheerfully, trying the door under the stairs. It swung open, unlocked as the front door had been. "There's always demon pox."
"Demon pox does not exist."
"Oh ye of little faith," said Will, disappearing into the darkness under the stairs. — Cassandra Clare

She slid open the box, extracted a match, and struck it with a flourish. The flame flared up in the gloom of the unlit room, a tiny golden beacon. For a moment, Oma Kristel held it aloft, then the unthinkable happened. The match slipped out of her fingers and fell straight onto her pink mohair bosom. With a whooomph! like the sounds of a gas furnace firing up, the hairspray with which Oma Kristel had doused herself ignited, obliterating her in a column of flames. — Helen Grant

Finished with the fries, I licked the salt off my finger as I lifted my gaze.
Aiden's eyes flared silver, and something warm unfurled in my stomach. I put my other finger to my lips
Holy baby daimons everywhere, what the hell was I doing? I grabbed a napkin, wiping furiously at my fingers. Across from me, heat roared off Aiden. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I do love rocks, as a matter of fact." A coquettish smile crept into her voice. "I find them utterly fascinating. I'm forever taking them in hand. Exploring their every ridge and contour." She skimmed a petal-soft fingertip over the head of his cock, tracing the flared ridge of the crown and the dewy slit of the tip. Then her touch teased down his length, all the way to the root. "Some of them have very interesting veins. — Tessa Dare

Anger flared through him, but anger was unproductive so he twisted it into pragmatism while he searched for a flaw. — Victoria Schwab

His nostrils flared, he was breathing like a picadored bull. — Jerry Spinelli

Help me," said Jesper. "We need to barricade the entrance."
The man behind the desk wore gray scholar's robes. His nostrils were flared so wide in effrontery that Jesper feared being sucked up one of them.
"Young man - " Jesper pointed his gun at the scholar's chest. "Move."
"Jesper!" his father said.
"Don't worry, Da. People point guns at each other all the time in Ketterdam. It's basically a handshake."
"Is that true?" his father asked as the scholar grudgingly moved aside and they shoved the heavy desk in front of the door.
"Absolutely," said Wylan.
"Certainly not ," said the scholar. — Leigh Bardugo

The woman with hair of flames knelt over me. She might have been pretty if not for the anger in every corner of her face. Emerald eyes glowed with almost seeping venom as her nostrils flared.
- Lord Tristan Dracanburh, Ethandun — Alexandra May

I have now seen sucrose beaches and water a very bright blue. I have seen an all-red leisure suit with flared lapels. I have smelled suntan lotion spread over 2,100 pounds of hot flesh. I have been addressed as "Mon" in three different nations. I have seen 500 upscale Americans dance the Electric Slide. I have seen sunsets that looked computer-enhanced. I have (very briefly) joined a conga line. — David Foster Wallace

The warmth in his eyes flared to heat and he captured her hand in both of his, bending over it to hold his lips against the back a long moment. He did not exactly kiss it so much as breathe her in. She feared her hand smelled of bacon, but he didn't seem to care. — Gail Dayton

Tiny gold sparks flared in his irises. "You're in my rooms in my bathtub naked and you're still mouthing off."
Did he expect anything different? "Hey, I didn't kick or punch you in the throat. I consider this progress. And you haven't choked me again, which is some sort of record for you ... — Ilona Andrews

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,
You've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feathers a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns. — Adam Zagajewski

His pupils flared. "Is there a reason you do that, Princess?" "Is there any reason not to? — Sarah J. Maas

Since when are you so nice?" I whispered.
Cage's nostrils flared slightly. "Only once, since the day I met you, Teacup, that I haven't treated you right. Am I right? — Madeline Sheehan

Breeze which had crossed a thousand miles of wheat-lands bellied her taffeta skirt in a line so graceful, so full of animation and moving beauty, that the heart of a chance watcher on the lower road tightened to wistfulness over her quality of suspended freedom. She lifted her arms, she leaned back against the wind, her skirt dipped and flared, a lock blew wild. A girl on a hilltop; credulous, plastic, young; drinking the air as she longed to drink life. The eternal aching comedy of expectant youth. — Sinclair Lewis

Like the Arthurian years at Camelot, the Sixties constituted a breakthrough, a fleeting moment of glory, a time when a significant little chunk of humanity briefly realised its moral potential and flirted with its neurological destiny, a collective spiritual awakening that flared brilliantly until the barbaric and mediocre impulses of the species drew tight once more the curtains of darkness. — Tom Robbins

He gripped her hips, and standing up, slowly pushed volumes of silk with him. Blue fabric puffed and pillowed between them. His hand traced a slow caress the length of her from knee to hip. Edward's nostrils flared, as did his eyes, when his roving hand slipped behind her, grappling bare skin. She quivered from tantalizing male touch exploring forbidden flesh. Lydia read Edward's face, the flush of tanned skin and mouth unable to close, as knowledge seeped into his brain: she'd said her vows, eaten dinner with the utmost decorum, and chattered politely with all and sundry in this secret state of undress. Edward groaned and jammed her body hard against his. "You're naked under your skirt. — Gina Conkle

Her gaze met his. "What do you want more than anything?"
Right now, he felt like he could gaze into her green eyes for a century or two. They were amazing, the way they flared with anger, twinkled with humor, or softened with compassion. "I want to be loved, honestly and truly loved, for who I am. And I want to love a woman with all my heart for all my life. I want to ache for her mind, for her body, for her companionship."
Her eyes widened. "Oh." (Toni & Ian) — Kerrelyn Sparks

A ludicrous boyish hope flared that someone would come to help him, and, carefully, he extinguished it. — C.S. Pacat

What is your name?" he asked softly.
She winced, knowing what was to come, "Calpurnia." She closed her eyes again, embarrassed by the extravagant name- a name with which no one but a hopelessly romantic mother with an unhealthy obsession with Shakespeare would have considered saddling a child.
"Calpurnia." He tested the name on his tongue. "As in, Caesar's wife?"
The blush flared higher as she nodded.
He smiled. "I must make it a point to better acquaint myself with your parents. That is a bold name, to be sure."
"It's a horrible name."
"Nonsense. Calpurnia was Empress of Rome- strong and beautiful and smarter than the men who surrounded her. She saw the future, stood strong in the face of her husband's assassination. She is a marvelous namesake. — Sarah MacLean

Alric! Stop it!" Pickering snapped at him. "You mustn't let the men see you crying!"
Fury flared in Alric, and he spun on the count. "No? No? Look at them! They are dying for me. They are dying on my order! I say they do have a right to see their king! They all have a right to see their king!"
Alric wiped the tears from his cheeks and gathered his reins. "I'm tired of this. I'm tired of having my face put in the dirt! I won't stand it. I'm tired of being helpless. That's my city, built by my ancestors! If my people chose to fight, then, by Maribor, I want them to know it's me they fight!"
The prince put on his helm, drew his father's large sword and spurred his horse forward, not at the trench but at the castle gate itself. — Michael J. Sullivan

My mum is totally crazy for fashion still. Her job was as a laundress, but I loved it when she would dress up in her red suit with a mini jacket and flared trousers and get her wig fixed at the hairdresser's - it was the time of wigs - and we would go shopping. — Stefano Gabbana

You may choose to live like a miser," Leo said, "but I'll be damned if I have to. You're incapable of enjoying the moment because you're always intent on tomorrow. Well, for some people, tomorrow never comes."
Her temper flared. "Someone has to think of tomorrow, you selfish spendthrift!"
"Coming from an overbearing shrew - "
Win stepped between them, resting a gentle hand on Amelia's shoulder. "Hush, both of you. It serves no purpose to make yourselves cross just before we are to leave." She gave Amelia a sweet quirk of a smile that no one on earth could have resisted. "Don't frown like that, dear. What if your face stayed that way?"
"With prolonged exposure to Leo," Amelia replied, "it undoubtedly would. — Lisa Kleypas

It was no longer her sleeping room, it was our sleeping room now. We made friends the night it thundered, big claps of it and forked lightning flared then sizzled inside the room, she cowering under my bed, terrified that Eric Eric, the man with the clapper who broke up the big ships in the harbor in Malmo, was coming for her. — Edna O'Brien

You don't have to get out. I know how to let myself in," she said.
"I'll get you at the door and walk you to it when I return you. It's part of my job, woman," he said.
Her temper flared. "Don't you ever call me woman. I'm not backwoods white trash. I have a name and don't you forget it. — Carolyn Brown

They drew up her bosom to giddy heights, pinched in her waist, flared out her rear, and managed to suggest that Alexandra's had once been an hourglass figure. — Harper Lee

For a long time, my uniform consisted of a trench coat, wide flared jeans, and little bottines - I copied a pair that my mother had in this theater place. I had, like, 10 pairs of the same shoes. — Nicolas Ghesquiere

[a] girl one day flared out and told the principal "the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry]." He said he didn't know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate's coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc. — Anna Julia Cooper

I never expected ... I never
"
His eyes flared as he seemed to recognise where I was going with my words. He advanced on me, his body moving into my space until he stood directly in front of me. "Don't," he said, almost pleadingly. "Don't. Please don't"
I lifted my gaze, gathering all my courage, refusing to back down. "I never expected to fall in love with you. And I thought maybe ... "
... you could love me back. Even if you leave. You could leave loving me. — Mia Sheridan

Pushing up onto my elbows, I stared at her from under the fringe of my messy hair. "I wanted to lie down where you fucked," I said, interested in seeing her reaction.
"You're unbelievable," she gasped.
I winked. "Only in the sack."
Her steel-grey eyes flared at me. "Get off my bed! — Marita A. Hansen