Going Down In Flames Quotes & Sayings

Die-hard conservatives thought that if I couldn't get everything I asked for, I should jump off the cliff with the flag flying-go down in flames. No, if I can get 70 or 80 percent of what it is I'm trying to get ... I'll take that and then continue to try to get the rest in the future. — Ronald Reagan

But he'd seen elite warriors go down in flames enough times to struggle with the sovereignty of God yet yield to it — Ronie Kendig

Deep down within anyone there's a flame that maybe had gone dormant that can be fanned or ignited in case it had blown out. This is the flame of curiosity, the flame of wonder, of awe, of all the things that make you want to learn something more tomorrow than you knew today. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

In the beginning this is bound to happen. You have been sitting on the lid that covers your repressions, and you have been riding on that lid a long time, trying continuously to hold down everything beneath it. To become a witness means that you have finally jumped off the lid; now you will only stand aside and will not do anything. Now you will no longer repress, now you will just witness. So everything suppressed will arise, all the repressions will catch fire; you will find flames leaping where there were only ashes. — Rajneesh

The hand that once wielded both sword and axe now aches after an evening of the quill. When I wipe the tip of one clean, I often wonder how many buckets of ink I have used in a lifetime. How many words have I set down on paper or vellum, thinking to trap the truth thereby? And of those words, how many have I myself consigned to the flames as worthless and wrong? I do as I have done so many times. I write, I sand the wet ink, I consider my own words. Then I burn them. Perhaps when I do so, the truth goes up the chimney as smoke. Is it destroyed, or set free in the world? I do not know. I — Robin Hobb

Drifting off to sleep, I imagined a spark from the comet floating down, down like a mote of stardust, to land inside my father, where, settling in his belly, it rekindled the long-forgotten dreams and ambitions of his youth. I saw his white shirt glowing yellow in the moonlight, flames shooting from his fingertips, like he was a man set on fire. — George Bishop

Every night I get down on my knees and pray that Dennis Kucinich will burst into flames. — Glenn Beck

Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We're standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade. — Bono

Give me a hot coal glowing bright red,
Give me an ember sizzling with heat,
These are the jewels made from my beak.
We fly between the flames and never get singed
We plunge through the smoke and never cringe.
The secrets of fire, its strange winds, its rages,
We know it all as it rampages
Through forests, through canyons,
Up hillsides and down.
We track it.
We'll find it.
Take coals by the pound.
We'll yarp in the heart of the hottest flame
Then bring back its coals an make them tame.
For we are the colliers brave and beyond all
We are the owls of the colliering chaw! — Kathryn Lasky

That's Delhi. When life gets too much for you all you need to do is to spend an hour at Nigambodh Ghat,watch the dead being put to flames and hear their kin wail for them. Then come home and down a couple of pegs of whisky. In Delhi, death and drink make life worth living, — Khushwant Singh

Baby, I wish I could tell you how much I love you, how much you mean to me."
He nuzzled my cheek and continued down my neck, setting a fire across my skin, churning coals that burst into flames deep within my soul.
"Show me. — A.L. Jackson

Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames. — Thomas Moore

Islam and Christianity promise eternal paradise to the faithful. And that is a powerful opiate, certainly, the hope of a better life to come. But there's a Sufi story that challenges the notion that people believe only because they need an opiate. Rabe'a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seem running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, 'I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven of fear of hell, but because He is God. — John Green

George Oppen wasn't a larger than life personality, but I'm not either. And he lived a long time, so he was happy. Going down in flames is fine, too. — Stephen Malkmus

She came downstairs like a doe stepping into a clearing on the first day of hunting season. I felt like a coward. I was lower than dirt. I had used every trick in my book to get her to come downstairs. I had manipulated her emotions, cheated and wormed to beat her at this game we were playing. But then I saw her, and I was so happy. I knew I would have burned the building down for the sight of her running toward me out of the flames. — Candice Raquel Lee

Let's start this place on nonexistent fire," I teased.
"Promise." She sucked in an excited breath.
We closed our eyes and I placed my feverish mouth to hers. Immediately, violent, zealous flashes of shimmering flames climbed to the furthest point, trailed like rain down the pitched ceiling and spilled down the walls, gathering at their feet pools of fervent, bubbling, silvery liquid electricity before evaporating into nothing. — Fisher Amelie

The Everglades are on fire on my final drive down to the Keys. On the curve of the turnpike where the pineapple groves end and marshland begins, I watch the green horizon burn with helicopters bobbing overhead, fighting the flames. It's too late in the season to be a wildfire. The radio says some thrill-torcher is responsible.

I don't believe in omens. I believe we choose our own signs, so I take this one as my own: with this blaze, I leave my old life up here on the mainland in ashes. — Patricia Engel

She came upon a bankside of lavender crocuses. The sun was on them for the moment, and they were opened flat, great five-pointed, seven-pointed lilac stars, with burning centres, burning with a strange lavender flame, as she had seen some metal burn lilac-flamed in the laboratory of the hospital at Islington. All down and oak-dry bankside they burned their great exposed stars. And she felt like going down on her knees and bending her forehead to the earth in an oriental submission, they were so royal, so lovely, so supreme. She came again to them in the morning, when the sky was grey, and they were closed, sharp clubs, wonderfully fragile on their stems of sap, among leaves and old grass and wild periwinkle. They had wonderful dark stripes running up their cheeks, the crocuses, like the clear proud stripes on a badger's face, or on some proud cat. She took a handful of the sappy, shut, striped flames. In her room they opened into a grand bowl of lilac fire. — D.H. Lawrence

You want to go down in flames, I guess that's your call, but I'm not going to watch you burn. — Jay Crownover

There is only one reason I did not go down in flames over the Angers, and that is because I knew I had Julie in the back. Would never have had the presence of mind to put that fire out if I hadn't been trying to save her life. — Elizabeth Wein

Five swoops down, flames extinguished. Instead of going in for another strike, Five catches Nine by the wrist in midair. He lowers him gently to the ground. In response, Nine punches him right in the face. Because of course he does. — Pittacus Lore

Nice work in their, Herondale, setting the place on fire," Gabriel observed. "Good thing we were there to clean up after you, or the whole plan would have gone down in flames, along with the shreds of your reputation."
"Are you implying that shreds of my reputation remain intact?" Will demanded with mock horror. "Clearly I have been doing somethin wrong. Or no doing something wrong, as the case may be." He banged on the side of the carriage. "Thomas!" We must away from here at once to the nearest brothel! I seek scandal and low companionship."
Thomas snorted and muttered somethin that sounded like "bosh", which Will ignored.
Gabriel's face darkened. "Is there anything that isn't a joke to you?"
Nothing that comes to mind."
"You know," Gabriel said, "there was a time I thought we could be friends, Will"
"There was a time I thought I was a ferret," Will said, "but it turned out to be the opium haze. Did you know it had that effect? Becausen I didn't. — Cassandra Clare

But there's a school of thought that says if you're going to go down in flames anyway, you might as well be the one lighting the matches. — Timothy Zahn

And even though they fail us every bit as readily as we fail ourselves, even though they prove just as incapable of fulfilling us as all the other people do in our lives, we still keep pushing that gimme button like blasted morons, fully expecting that the next time we snag whatever comes out of it will be the time when the satisfaction finally takes hold, when the good feelings finally stick around and stay. And so like clockwork, we go down in flames again and again to our alcohol abuse or our sexual lust or our sweet tooth or our credit line - whatever particular desire is so powerful and predictable at deceiving us. We grab for things that have never failed to disappoint us in the past, thinking that what we must need more than anything is more of it ... more of the same thing that's never been able to satisfy us before. That's the call of the world for you. And it's madness. — Matt Chandler

Girl of Emerald, no man can tame. Burn down the world, consumed by flames. — Betsy Schow

Zeus most glorious and most great, Thundercloud, throned in the heavens! Let not the sun go down and the darkness come, until I cast down headlong the citadel of Priam in flames, and burn his gates with blazing fire, and tear to rags the shirt upon Hectors breast! May many of his men fall about him prone in the dust and bite the earth! — Homer

Thus the brave and aspiring life of one man lights a flame in the minds of others of like faculties and impulse; and where there is equally vigorous effort, like distinction and success will almost surely follow. Thus the chain of example is carried down through time in an endless succession of links
admiration exciting imitation, and perpetuating the true aristocracy of genius. — Samuel Smiles

Now," she said when all was ready and lit the silver sconces on either side of the mirror. What woman would not have kindled to see what Orlando saw then burning in the snow
for all about the looking glass were snowy lawns, and she was like a fire, a burning bush, and the candle flames about her head were silver leaves; or again, the glass was green water, and she a mermaid, slung with pearls, a siren in a cave, singing so that oarsmen leant from their boats and fell down, down to embrace her; so dark, so bright, so hard, so soft, was she, so astonishingly seductive that it was a thousand pities that there was no one there to pt it in plain English, and say outright "Damn it Madam, you are loveliness incarnate," which was the truth. — Virginia Woolf

Thingumy and Bob sighed contentedly and settled down to contemplate the precious stone. They stared in silent rapture at it.
The ruby changed colour all the time. At first it was quite pale, and then suddenly a pink glow would flow over it like sunrise on a snow capped mountain
and then again crimson flames shot out of its heart and it seemed like a great black tulip with stamens on fire. — Tove Jansson

You will die a worse death if you do not leave my domain," a voice thundered down from the third story of the old tenement. "I am a servant of the Sacred Fire, the wielder of the flame of Arnor - " "So I should call you Gandalf? — Karen Chance

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck." Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love's the burning boy. — Elizabeth Bishop

At the last, Viserys looked at her. "Sister, please ... Dany, tell them ... make them ... sweet sister ... "
When the gold was half-melted and starting to run, Drogo reached into the flames, snatched out the pot. "Crown!" he roared. "Here. A crown for Cart King!" And upended the pot over the head of the man who had been her brother.
The sound Viserys Targaryen made when that hideous iron helmet covered his face was like nothing human. His feet hammered a frantic beat against the dirt floor, slowed, stopped. Thick globs of molten gold dripped down onto his chest, setting the scarlet silk to smoldering ... yet no drop of blood was spilled.
He was no dragon, Dany thought, curious calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon. — George R R Martin

You will balance one another out. You're alike just enough to make the flames fly but keep them from burning down the house. — Alyssa Rose Ivy

Are you in?" I roll my eyes and try to kiss him again, but he won't let me. I pinch his nipples, and all he does is wink and growl at me. "Say it."
"Fuck you"
"We'll get there, Naomi. Be patient. But first, you have to say it." I keep glaring, but I feel my body melting, my shields and my walls crashing down in flames. "Say you're mine, tell me that you're my girlfriend."
"You're my boyfriend," I say, and the words nearly kill me. "That's all you get for now. Best I can fucking do. — C.M. Stunich

I shot down some German planes and I got shot down myself, crashing in a burst of flames and crawling out, getting rescued by brave soldiers. — Roald Dahl

They say the only way you can truly kill a Celestra is by fire. I would gladly lend myself to the flames to peer down eternally over this sinful disgrace of a planet that houses cowards such as these. — Addison Moore

Any decent politician is masochistic enough to dream now and then of going down in flames while the angels sing. — Isaac Asimov

Shinji slowly fell forward onto his face. Debris bounced up on impact. It took less than thirty seconds for the rest of his body to die. The memento of his beloved uncle
the earring worn by the woman he loved
was now stained with the blood running down Shinji's left ear, reflecting the glow from the red flames of the farm building.
And so the boy known as the Third Man, Shinji Mimura, was dead. — Koushun Takami

On that day so long ago, in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, in the Massacre River, my mother did fly. Weighted down by my body inside hers, she leaped from Dominican soil into the water, and out again on the Haitian side of the river. She glowed red when she came out, blood clinging to her skin, which at that moment looked as though it were in flames. — Edwidge Danticat

German puppets
burnt the Jews
Jewish puppets
did not choose
Puppet vultures
eat the dead
Puppet corpses
they are fed
Puppet winds and
puppet waves
Puppet sailors
in their graves
Puppet flower
Puppet stem
Puppet Time
dismantles them
Puppet me and
puppet you
Puppet German
Puppet Jew
Puppet presidents
command
puppet troops to
burn the land
Puppet fire
puppet flames
feed on all the
puppet names
Puppet lovers
in their bliss
turn away from
all of this
Puppet reader
shakes his head
takes his puppet
wife to bed
Puppet night
comes down to say
the epilogue to
puppet day — Leonard Cohen

Overreacting as usual," Bosch said. "One fire and they're all there, showing the flames. You know what that does? That's like throwing gasoline on it. It will spread now. People will see that in their living rooms and go outside to see what is happening. Groups will form, things will be said and people won't be able to back down from their anger. One thing will lead to another and we'll have our media-manufactured riot. — Michael Connelly

In the Middle Ages, cathedrals and convents burned like tinder; imagining a medieval story without a fire is like imagining a World War II movie in the Pacific without a fighter plane shot down in flames. — Umberto Eco

I come from all places and to all places I go: I am art among the arts and mountain among mountains. I know the strange names of flowers and herbs and of fatal deceptions and magnificent griefs. In night's darkness I've seen raining down on my head pure flames, flashing rays of beauty divine. — Jose Marti

If the old man looked at straight lines to keep his act together, I was going to stare at curved lines and go down in flames. — Natsuo Kirino

Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. — David Foster Wallace

I am a Hindu because of sculptured cones of red kumkum powder and baskets of yellow turmeric nuggets, because of garlands of flowers and pieces of broken coconut, because of the clanging of bells to announce one's arrival to God, because of the whine of the reedy nadaswaram and the beating of drums, because of the patter of bare feet against stone floors down dark corridors pierced by shafts of sunlight, because of the fragrance of incense, because of flames of arati lamps circling in the darkness, because of bhajans being sweetly sung, because of elephants standing around to bless, because of colourful murals telling colourful stories, because of foreheads carrying, variously signified, the same word - faith. — Yann Martel

As he took possession of it, he was overcome by a sense of something like sacred awe. He carefully spread his horse blanket on the ground as if dressing an altar and lay down on it. He felt blessedly wonderful. He was lying a hundred and fifty feet below the earth, inside the loneliest mountain in France - as if in his own grave. Never in his life had he felt so secure, certainly not in his mother's belly. The world could go up on flames out there, but he would not even notice it here. He even began to cry softly. He did not know who to thank for such good fortune. — Patrick Suskind

There was one obvious solution to this problem, but it involved me uttering four inconceivable words to Seth Allen. This was not going to be pretty.
"Take off your pants," I mumbled in Seth's direction.
"What?" Seth's voice was shrill as it cracked.
"Your pants. Take them off." I spoke louder now, impatient.
"But...I'll be naked and cold, and I still haven't had the chance to bulk up my legs at the gym so I'm just not sure..."
I cut Seth off with with my best "Are you effing kidding me?" Face and jerked my head towards Maddie in the backseat.
"Oh, right, I get it. Maddie needs pants and I have them, so I'll just go ahead and, um, well, strip down. Could you..." Seth's cheeks went up in twin flames. — Lisa Roecker