Kindling Quotes & Sayings

George could only stare at the young lady's kindling face, which lighted up all in a moment, and was suddenly beautiful, like some transparency which seems a dingy picture till you put a lamp behind it. The young surgeon could only stare wonderingly at Mr. Sleaford's daughter, for he hadn't the faintest idea what she and his friend were talking about. — Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Pleasant things to hear, though hearing them from him embarrasses me. I soak up the praise but feel obliged to disparage the gift. I believe that most people have some degree of talent for something
forms, colors, words, sounds. Talent lies around in us like kindling waiting for a match, but some people, just as gifted as others, are less lucky. Fate never drops a match on them. The times are wrong, or their health is poor, or their energy low, or their obligations too many. Something. — Wallace Stegner

Ragnarok. Is that all the North ever thinks about? Is that what you want, Snorri? Some great battle and the world ruined and dead?" I couldn't blame him if he did. Not with what had befallen him this past year, but I would be disturbed to know he had always lusted after such an end, even on the night before the black ships came to Eight Quays.
The light kindling on my torch caught him in midshrug. "Do you want the paradise your priests paint for you on cathedral ceilings?"
"Good point. — Mark Lawrence

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. — Socrates

The two of them froze and stared at each [sic] from across the silent, woolly garden.
And Ian, as he always did when he saw Falconbridge, felt a certain amount of shame. They had both shamed each other, on that fateful night, and really, it was hardly conversation kindling.
'Good morning,' Ian said politely.
'Good morning.'
Their voices echoed absurdly in the cool morning air.
A silence. Ian supposed it would be just a little too ironic if he scrambled up a fruit tree and clambered over a wall instead of walking past the duke, back to where he'd tethered his horse. — Julie Anne Long

But the day is spent;
And stars are kindling in the firmament,
To us how silent
though like ours, perchance,
Busy and full of life and circumstance. — Samuel Rogers

His uniform sleeve was burned away and his arm seemed to be glowing from the inside, like a piece of kindling in a fire.
Fire wants to burn, Call thought. — Holly Black

In a short time God began to manifest His power and soon the building could not contain the people. Now the meetings continue all day and into the night and the fire is kindling all over the city and surrounding towns. Proud, well-dressed preachers come in to "investigate." Soon their high looks are replaced with wonder, then conviction comes, and very often you will find them in a short time wallowing on the dirty floor, asking God to forgive them and make them as little children. — William Seymour

My dog does not care where heat comes from, but he cares that it comes, and soon. Indeed he considers my ability to make it come as something magical, for when I rise in the coal black pre-dawn and kneel by the hearth to make a fire, he pushes himself blandly between me and the kindling splits I have laid in the ashes, and I must touch a match to them by poking it between his legs. Such faith , I suppose, is the kind that moves mountains. — Aldo Leopold

Well ah woke up aboot hauf ten an' ah wiz still pissed fae the Friday night. Oan the table beside ma bed wiz hauf a spliff, hauf a boatle a wine an' a can ay beer. Ah smoked the spliff an' drank the wine fur ma breakfast then rolled another joint tae huv wae the beer. — Stephen Livingston

Wizards? Do you mean they do things a different way?"
"No, just the way we do,"Merlin replied.With a flick of his finger he lit the soggy heap of kindling that Arthur had gathered ( ... ) A blaze leapt up on the instant. Merlin then opened his hands and produced some food out of thin air. — Deepak Chopra

kindling all over with pleasure at the thought of the past. — Virginia Woolf

I will go where I will go
And I will jettison all dead weight
And I will use these words for kindling
And I will sleep by the garden gate. — John Darnielle

A wash of relief poured through her, along with a kindling of hope. Her bridegroom wasn't Gauri; he wasn't even human. He was, however, congenial and gracious. She had proclaimed his appearance ghastly and his honesty handsome. Ildiko still stood by both opinions. She could have done infinitely worse. More than a few Gauri women had the misfortune to marry human men with handsome faces and ghastly souls. — Grace Draven

And thou hast stolen a jewel, Death! Shall light thy dark up like a Star. A Beacon kindling from afar Our light of love and fainting faith. — Gerald Massey

Lately, he'd felt like his bones were God's kindling. That God must be awfully cold to set so many fires. — Cynthia Bond

I will kill them," Temujin promised, rage kindling in him. "I will burn them and eat their flesh if they do." "That will bring you peace, but it will not change anything for Borte," Hoelun said. "What else can I do? She cannot kill them as I could, or force them to kill her, even. Nothing that happens is her fault." He found himself crying and wiped angrily at bloody tears on his cheeks. "She trusted me." "You cannot make this right, my son. Not if they escape your brothers. If you find her alive, you will have to be patient and kind." "I know that! I love her; that is enough." "It was," Hoelun persisted. "It may not be enough any longer. — Conn Iggulden

O marvelous Sacrament! How can I find words to praise you! You are the life of the soul, the medicament healing our wounds, our comforter when we are overburdened, the memorial of Jesus Christ, the proof of his love, the most precious precept of his testament, our companion in the pilgrimage of life, the joy sustaining us in our exile, the burning coal kindling the fire of divine love, the instrument of grace, the pledge of eternal bliss and the treasure of Christians — Louis Of Granada

Books can ignite fires in your mind, because they carry ideas for kindling, and art for matches. — Gary D. Schmidt

Allow me to give you this orange, Your Highness, along with my wishes for a swift recovery."
"That's very generous of you, Master Galen," she replied, a faint light kindling in her eyes, "especially since they are my family's oranges." She took it from him, rolling it between her palms. "And considering that my illness if most likely a result of falling into the fountain the day we met."
Galen winced. He had known she would remember that, but he had hoped she wouldn't hold it against him. Although, judging by the faint smile on her pale lips, she didn't mean it in earnest.
"Well, Your Highness, I know that I am indeed handsome, but I can hardly be blamed if my good looks overcame you so strongly that you fainted," he said, striking a pose. — Jessica Day George

Of all books printed, probably not more than half are ever read. Many are embalmed in public libraries; many go into private quarters to fill spaces; many are glanced at and put away ... scarcely opened until the fire needs kindling. The most ardent book-lovers are not always the greatest readers; indeed, the rabid bibliomaniac seldom reads at all. To him books are as ducats to the miser, something to be hoarded and not employed ... So pleasant it is to buy book; so tiresome to utilize them. — Flora Haines Loughead

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

derelict. my voice cracked and yolk poured out. wind chimes rigid, no breeze, no song. my wings found hidden in your suitcase. pleas for help mistaken for a swan song. i'm stuffing pages from my journal down my throat as kindling. hoping the smoke will get the taste of you out of my mouth. he looks at me from across the room and all i want is to push him against the wall. ravage. ravage. carnage has never been more vogue. is it still art if it doesn't bring you to your knees? lover, let me prey at your altar. let me bare my fangs in praise. don't i look so pretty in a funeral shroud? i keep time with the click of my creaking bones. dance with me under the milky translucence of a world suffocating. how did you find me? i buried myself beneath the cicadas. is a girl trapped in glass still a prize?
let me get under your skin. i want to know what your fears taste like. i want to consume. — Taylor Rhodes

Sometimes people would feign friendship for as long as it suited them. However resentment built, like dry kindling, stacked around a fire - waiting for the spark to ignite it. — Martyn Stanley

Her life is a wrecked boat torn apart for kindling and set ablaze to send a message to the sky from a deserted beach. From a distance the words spell SAVE ME. The closer the sign the clearer the statement. Turns out it says FUCK YOU. — Merri Lisa Johnson

From building a fire one can learn something about artistic composition. If you use only small kindling and large logs, the fire will quickly eat up the small pieces but will not become strong enough to attack the large ones. You must supply a scale of sizes from the smallest to the largest. The human eye also will not make its way into a painting or building unless a continuum of shapes leads from the small to the large, from the large to the small. — Rudolf Arnheim

It was like there was a pile of kindling that was in the back of my imagination just waiting there. Once I lit it, it just flared up and I kept getting ideas and ideas. — Kevin J. Anderson

Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. How terrible is the doom of the wicked! The little kindling of God's wrath kills them. What shall the eternal burnings be? Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall abide with everlasting burnings? There is a land of thick darkness and despair where dwells the undying worm, which in its ceaseless folds does crush the spirits of the damned. There is a fire quickly burning, that dries up the very marrow of body and soul and yet destroys them not. There also is the pit that knows no bottom, the hopeless falling without a thought of ever coming to an end. There is a land where souls linger in eternal death and yet they never die - crushed, but not annihilated - broken, but not destroyed. Forever, forever, forever, is the ceaseless wave which rolls its fresh tide of fire upon a shore of agony, whose years are as countless as the sands of the sea. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Godly enthusiasm is not a fire of our own kindling ... If a man, however, has caught fire, let me not quench the Spirit by dampening the ardor of his pure devotion. Enthusiasm is not contrary to reason; it is reason - on fire. — Peter Marshall

Have great power, and everyone knows one or two." "Even me," Eddie said. "For instance, why did the dead baby cross the road?" "That's dumb, Eddie," Susannah said, but she was smiling. "Because it was stapled to the chicken!" Eddie yelled, and grinned when Jake burst into laughter, knocking his little pile of kindling apart. — Stephen King

As subdued as the crowd seemed, the tempers wafting his way seethed with rage. The tides weren't defeated. They were dry kindling, just waiting for a spark. — Veronica Rossi

Their eyes met with a singular directness of gaze. Between them a spark passed which was not afterwards to be extinguished, though neither of them knew the moment of its kindling ... — Frances Hodgson Burnett

For it is a fire that kindling its first embers in the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught from a wandering spark out of another private heart, glows and enlarges until it warms and beams upon multitudes of men and women, upon the universal heart of all, and so lights up the whole world and all nature with its generous flames. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ye comin'?" Ben shook his head. "Nope. I'm just the driver. Ms. Adams owns the shop. She makes all the buyin' decisions." McPhearson nodded. "Seems my woman's determined to make a few buyin' decisions of her own." He shrugged. "I'll have to keep an eye on her. If Hazel has her way, she'll probably trade away me favorite chair. Finally got the thing fittin' me backside just the way I like it." "Colin McPhearson," his wife scolded from the porch, where she and Tori had paused to eavesdrop on the men's conversation. "No one in their right mind would take that lumpy, broken-down thing. There's a better chance of me breaking that old chair up for kindling than there is of a sensible woman like Mrs. Adams taking it in trade." "Don't be criticizing me chair, woman," McPhearson blustered, raising his voice but putting no real heat behind the words as he stomped the rest of the way across the yard. Ben — Karen Witemeyer

In a corner of her heart she imagined her compassion as kindling that could ignite not only her tender and guarded feelings for her mother, but also jump across the void and ignite her mother's feelings for her. — Sonja Yoerg

We must get back into relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the universe. The way is through daily ritual, andis an affair of the individual and the household, a ritual of dawn and noon and sunset, the ritual of the kindling fire and pouring water, the ritual of the first breath, and the last. — D.H. Lawrence

Nonviolence is kindling light of love into the dark places and budding trust from the threshold of hopelessness. — Amit Ray

If I was gay, there would be no closet. You would never see the closet I came out of. Why? Because I'd have burned it for kindling by the time I was twelve ... If I was gay, at this stage of the game?age 37, aging alternative icon?I'd be taking out ads. — Henry Rollins

Perhaps drugging the woman he intended to fall in love with wasn't the accepted method of kindling a passionate romance, yet Archimedes considered it the most sensible way to proceed. — Meljean Brook

His strongest tastes were negative. He abhorred plastics, Picasso, sunbathing, and jazz
everything in fact that had happened in his own lifetime. The tiny kindling of charity which came to him through his religion sufficed only to temper his disgust and change it to boredom ... — Evelyn Waugh

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam. — John Milton

Money cannot buy the fuel of love but is excellent kindling. — W. H. Auden

Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver; her mountains, with bright aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad, deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine - no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery. — Washington Irving

Mom and Dad had gathered their love like kindling, burned it together. And now that love is being scattered all over the place. — David Arnold

THERE IS NO mystery to happiness. Unhappy men are alike. Some wound they suffered long ago, some wish denied, some blow to pride, some kindling spark of love put out by scorn
or worse, indifference
cleaves to them, or they to it, and so they live each day within a shroud of yesterdays. The happy man does not look back. He doesn't look ahead. He lives in the present. — Jed Rubenfeld

Honeyed oatie cakes, lemon oatie cakes, oatie cakes with dried grapes!" moaned Athena, she and her owl both rolling her eyes.

"I've still got sacks fullin my storage rooms," said Artemis. "I give them to my temple priestesses to hand out to people who pray really hard...or not."

"I use them as fish food," said Poseidon.

"Kindling," said Hephaestus. "They burn great on the forge."

"I've sent a million sacks down to Egypt," said Dionysus. "They ran out of bricks for the Pyramids. — Carolyn Hennesy

When it shall be desired to enlighten man, let him always have truth laid before him. Instead of kindling his imagination by the idea of those pretended goods that a future state has in reserve for him, let him be solaced, let him be succoured; or, at least, let him be permitted to enjoy the fruit of his labour; let not his substance be ravaged from him by cruel imposts; let him not be discouraged from work, by finding all his labour inadequate to support his existence, let him not be driven into that idleness that will surely lead him on to crime: let him consider his present existence, without carrying his views to that which may attend him after his death: let his industry be excited; let his talents be rewarded; let him be rendered active, laborious, beneficent, and virtuous, in the world he inhabits; let it be shown to him that his actions are capable of having an influence over his fellow men, but not on those imaginary beings located in an ideal world. — Paul Henri Thiry D'Holbach

In Shakespeare one sentence begets the next naturally; the meaning is all inwoven. He goes on kindling like a meteor through the dark atmosphere. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Although my justification was secured in a moment, the process of my understanding and acceptance took place over a year-long time of some guys being patient with me and loving me and walking with me. They invited me to church gatherings and spiritual events, and they even allowed me to mock those things. They just patiently explained them to me more fully. I asked a lot of questions that I now know won't be answered this side of heaven, but they let me ask them anyway, and they tried to answer. Sometimes they'd give me books to read. Through that whole year, God began to gather kindling around my life. — Matt Chandler

Cultural transformation announces itself in sputtering fits and starts, sparked here and there by minor incidents, warmed by new ideas that may smolder for decades. In many different places, at different times, the kindling is laid for the real conflagration-the one that will consume the old landmarks and alter the landscape forever. — Marilyn Ferguson

The essential ingredients of these struggles for justice are human beings who, if only for a moment, if only while beset with fears, step out of line and do "something", however small. And even the smallest, most unheroic of acts adds to the store of kindling that may be ignited by some surprising circumstance into tumultuous change. — Howard Zinn

Previously been reported. For all three, the association with the Koch brothers' network is likely to provide kindling for their opponents, who have already argued that the Republicans are steered by deep-pocketed conservatives. Audio of the event, held at the St. Regis Monarch Beach resort, was obtained by The Undercurrent and shared exclusively with The Huffington — Anonymous

I hope they spent those last few hours well. I hope they didn't waste them on mindless tasks: kindling the evening fire and cutting vegetables for dinner. I hope they sang together, as they so often did. I hope they retired to our wagon and spent time in each other's arms. I hope they lay near each other afterward and spoke softly of small things. I hope they were together, busy with loving each other, until the end came. It is a small hope, and pointless really. They are just as dead either way. Still, I hope. — Patrick Rothfuss

Somewhere in the crowd a woman sobbed and collapsed in a faint. She was immediately carried out by two Boy Scouts who happened to be present, and who administered first aid to her in the rest-room, one of them hastily kindling a crackling fire of pine boughs by striking two flints together, while the other made a tourniquet, and tied several knots in his handkerchief. — Thomas Wolfe

My wife was of slight stature and weighed no more than a box of old books. Folded as she was, she fitted snugly into the trunk. — Stephen Livingston

Rising glory occasions the greatest envy, as kindling fire the greatest smoke. — Edmund Spenser

Sometimes they rose up inside her, these moments of fierce happiness, kindling out of their own substance like a spark igniting a mound of grass. It was a joy to be alive, a strange and savage joy, and she stood there in the warmth and destruction of it knowing it could not last. — Kevin Brockmeier

Then I celebrated my Wall of Books. I counted the volumes on my twenty-foot-long modernist bookshelf to make sure none had been misplaced or used as kindling by my subtenant. "You're my sacred ones," I told the books. "No one but me still cares about you. But I'm going to keep you with me forever. And one day I'll make you important again." I thought about that terrible calumny of the new generation: that books smell. — Gary Shteyngart

We are in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us ... How glorious a conversion, so complete and wholesome it is, scarce memory enough of old bondage days left as a standpoint to view it from! In this newness of life we seem to have been so always — John Muir

The focus of education should not be on suppressive information but on kindling the thirst for knowing. — Jaggi Vasudev

Blessed is the match, consumed in kindling flame.
Blessed is the flame that burns in the heart's secret places.
Blessed is the heart that knows, for honors sake, to stop its beating.
Blessed is the match, consumed in kindling flame. — Hannah Senesh

Evaluation eliminates frustration.
We should also evaluate unrealistic expectations.
Unrealistic expectations become unmet expectations. And unmet expectations are like kindling wood-it only takes but a spark of frustration to set them ablaze and burn those involved. — Lysa TerKeurst

This universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures. — Heraclitus

She could walk through a lightning storm without being touched; grab a bolt of lightning in the palm of her hand; use the heat of lightning to start the kindling going under her medicine pot. She turned the moon into salve, the stars into swaddling cloth, and healed the wounds of every creature walking up on two or down on four. — Gloria Naylor

Then Freddie was transformed into a moth. His old empty body fell forward face first into the water with a splash. Slicked back hair tied in a ponytail floated on the surface of the pool like a dead rodent on the sea as Freddie fluttered up towards a nearby streetlamp. — Stephen Livingston

All things are recreated, and the flame Of consentaneous love inspires all life. The fertile bosom of the earth gives suck To myriads, who still grow beneath her care, Rewarding her with their pure perfectness; The balmy breathings of the wind inhale Her virtues and diffuse them all abroad; Health floats amid the gentle atmosphere, Glows in the fruits and mantles on the stream; No storms deform the beaming brow of heaven, Nor scatter in the freshness of its pride The foliage of the ever-verdant trees; But fruits are ever ripe, flowers ever fair, And autumn proudly bears her matron grace, Kindling a flush on the fair cheek of spring, Whose virgin bloom beneath the ruddy fruit Reflects its tint and blushes into love. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Salvation and justice are not to be found in revolution, but in evolution through concord. Violence has ever achieved only destruction, not construction; the kindling of passions, not their pacification; the accumulation of hate and destruction, not the reconciliation of the contending parties; and it has reduced men and parties to the difficult task of building slowly after sad experience on the ruins of discord. — Pope Pius XII

Within the heart of every person exists the flame of wisdom that transforms all suffering into kindling for the fire of creative energy. — Daisaku Ikeda

We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. — John Muir

About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four-story building. It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a stem or the kindling of a star. — Annie Dillard

I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell. — Robert Green Ingersoll

We're kindling amid lightning strikes, a lit match and dry wood, fire danger signs and a forest waiting to be burned. — Nicola Yoon

There's a general hate in the hearts of men. You went to war, Gil, you should know that better than anyone. It's like the heat of the sun. Men like Kaad are just the focal figures, like lenses to gather the sun's rays on kindling. You can smash a lens, but that won't put out the sun. — Richard K. Morgan

I'd learned I didn't need kindling - I was kindling. ("Red") — Alyxandra Harvey

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in the hour of success. — John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

But really, both of them knew why they kept attending these parties: because they had become one of the few opportunities the four of them had to be together, and at times they seemed to be their only opportunity to create memories the four of them could share, keeping their friendship alive by dropping bundles of kindling onto a barely smoldering black smudge of fire. It was their way of pretending everything was the same. — Hanya Yanagihara

N. Martinez: Wildfires. That' why it smells so smoky. We had a dry winter, so the brush is like kindling
Eve: Are they different from regular fires?
N. Martinez: They're more unpredictable. They leap from one object to another, so it's hard to guess at their path or limit their destruction. Outside the city, they can roll over the landscape like a wave and hit you before you know it.
Eve: How do you stop them?
N. Martinez: You can't. Once they start, they choose their own path. All you can do is try to contain them until they burn themselves out. They're beautiful to watch, but they can be dangerous. — Michele Jaffe

Suicide in the trenches:
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
* * * * *
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go. — Siegfried Sassoon

The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flash of tattered flags kindling in the gloom of cool cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands. — Virginia Woolf

When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about in a shape by which few but savages and hunters are attracted. But, when he is trimmed, smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode: when he is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used up as to bliss; then, whether he take to the serving out of red tape, or to the kindling of red fire, he is the very Devil. — Charles Dickens

I decided that many of Bear's stories and comments shared a general drift. They advised against fearing all of creation. But not because it is always benign, for it is not. It will, with certainty, consume us all. We are made to be destroyed. We are kindling for the fire, and our lives will stand as naught against the onrush of time. Bear's position, if I understood it, was that refusal to fear these general terms of existence is an honorable act of defiance. — Charles Frazier

The sun of the mind, and the life of the heart is Wisdom. She is pure and full of light, crowning grey hairs with lustre, And kindling the eye of youth with a fire not its own. — Martin Farquhar Tupper

REST IS THE BEST WEAPON..BATTLES WON AND LOST" ((page 209 ))

JACKAL CHALLENGING BOURNE : " Paris, Jason Bourne! Paris if you dare! Or shall it be a minor university in Maine. Dr,Webb? ((page 276))...

JACKALS WARNING, IN PRINTED WORDS IN A BLACK BUTCHER'S PENCIL ((at an country restaurant Epernon, Paris ))
"The trees of Tannenbaum will burn and children will be the kindling. Sleep well Jason Bourne — Robert Ludlum

A wild dissolving bliss
Over my frame he breathed, approaching near,
And bent his eyes of kindling tenderness
Near mine, and on my lips impressed a lingering kiss — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Later that year, when snow started to hide the front steps, when morning became evening as I sat on the sofa, buried under everything I'd lost, I made a fire and used my laughter for kindling: "Ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha! — Jonathan Safran Foer

I teach not by feeding the mind with data but by kindling the mind. — Debasish Mridha

You watched and you saw what happened and in the accumulation of episodes you saw the pattern: Daddy ruled the roost, called the shots, made the money, made the decisions, so you signed up on his side, and fifteen years later when the women's movement came along with its incendiary manifestos telling you to avoid marriage and motherhood, it was as if somebody put a match to a pile of dry kindling. — Anne Taylor Fleming

If Prometheus was worthy of the wrath of heaven for kindling the first fire upon earth, how ought all the gods honor the men who make it their professional business to put it out? — John Godfrey Saxe

SHE TOLD THE TRUSTEES, who had surely vacationed in the Caribbean, about the Carib Indian chief who was about to be burned at the stake by Spaniards. His crime was his failure to see the beauty of his people's becoming slaves in their own country.
This chief was offered a cross to kiss before a professional soldier or maybe a priest set fire to the kindling and logs piled up above his kneecaps. He asked why he should kiss it, and he was told that the kiss would get him into Paradise, where he would meet God and so on.
He asked if there were more people like the Spaniards up there.
He was told that of course there were.
In that case, he said, he would leave the cross unkissed. He said he didn't want to go to yet another place where people were so cruel. — Kurt Vonnegut

Aren't you still worried Gran will cut me off, and you'll be saddled with a spoiled wife and not enough money to please her?"
"To hell with your grandmother, too. For that matter, to hell with the money." He tossed the chair aside as if it were so much kindling; it clattered across the floor. "It's you I want."
"Jackson!" she cried as he approached her. "Someone might hear you!"
"Good." Catching her about the waist, he backed her toward the bed. "Then you'll be well and truly compromised, and there will be no more question of our marrying."
While she was still thrilling to the masterful way he'd decided to take charge, he tumbled her onto the bed, following her down to cover her body with his.
As she gaped at him, shocked to see her cautious love behave so delightfully incautious, he murmured, "Or better yet, they can find us here together in the morning and march us right to the church."
Then he took her mouth with his. — Sabrina Jeffries

As historian Gary Ferguson writes, "while livestock may be the kindling, the real fuel for the burn is that the federal government is behind the project. . . . Westerners couldn't buy a more perfect evil if they rode straight to hell with a saddlebag full of cash." Or, as one stockman said in 1989, "It's not so much the wolves we're afraid of, it's the wolf managers. — William R. Lowry

When you are offended or annoyed by others, do not allow your thoughts to dwell on them or on anything relating to them. For example, don't think that they ought not to have treated you so, being who they are, or whom they think themselves to be, or the like. All this is fuel and kindling of wrath, anger, and hatred. — Lorenzo Scupoli

For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth. — Plutarch

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go."
"The War Poems — Siegfried Sassoon

Nonetheless, after we've dropped off the birds and volunteered to go back to the woods to gather kindling for the evening fire, I find myself wrapped in his arms. His lips brushing the faded bruises on my neck, working their way to my mouth. Despite what I feel for Peeta, this is when I accept deep down that he'll never come back to me. Or I'll never go back to him. I'll stay in 2 until it falls, go to the Capitol and kill Snow, and then die for my trouble. And he'll die insane and hating me. So in the fading light I shut my eyes and kiss Gale to make up for all the kisses I've withheld, and because it doesn't matter any more, and because I'm so desperately lonely I can't stand it.
Gale's touch and taste and heat remind me that at least my body's still alive, and for the moment it's a welcome feeling. I empty my mind and let the sensations run through my flesh, happy to lose myself. — Suzanne Collins

The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain. His father was a narrow-minded trader, and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. He said little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce. — Mary Shelley

Let me say this. It was worth the whole awful, irritating time spent searching the Archives just to watch that moment happen. It was worth blood and fear of death to see her fall in love with him. Just a little. Just the first faint breath of love, so light she probably didn't notice it herself. It wasn't dramatic, like some bolt of lightning with crack of thunder following. It was more like when flint strikes steel and spark fades almost too fast for to you to see. But still, you know it's there, downs where you can't see, kindling. — Patrick Rothfuss

And that's how we live: wandering endlessly, concentrically outward, seeking in others a kindling spark of the love which has long lain, dormant, dark, unstoked in our own deepest souls. — Jordan Sonnenblick

That's where all of us are standing now, he thought. On the fat kindling of past sins. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

You can't throw kindling on a fire and deny you kept it burning. And right now, cowardice is that kindling. — Ilana Waters