Scalding Quotes & Sayings

Nervous sweat gathered on my palms, and for once I was glad I couldn't talk. I swallowed, my throat clenching around the scream scalding me from the inside. The gray haze was darker now, though no thicker. I could see through it easily, yet it tainted everything my terrified gaze landed on , as if the entire gym had been draped in a translucent cloud of smog. And things still moved on the edge of my vision, drawing my eye first in one direction, then another .

I would have given anything to be able to speak in that moment, not just to warn Emma -
because that was evidently a moot point -
but to ask Nash what the hell was going on. Could he see what I saw? More important, could they see us? — Rachel Vincent

Pain. It's there for a reason. Whether your'e shredding your legs on a raspberry bush, scalding your hand in hot water, or taking an arrow to the chest in the forest, I got bad news for you, brother: That's gonna hurt. Yes, when our bodies take blows, those powerful jolts make us cry salty tears, run for the hills, or crashland in hospital beds with limbs hanging everywhere. — Neil Pasricha

Fear was the hand of the devil holding a scalding hot branding iron and touching your brain and your stomach and yelling at you to run with leaden feet. — Dan Groat

Jason, stop this," she pleaded. "You don't want to kiss me. You don't even like me more than a little when you aren't foxed"
A harsh laugh escaped him. "I like you too damned much!" he whispered bitterly, then pulled her head down and captured her lips in a demaning, scalding kiss that took everything and give nothing in return. — Judith McNaught

She turned the water scalding hot and scrubbed her face until it hurt, but the eyes still looked wrong. She tore off her clothes and stepped into the shower; but it was not enough.
The dirt was on the inside. — John Hart

Like the wells and springs of their island, like Hiro's clouds, the fountains of their eyes were empty now, dry as the cracked soil. Or perhaps their tears flowed inward, scalding their young hearts. — Edward Stanton

I did some films in college, and I remember working with this director that wanted to shock me so that I'd give him an expression of shock, so he poured scalding hot water on my arm during the take. He splashed it on me. He got his expression of shock, but I also got, like, second-degree burns! — John Kapelos

Your wits can't thicken in that soft moist air, on those white springy roads, in those misty rushes and brown bogs, on those hillsides of granite rocks and magenta heather. You've no such colours in the sky, no such lure in the distances, no such sadness in the evenings. Oh the dreaming! the dreaming! the torturing, heart-scalding, never satisfying dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming! — George Bernard Shaw

Andrea was never sure who leaned forward first, but she was melting toward him and, next thing she knew, felt the scalding pressure of Sean's mouth on hers. He kissed her with strength, barely masking his power, and Andrea closed her eyes and drank it in. His hand stole to the back of her neck, arching her up to savor more of her.
"Come inside with me," he whispered against her mouth.... — Jennifer Ashley

I picked up my mocha and stood. The cup was still almost half-full, but I didn't want it anymore. Besides, it was now luke-warm. Which meant I didn't have to worry if it was scalding him when I tossed the remains in Ethan's face.I think Finn might have craked a smileas he held the door open for me, but I wasn't sure. — Jenna Black

The hinder portion scalding-house good eating Curve B in addition to the usual baths and ablutions military police sumptuousness of the washhouse risking misstatements kept distances iris to iris queen of holes damp, hairy legs note of anger chanting and shouting konk sense of "mold" on the "muff" sense of "talk" on the "surface" konk2 all sorts of chemical girl who delivered the letter give it a bone plummy bare legs saturated in every belief and ignorance rational living private client bad bosom uncertain workmen mutton-tugger obedience to the rules of the logical system Lord Muck hot tears harmonica rascal
that's chaos can you produce chaos? Alice asked certainly I can produce chaos I said I produced chaos she regarded the chaos chaos is handsome and attractive she said and more durable than regret I said and more nourishing than regret she said — Donald Barthelme

Sylvia had given him a scalding lecture, the gist of it being that whatever a woman enjoyed wearing was feminine and anything she didn't enjoy wearing wasn't, and if he was too stubborn and old fashioned to understand that, he could go and soak his head in a bucket of cold water. He hadn't quite forgiven her yet for saying they would have to look hard to find a bucket big enough to fit his head in to, but he admired the sass behind the remark. — Anne Bishop

Chingachgook grasped the hand that, in the warmth of feeling, the scout had stretched across the fresh earth, and in that attitude of friendship these intrepid woodsmen bowed their heads together, while scalding tears fell to their feet, watering the grave of Uncas like drops of falling rain. — James Fenimore Cooper

Her two outstanding characteristics were self-confidence and candor. The latter sometimes got her into hot water Durrance later told Charlotte, but the former kept it from scalding her. — Olive Higgins Prouty

Despite his best efforts, a few scalding tears escaped Cobalt's eyes. He swiped them away. 'Can you stand?'
'I damn well can, if my alternative's you holding me like a wilting female.' — S.W. Vaughn

Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agised as in that hour left my lips: for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love. — Charlotte Bronte

The brew was military style "A" - freshly made and scalding, suitable for pouring down on peasants attacking the family castle. — Jeff Grubb

In the morning they rose in a house pungent with breakfast cookery, and they sat at a smoking table loaded with brains and eggs, ham, hot biscuit, fried apples seething in their gummed syrups, honey, golden butter, fried steak, scalding coffee. Or there were stacked batter-cakes, rum-colored molasses, fragrant brown sausages, a bowl of wet cherries, plums, fat juicy bacon, jam. At the mid-day meal, they ate heavily: a huge hot roast of beef, fat buttered lima- beans, tender corn smoking on the cob, thick red slabs of sliced tomatoes, rough savory spinach, hot yellow corn-bread, flaky biscuits, a deep-dish peach and apple cobbler spiced with cinnamon, tender cabbage, deep glass dishes piled with preserved fruits-- cherries, pears, peaches. At night they might eat fried steak, hot squares of grits fried in egg and butter, pork-chops, fish, young fried chicken. — Thomas Wolfe

No one could look at the beautiful young man now. They dropped their eyes from the scalding sight. From the eclipse. As all that love turned into hate. — Louise Penny

She had had the pain; it had been like being boiled alive in scalding oil and not being able to die to get free of it — Betty Smith

Don't let another man, tight wearing fairy or not, help you out of your clothes again," he said, his eyes narrowing just enough to know some scalding emotions were firing through him right now. "If you need help out of so much as a sock, you call me, you got it? That's my job. — Nicole Williams

He didn't look a lot like his father, save when he wanted something badly. She pulled herself up a bit, shaking her head to clear the dizziness, and Roger looked up at her, distracted by her movement. For an instant, she saw Jerry look out of his eyes, and the world swam afresh. She closed her own, though, and gulped her tea, scalding as it was. Mum — Diana Gabaldon

I thought:
maybe death
isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us
as soft as feathers
that we are instantly weary
of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes,
not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river
that is without the least dapple or shadow
that is nothing but light - scalding, aortal light
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.
White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field — Mary Oliver

There's hell, there's darkness, there is the sulphurous pit; burning, scalding, stench, consumption! — Nelson DeMille

Fen looked mildly amused by my antics. In fact, he was just short of full-on laughing. "Don't snicker at me, wolf. Being naked in your arms..." As I said those words out loud, a kernel of heat seared through me, heat that had nothing at all to do with the scalding temperature of the water. "Well... let's just say it surprised me, okay? I wasn't expecting to be ... unclothed or ... alive, for that matter."
"Valkyrie, your nakedness does not bother me in the least." Did his eyes just flare a teensy bit? "It would've been counterproductive to heal you with your clothes on. What was left of them, anyway. I figured your life was worth more than your modesty." His lips went up in a cocky grin. "Plus, it kept me quite... focused on my task. — Amanda Carlson

Traveled so far, and not yet have they come across anything of interest, he mused, except, of course, for that nest of goblins I managed to stir up. Indeed, his brother had always been a valiant fool; why not give him some excitement?
He always did possess a love for a good fight, and who am I to deny him?
The glass sphere, responding to his thoughts, zoomed in on the mountain nearby where Shrukian camped, and by putting both his hands on the sphere's sides and closing his eyes, Pharun could all but smell the power that radiated from its depths. He could taste it on the back of his tongue, and it awake all sorts of things inside of him. The power tasted of death and ash, and it was scalding hot, pouring down his throat like blood of the freshly dead. He did not need further searching to know what kind of power he was sampling.
He smiled to himself, and it came out a satisfied smirk. — C.N. Faust

But canst thou only die, withered embryo, foetus steeped in gall and scalding tears? Miserable abortion, dost thou think thou canst taste death, thou who hast never known life? If only God exists, that he may damn me. I hope for it. I wish it. God, I hate Thee! dost Thou hear? Overwhelm me with Thy damnation. To compel Thee to, I spit in Thy face. I must find an eternal hell, to exhaust the eternity of rage which consumes me. — Anatole France

The book was sloppily written in many parts (the words came too quickly and too easily) and there was hardly a noun in any sentence that was not holding hands with the nearest and most commonly available adjective - scalding coffee and tremulous fear are the sorts of thing you will find throughout. Over-certified adjectives are the mark of most best-seller writing. — Norman Mailer

My life changed irrevocably four-and-a-half years ago when my spine failed and collapsed. I spent two years on the floor, in excruciating, debilitating and unrelenting pain. I can only describe the pain as being submerged into a vat of scalding acid that has an electric current running through it. And you can never get out, ever. — Bill Walton

I snatched up the cardboard cup, plastered my lips to the plastic sippy-lid and sucked down a scalding hot mouthful. It burned, but I didn't give a damn. I held the cup to my chest as if it were my most special friend while feeling the instant affect the coffee had on my mood and I smiled. Hello lover. — Ethan Day

My tongue is a scalding whiplash. I'm tired of hurting others with it, the way they have hurt me. I've always despised the practice, so once more I'll bite my words back, though the injustice served deserves each backlash of every one. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Turns out, hell's not so much a burning, scalding pit of fire and misery. It's actually much, much worse than that. Hell is when the people you love the most reach right into your soul and rip it out of you. And they do it because they can. — Jess Rothenberg

And then there was Tick. Brave little Tick, who had flown into the faces of an army of rats to save his baby sister. Tick - who never spoke much. Tick - who shared her food. Tick - who was after all just a roach. Just a roach who had given all the time she had left so that Boots could have more.
Gregor pressed Boots's fingers against his lips and felt scalding tears begin to slide down his cheeks. He hadn't cried, not the whole time he'd been down here, and there had been plenty of bad stuff. But somehow Tick's sacrifice had crushed whatever thin shell remained between him and sorrow. — Suzanne Collins

The belief that you have no choice but to keep suffering through whatever frightens you is like believing you have to hold onto a scalding cup so that you won't spill your coffee! — Guy Finley

I slide down and sit on the shower floor and just let the scalding hot water run over me until I don't have any tears left. — Randi Cooley Wilson

It is an intern's job to go for coffee for anyone who asks, preferably delivering it scalding hot and cupped in your bare hands! — Kurt Braunohler

To see certain things, you have to be lying on your back with tears in your eyes and a scalding potato in your mouth. It's possible, I think, that you have to be hurt to see anything at all. — Pete Dexter

John Roebling was a believer in hydropathy, the therapeutic use of water. Come headaches, constipation, the ague, he would sit in a scalding-hot tub for hours at a time, then jump out and wrap up in ice-cold, slopping-wet bed sheets and stay that way for another hour or two. He took Turkish baths, mineral baths. He drank vile concoctions of raw egg, charcoal, warm water, and turpentine, and there were dozens of people along Canal Street who had seen him come striding through his front gate, cross the canal bridge, and drink water "copiously" - gallons it seemed - from the old fountain beside the state prison. ("This water I relish much . . ." he would write in his notebook.) "A wet bandage around the neck every night, for years, will prevent colds . . ." he preached to his family. "A full cold bath every day is indispensable — David McCullough

Oh, anywhere, driver, anywhere - it doesn't matter. Just keep driving.
It's better here in this taxi than it was walking. It's no good my trying to walk. There is always a glimpse through the crowd of someone who looks like him - someone with his swing of the shoulders, his slant of the hat. And I think it's he, I think he's come back. And my heart goes to scalding water and the buildings sway and bend above me. No, it's better to be here. But I wish the driver would go fast, so fast that people walking by would be a long gray blur, and I could see no swinging shoulders, no slanted hat.
Dorothy Parker, Sentiment, Harper's Bazaar, May 1933. — Dorothy Parker

His gaze lowered to her breasts, scalding her with the intensity of his stare. "At this moment, I'm exceedingly glad I'm no longer a monk. — Sandra Jones

Oh, lighten up, Clark. I'm the one having scalding hot air directed at my genitals. — Jojo Moyes

Here the first of the things that happened, happened. The first of the things important enough to notice and to remember afterward, among a great many trifling but kindred ones that were not. Some so slight they were not more than gloating, zestful glints of eye or curt hurtful gestures. (Once he accidentally poured a spurt of scalding tea on the back of a waitress' wrist, by not waiting long enough for the waitress to withdraw her hand in setting the cup down, and by turning his head momentarily the other way. The waitress yelped, and he apologized, but he showed his teeth as he did so, and you don't show your teeth in remorse). — Cornell Woolrich

As you may know, KFC is under worldwide pressure to eliminate its cruelest abuses of chickens, such as cutting the beaks off baby birds; breeding chickens to grow so large, so quickly that many suffer crippling injuries; and slitting the birds' throats or dropping them into tanks of scalding-hot water while they are still alive and able to feel pain. — Pamela Anderson

How long?" Jayce's scalding breath singed the side of Wes' neck as he spoke against his skin. "Does Scotto know about you and me? Does he know I'm the one who ruined you for him and all men?"
Bastard was so full of himself. Wes remained quiet and ceased his struggles. He could breathe since Jayce's hold wasn't too tight. But his chest heaved and his groin throbbed like a mother. He hated how he responded to the slightest touch from Jayce. — Avril Ashton

It would have been better to do what everyone else does, neither taking life too seriously nor seeing it as merely grotesque, choosing a profession and practicing it, grabbing one's share of the common cake, eating it and saying, "It's delicious!" rather than following the gloomy path that I have trodden all alone; then I wouldn't be here writing this, or at least it would have been a different story. The further I proceed with it, the more confused it seems even to me, like hazy prospects seen from too far away, since everything passes, even the memory of our most scalding tears and our heartiest laughter; our eyes soon dry, our mouths resume their habitual shape; the only memory that remains to me is that of a long tedious time that lasted for several winters, spent in yawning and wishing I were dead — Gustave Flaubert

I feel the words rising, and they are words I've never, ever spoken out loud before. Words that belong to stories I've never told. Words that describe the hurt I've never expressed. Words that probably won't capture the guilt I've never properly climbed over. I feel them there, these words, powerful, bubbling under the surface like lava, scalding hot and searingly painful. — Debbie Johnson

Most people hew the battlements of life from compromise, erecting their impregnable keeps from judicious submissions, fabricating their philosophical drawbridges from emotional retractions and scalding marauders in the boiling oil of sour grapes. — Zelda Fitzgerald

Mum's serial misbehavior over the years had driven me, despairing, to write her scolding - occasionally scalding letters. — Christopher Buckley

Ripping her thoughts from the scalding memory, Lillian glanced away from him. Immediately she felt his lean fingers come up to her hot cheek, guiding her face back to his. The tip of his thumb slid over her chin. "I wanted you today," he said softly.
Her heart escalated into a rapid thump, and the cheek beneath his caressing fingertips tautened with a smile. "You didn't so much as glance in my direction even once during supper."
"I was afraid to."
"Why?"
"Because I knew that if I did, I wouldn't be able to keep from making you into my next course."
-Marcus & Lillian — Lisa Kleypas

I spilled my cup of coffee straight onto my crotch. Superior heat retention has its drawbacks. I grimaced as the scalding liquid reached ground zero, but as I did my best to angle my jeans away from the Resnick family's last hope, my seatmate decided to dispose of her hoodie.
I juggled two pressing needs:
1) Protect the nethers.
2) Leer — B. Justin Shier

One of his hands caught her knee from beneath, urging her leg higher against his, and he pushed strongly within her.
She shuddered, her body locked to him, and then a languorous warmth suffused her as she relaxed to his rhythm. Their clothes rustled together, crushed masses of silk and broadcloth and velvet, separating them everywhere except in the wet, naked heat of their loins. She leaned against the door, her body rising from each upward drive. She was utterly possessed by him, no longer caring about the risk they were taking, conscious only of the ecstasy of his flesh joined to hers. Muttering fiercely into the curve of her neck, he thrust faster, creating silken friction that finally drove her into a scalding orgasm. — Lisa Kleypas

I've come to think that there's an age beyond which it is impossible to lift a child from the pervading marinade of an original country, pat them down with a paper napkin and then deep-fry them in another country, another language like hot oil scalding the first language away. — Helen Oyeyemi

They figured out a way to control that hamburger disease. You dip the hamburger into the scalding hot coffee before eating. — David Letterman

I don't know how the Wolfman knows all this, but he's not wrong. My warm cheeks turn scalding hot.
"Your shame is a good sign. You may break sooner than I thought. The breaking is good. It purifies. — Carolyn Lee Adams

Our God is a God of love. He waits with open arms, and the unfolding of His merciful plan of salvation is not only therefore the mark of divine power but also the mark of God's relentless, redeeming love. It is a point well worth pondering because, among other reasons, it will help us to understand better why God, through the prophets, denounces sin and corruption in such scalding terms. He loves all of us, His spirit sons and daughters, but hates our vices. His denunciation of those vices may, if we are not careful, seem to obscure the enormous and perfect love He has for us. — Neal A. Maxwell

When all is complete deep in the teapot, when tea, mint, and sugar have completely diffused throughout the water, coloring and saturating it ... then a glass will be filled and poured back into the mixture, blending it further. The comes waiting. Motionless waiting. Finally, from high up, like some green cataract whose sight and sound mesmerize, the tea will once again cascade into a glass. Now it can be drunk, dreamily, forehead bowed, fingers held wide away from the scalding glass. — Simonne Jacquemard

Shells, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks - shattering, corroding, death. Dysentery, influenza, typhus - scalding, choking, death. Trenches, hospitals, the common grave - there are no other possibilities. — Erich Maria Remarque

For me, reading that scene never fails to bring on a brief, scalding instant of recognition in recalling exactly what it was like to be a tiny little kid, your whole sense of being so lumpy and vulnerable that the smallest things were everything, and the everything could be so unspeakably wonderful, and the wonderful could be snatched away in an instant, leaving a big ragged hole in your universe just like the one in Laura's dress. — Wendy McClure

When she emerged, Keith was watching the tiny round window of the under-the-counter washing machine.
"Put your clothes in for a wash," he said. "They were disgusting."
Ginny always thought that the only way of getting clothes clean was by drowning them in scalding water and then whipping them around in a violent centrifugal motion that caused the entire washing machine to vibrate and the floor to shake. You beat them clean. You made them suffer. This machine used about half a cup of water and was about as violent as a toaster, plus it stopped every few minutes, as if it were exhausted from the effort of turning itself.
Sluff, sluff, sluff sluff. Rest. Rest. Rest.
Click.
Sluff, sluff, sluff, sluff. Rest. Rest. Rest.
"Who thought to put a window on a washing machine?" Keith asked. "Does anyone just sit and watch their wash?"
You mean, besides us?"
"Well," he said, "yeah. Is there any coffee? — Maureen Johnson

I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen, blood, bile, words, sentences. I love the amniotic fluid when it spills out of the bag. I love the kidney with it's painful gall-stones, it's gravel and what-not; I love the urine that pours out scalding and the clap that runs endlessly; I love the words of hysterics and the sentences that flow on like dysentery and mirror all the sick images of the soul ... — Henry Miller

When I got back to my office Tween was there. She rose from the foyer couch as I wheezed in off the ramp. I took one look at her and said, "Come inside." She followed me through the inner door. I waved my hand over the infra-red plate and it closed. Then I put out my arms.
She bleated like a new-born lamb and flew to me. Her tears were scalding, and I don't think human muscles are built for the wrenching those agonized sobs gave her. People should cry more. They ought to learn how to do it easily, like laughing or sweating. Crying piles up. In people like Tween, who do nothing if they can't smile and make a habit-pattern of it, it really piles up. With a reservoir like that, and no developed outlet, things get torn when the pressure builds too high.
I just held her tight so she wouldn't explode. The only thing I said to her was "sh-h-h" once when she tried to talk while she wept. One thing at a time. — Theodore Sturgeon

We lay down, and the pain let up.
We embraced, and the pain let go:
no more scalding regrets,
no scorching remorse
that oppressed the soul,
that weighted like a stone on the heart.
You, on top of me, heavy, immense,
and I, feeling so light. — Vera Pavlova

Yves did not like showers, he preferred long, scalding baths, with newspapers, cigarettes, and whiskey on a chair next to the bathtub, and with Eric nearby to talk to, to shampoo his hair, and to scrub his back. — James Baldwin

Oh invade me with your scalding mouth,
search me if you like, with your nocturnal eyes,
but allow me to sail and sleep upon your name. — Pablo Neruda

Aelin ran for Manon, leaping over the fallen stones, her ankle wrenching on loose debris.
The island rocked with her every step, and the sunlight was scalding, as if Mala were holding that island aloft with every last bit of strength the goddess could summon in this land.
Then Aelin was upon Manon Blackbeak, and the witch lifted hate-filled eyes to her. Aelin hauled off stone after stone from her body, the island beneath them buckling.
"You're too good a fighter to kill," Aelin breathed, hooking an arm under Manon's shoulders and hauling her up. The rock swayed to the left-but held. Oh, gods. "If I die because of you, I'll beat the shit out of you in hell."
She could have sworn the witch let out a broken laugh as she got to her feet, nearly dead weight in Aelin's arms. — Sarah J. Maas

Lilah growled low in her throat, grabbed his shirt with both hands, and hauled him toward her. Into a kiss that was fierce and hot and instantly intense. After several scalding seconds, she shoved him roughly back.
She got to her feet and snatched up her spear, then looked pityingly down at him. "Stupid town boy," she muttered, then turned and jogged into the forest.
Chong lay sprawled, eyes glazed and face flushed.
Holy moley ... ," he gasped. — Jonathan Maberry