The Fireman Quotes & Sayings

I am just another fireman because the story focuses on Joaquin Phoenix's character, but I play Joaquin's close friend and I get burned up a little bit, but I don't die. — Morris Chestnut

Boy oh boy, this man is trouble. He was slowly tearing down the wall she'd built around her heart, brick by brick. Could any man be this perfect? He must have some faults. Maybe he is a chauvinist pig ... no, doesn't seem like it. He is kind to animals and children, he is a fireman, he looks like sex on a stick. What could be wrong with him? Maybe he snores. Oh, wouldn't I like to find out? — Tamara Hoffa

I tend to get comfortable with the dialogue and find out who the person is in the script and try to hit that. People are sort of independent of their occupations and their pastimes. You don't play a politician or a fireman or a cowboy - you just play a person. — Billy Campbell

When life is suddenly more serious more of the time, there is also more need for it to be fun at least some of the time. That's why my family will be at a college football game this weekend. We need it. And deserve it, too. Not like a New York fireman deserves it. Or a medic at the Pentagon. But enough. — Thomas Boswell

You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the moon, you looked at the moon, last night. The others would never do that. The others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten me. No one has time any more for anyone else. You're one of the few who put up with me. That's why I think it's so strange you're a fireman, it just doesn't seem right for you, somehow. — Ray Bradbury

There's only 5 real jobs in the world. Teacher, fireman, policeman, doctor and somebody who is in the armed service. If you don't have one of those 5 jobs, you shouldn't take your life that serious. — Charles Barkley

The hand at her back stroked up and down. Never straying too far south, but igniting a fire inside her that she wanted this fireman to stoke instead of extinguish — Tamara Hoffa

When my face was slashed, my dad held me on his lap in the car to the hospital, applying direct pressure with the swift calm of a veteran and an ex-fireman. I looked up and asked him, "Am I going to die?" "Don't speak," he said. So, yeah, he's not the kind of guy who wants to watch people eat bugs on Survivor. It's so clear to me how those two things are related. — Tina Fey

I've had tons of odd jobs, but I think that I would probably be a fireman because you get to see the results of your job. You get there and there is a house on fire. You leave and there's not a fire anymore. — Luke Perry

The family who naps together stays together. — Vonnie Davis

My objective is and has been for years to make the lightest and most compact flying machine that would carry me at 25 or 30 miles per hour for 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour. Current events show this is not at all an ambitious project. Want of an elementary knowledge of oil machines baulks me and causes much misdirected effort. I doubt my ability to acquire that knowledge, and feel like a fireman trying to hew out a donkey pump ... — Lawrence Hargrave

I used to think I'd like to be a fireman - in fact, I still would - and the only drawback I could see was coming back to the firehouse, after a day of fighting fires, and still having to put in an eight-hour day writing. — David Mamet

You okay?" He moved past her into the kitchen and deposited his beer bottle in the sink. "You're all flushed."
"I'm fine," she said a little too quickly. "It's hot in here, that's all."
Oh sure. It was a little hot anywhere he was. The kitchen ... the living room ... the polar ice caps ... — Sara Humphreys

Snuggle up with a hot fireman! Meet Tanner West.
Sharon looked up into the most gorgeous face she had ever seen. Eyes like dark chocolate, deep and warm, stared out at her from a face that looked like it could have been chiseled in stone. Skin the color of burnished copper, high cheekbones, a sharp nose, full lips, and a cleft chin. How the hell had she failed to notice him before? Her heart skipped a beat and she ran her gaze down the rest of his body. He was tall, well over six feet, she would guess, with broad shoulders that tapered into a trim waist. His thighs, encased in worn denim, fit like a second skin against legs the size of tree trunks, and oh my, what lay between those thighs ... Her attention snapped back to his face and she could feel the heat of a blush suffuse her skin. — Tamara Hoffa

Did you need Jordan for something, Cookie?" Gavin asked with thinly veiled impatience. Hands back in his pockets, he took a step away from Jordan. "Or do you merely excel at crappy timing?"
"Sorry, Chief." Cookie's short purple-and-blue hair stuck out in a hundred different directions, and she winked when she peeked out from behind the swinging door ...
"It's a gift."
"That's not what I would call it," he grumbled. — Sara Humphreys

You should've thought of that before becoming a fireman."
"Thought!" he said. "Was I given a choice? I was raised to think the best thing in the world is not to read. The best thing is television and radio and ball games and a home I can't afford and, Good Lord, now, only now I realize what I've done. My grandfather and father were firemen. Walking in my sleep I followed them. — Ray Bradbury

Well, getting up a tree is a piece of cake. But I can testify to the fact that going down is no easy feat. Now I knew why cats got stuck in them and needed a fireman to come to their rescue. Of course, having seen some of the sexy local firemen in their gear, I'd pretend to be stuck in a tree too. — S.M. Reine

Rosewater was twice as smart as Billy, but he and Billy were dealing with similar crises in similar ways. They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war. Rosewater, for instance, had shot a fourteen-year-old fireman, mistaking for a German soldier. So it goes. And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the fire-bombing of Dresden. So it goes.
So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help. — Kurt Vonnegut

Boyd, could you report to the kitchen please? We have an uncooperative cook here, wearing navy stilettos, who needs your attention."
Within minutes, he sauntered toward her wearing untied boots and jeans with the first two buttons undone. He was like someone had set a block of chocolate with very big nuts in front of her. — Vonnie Davis

- I am the chief steward of my fate, I am the fireman of my soul. — Malcolm Lowry

Although she had a slight build, Eilidh was solid and heavier than she first appeared. Rather than throw her over his shoulder, he tried to carry her as though propping up a drunken friend. People would accept the latter without question, but a burly guy carrying a woman fireman-style? That might draw second looks. — India Drummond

I grew up on a working ranch, and there was way too much to do."
"You what? A working ranch? Like ... a cowboy?"
Cam rolled his eyes. "I guess."
"You're a cowboy and a fireman?"
"Yes, Daniel," Cam said dryly. "It's almost as if I am half of the Village People, all rolled into one. — Z.A. Maxfield

The characters I've played have been mostly violent, and I'm so far from being violent or aggressive. I spend a lot of time watching 'Fireman Sam' with my three-year-old son Louis. — Tom Hardy

If there were no war, if there was peace in the world, I'd say fine, have fun! But, Montag, you mustn't go back to being just a fireman. All isn't well with the world. — Ray Bradbury

Don't waste your time trying to look all bad at me. See, I know you, man," Howard said. "School Bus Sam. Mr. Fireman. You go all heroic, but then you disappear. Don't you? It kind of comes and goes with you. Everyone last night is all, 'Where's Sam? Where's Sam?' And I had to say, 'Well, kids, Sam is off with Astrid the Genius because Sam can't be hanging out with regular people like us. Sam has to go off with his hot blond girlfriend.'"
"She's not my girlfriend," Sam said, and instantly regretted it.
Howard laughed, delighted to have provoked him. "See, Sam, you always got to be in your own little world, too good for everyone, while me and Captain Orc and our boys here, we're always going to be around. You step away, and we step up. — Michael Grant

Sometimes a fireman will go to great strenuous lengths to save a raccoon that's stuck in a drainpipe and then go out on the weekend and kill several of them for amusement. — George Carlin

The yearbook voted me most likely to be scraped off an onramp by a puking fireman. — Christopher Titus

I'm fascinated by fire. When I was four, I wore an American fireman's hat all the time, and I still have one in my office today. Glasgow used to be called 'Tinderbox City;' there were always fires, people getting killed. — Peter Capaldi

You know, I'm no different from a fireman. You got to run into a fire no matter how big the blaze is. — R. Kelly

Our would-be Pan shouted something else at Sloane. "Oh yeah?! Never grow up this!" she shouted back, and something black fluttered down from the rooftop. For a horrified second, I thought the boy had jumped. Then the black thing landed on one of the firemen, and I realized that the answer was slightly more mundane, if no less horrifying: Sloane had thrown her shirt off the roof. Her bra landed on the grass next to a fireman's feet a moment later. — Seanan McGuire

I've been an itinerant singer, a circus-rider, when I used to vault like Leotard, and dance on a rope like Blondin. Then I got to be a professor of gymnastics, so as to make better use of my talents; and then I was a sergeant fireman at Paris, and assisted at many a big fire. But I quitted France five years ago, and, wishing to taste the sweets of domestic life, took service as a valet here in England. — Jules Verne

People in uniform will tell you that no one life is more important than another. The lives of a white cop, a black fireman, a minister and a drug addict all have equal value. But the presumption is that if a person in uniform is killed with impunity, if such a killer is allowed to run free, then no regular citizen is safe. So for the sake of civil order, when a person in uniform is murdered, heads must get knocked, doors must be kicked in and every available cop is put to the task. — Charlie LeDuff

September 11
We thought we'd outdistanced history
Told our children it was nowhere near;
Even when history struck Columbine,
It didn't happen here.
We took down the maps in the classroom,
And when they were safely furled,
We told the young what they wanted to hear,
That they were immune from a menacing world.
But history isn't a folded-up map,
Or an unread textbook tome;
Now we know history's a fireman's child
Waiting at home alone. — Richard Peck

A little boy, he can play like he's a fireman or a cop
although fewer and fewer are pretending to be cops, thank God
or a deep-sea diver or a quarterback or a spaceman or a rock 'n roll star or a cowboy, or anything else glamorous and exciting (Author's note: What about a novelist, Jellybean?), and although chances are by the time he's in high school he'll get channeled into safer, duller ambitions, the great truth is, he can be any of those things, realize any of those fantasies, if he has the strength, nerve and sincere desire ... But little girls? Podner, you know that story as well as me. Give 'em doll babies, tea sets and toy stoves. And if they show a hankering for more bodacious playthings, call 'em tomboy, humor 'em for a few years and then slip 'em the bad news ... And the reality is, we got about as much chance of growing up to be cowgirls as Eskimos have got being vegetarians. — Tom Robbins

It was the responsibility of a senior fireman to teach as well as to do. — David Halberstam

For instance, a fireman is a brave fellow! He fears nothing, least of
all fire! Well, the fireman in question, who had gone to make a round
of inspection in the cellars and who, it seems, had ventured a little
farther than usual, suddenly reappeared on the stage, pale, scared,
trembling, with his eyes starting out of his head, and practically
fainted in the arms of the proud mother of little Jammes.[1] And why?
Because he had seen coming toward him, AT THE LEVEL OF HIS HEAD, BUT
WITHOUT A BODY ATTACHED TO IT, A HEAD OF FIRE! And, as I said, a
fireman is not afraid of fire.
The fireman's name was Pampin. — Gaston Leroux

It's as if they saw a house burning and determined that the bigger the fire, the more fireman are present, and then concluded that firemen cause burning houses. — Uffe Ravnskov

There was really only one person who - and I remember to this day - he was a fireman, and he said, "You'll never know what you'll do when you're in a fire." Everyone else was like: "I don't care; I would have saved my children; I could have done it. Even if I was asleep I would have woken up and saved my children." But the fireman said, "You never know what's going to happen unless you're in there." — Elizabeth Gilbert

One of the things that I first remember wanting to be was a 'geolisty' - that was the best I could say when I was a kid. That was right after I stopped wanting to be a fireman or a truck driver. Because my dad is a paleontologist who worked with the Smithsonian, I got to see the bones up close and the exhibits behind the scenes there. — Craig Mello

It is best if we do not listen to or look at the person whom we consider to be the cause of our anger. Like a fireman, we have to pour water on the blaze first and not waste time looking for the one who set the house on fire. "Breathing in, I know that I am angry. Breathing out, I know that I must put all my energy into caring for my anger." So we avoid thinking about the other person, and we refrain from doing or saying anything as long as our anger persists. If we put all our mind into observing our anger, we will avoid doing any damage that we may regret later. — Nhat Hanh

No young kid growing up dreams of someday becoming a businessman. He wants to be a fireman, a sponsored athlete or a forest ranger The Lee Iacoccas, Donald Trumps, and Jack Welchs of the business world are heroes to no one except other businessmen with similar values. — Yvon Chouinard

When I was a fireman I was in a lot of burning buildings. It was a great job, the only job I ever had that compares with the thrill of acting. — Steve Buscemi

We'd done little more than introduce ourselves to the woman at the front desk of the
tailor, when the door behind us opened. I didn't turn around at first, not really caring who else walked into the store, but when Will spoke to someone, I looked to see who it was.
Clay.
In his blue fireman pants and boots and a blue tee-shirt with Hartford Fire Department written on the front.
Great.
Just fucking great.
"When I texted Clay earlier," Will said, "I told him we'd be here and wouldn't be long,
and that he should come down if he had time."
I guess he had time.
Where the fuck are all the pyromaniacs when I need them? — N.R. Walker

You can't be afraid to put out a fire if you're a fireman. You can't be afraid to be a police officer and carry a gun if you're afraid to get up and go out there. So you've got to put that fear to the side and go out in faith to overcome that. — Duane Chapman

Dear me, what would this barren vocabulary get out of the mightiest spectacle? - the burning of Rome in Nero's time, for instance? Why, it would merely say, 'Town burned down; no insurance; boy brast a window, fireman brake his neck!' Why, THAT ain't a picture! — Mark Twain

He was my age and in my imagination he was a fireman, not the kind that actually fights fires but the kind who travels the country shirtless posing for calendars. — Marika Christian

Do you have any idea how much I love you?" Jordan curled her hands around the lapel of his jacket and tugged him closer. In her heels, she was almost his height, and when she pressed her body against his, her mouth was a scant inch away. Jordan flicked her tongue over his lower lip and whispered. "It might even border on obsession. — Sara Humphreys

They drew the line on dogs at the hospital and wouldn't let the dog in. A fireman, instructed to drop it off at the animal shelter, took it home with him instead. — Thomas Harris

The drone war takes place 24/7, 365 days a year. The war doesn't stop on Christmas. It's like being a fireman when there's a fire every single day, day after day after day. That's emotionally and physically taxing. — P. W. Singer

Do people still function - live their lives, go to work, whatever - when they're drugged out?" "They do what they need to do, but they're much more ... relaxed about it. You could be a fireman rescuing thirty children from an inferno, but you won't stress if you happen to drop a few of them into the flames along the way. — James Dashner

But the snags were thick, the water was treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed to have a sulky devil in it, and thus neither that fireman nor I had any time to peer into our creepy thoughts. — Joseph Conrad

It is said, in a fire, everyone runs away from it save for the fireman who run towards it. When dealing with students, be the fireman. — Patricia Sequeira Belvel

He has the memory of a convict, the balls of a fireman, and the eyesight of a housebreaker. When there is crime to fight, Landsman tears around Sitka like a man with his pant leg caught on a rocket. It's like there's a film score playing behind him, heavy on the castanets. The problem comes in the hours when he isn't working, when his thoughts start blowing out the open window of his brain like pages from the blotter. Sometimes it takes a heavy paperweight to pin them down. — Michael Chabon

When 9/11 happened, 12 of our neighborhood firemen were killed. I looked around at the country that had adopted me and I became an American. — Iman Abdulmajid

I was stuck back on "you can't have two maids of honor" and therefore fighting back hyperventilation at the same time flashing pictures filled my head of a commando-style wedding; Hawk in black cargos, me in a white flak jacket festooned with lace. The picture of me carrying a bouquet of flowers and Hawk carrying an automatic weapon. The picture of me admiring Hawk's huge-ass hunting knife. The picture of Hawk carrying me out of the reception in a fireman's hold while bullets flew and flames caused by Molotov cocktails danced on the dance floor. — Kristen Ashley

I'm very proud of being Italian-American, but people don't realize that the mafia is just this aberration. The real community is built on the working man, the guy who's the cop, the fireman, the truck driver, the bus driver. — Chazz Palminteri

The child, in danger of the fire, just clings to the fireman, and trusts to him alone. She raises no question about the strength of his limbs to carry her, or the zeal of his heart to rescue her; but she clings. The heat is terrible, the smoke is blinding, but she clings; and her deliverer quickly bears her to safety. In the same childlike confidence cling to Jesus, who can and will bear you out of danger from the flames of sin. — Charles Spurgeon

What can I do to get you out of your shirt today, Luke?
Her voice held a husky, wheeler-dealer tone, the kind of voice for which he was likely to do anything. He imagined that voice whispering in his ear, issuing wicked orders, making him hard as steel. — Kate Meader

There are many of us here. A whole street. That's what it's called--Chernobylskaya. These people worked at the station their whole lives. A lot of them still go there to work on a provisional basis, that's how they work there now, no one lives there anymore. They have bad diseases, they're invalids, but they don't leave their jobs, they're scared to even think of the reactor closing down. Who needs them now anywhere else? Often they die. In an instant. They just drop--someone will be walking, he falls down, goes to sleep, never wakes up. He was carrying flowers for his nurse and his heart stopped. They die, but no one's really asked us. No one's asked what we've been through. What we saw. No one wants to hear about death. About what scares them.

But I was telling you about love. About my love...

-- Lyudmila, Ignatenko,
wife of deceased fireman, Vasily Ignatenko — Svetlana Alexievich

I must have a screw loose," she muttered under her breath. Satisfied the counter was clean, she squatted down and put the cleaning supplies away in the cabinet beneath the register. "Yup. There's definitely something wrong with me."
"Are you looking for confirmation on that?" Jordan's heart hitched in her chest as Gavin's familiar baritone filled the shop. "Or am I supposed to argue with you? — Sara Humphreys

Sometimes it seemed that one of the stars came loose from the firmament and sailed off with dizzying speed to a far corner of the night. In the dark hours before sunrise, constellations came apart and reformed and fell in burning streaks. — Joe Hill

The boundary between expert and amateur was an imposed social-cultural "protection" which actually exposed a number of women to a fatal disease, because decaying matter, as the fireman said of fire (cited in the book's final piece, "Torch Song") "ain't got no rules on it." — Laura Mullen

I walk. I talk. I shop. I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out, and I don't sleep on a bed of bones. — Joss Whedon

Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die? Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned? — Leonard Ravenhill

But make no mistake about it, Jordan. When the time is right and you're ready" - he trailed his forefinger along the edge of her palm and stilled when she shivered in response - "I have every intention of getting you into bed. And sleeping will have little to do with it. — Sara Humphreys

I don't know a thing about cats.
I know everything else, life and its archipelago,
seas and unpredictable cities,
botany,
the pistil and its scandals,
the pluses and minuses of math.
I know the earth's volcanic funnels
and the crocodile's unreal shell,
the fireman's unseen kindness
and the priest's blue atavism.
cat leave
But a cat I can't figure out.
My mind slipped on its indifference.
Its eyes hold ciphers of gold. — Pablo Neruda

I've been drawing shoes,' said Sketch, evoking a fireman who's been searching the smoking hulks of scorched buildings for burn victims, 'and it's been going feetingly. — Chip Kidd

You're a fireman?" I asked. "You're the one who ... ?"
He nodded. "I'm a firefighter."
"You threw me into a pool." I scowled.
He grinned. "You were on fire."
"Well, there is that," I allowed. — Cambria Hebert

The practice of kindness is the daily, friendly, homely caring form of love. It is both humble-a schoolboy bringing his teacher a bouquet of dandelions-and exalted-a fireman giving his life to save someone else's. Kindness is love with hands and hearts and minds. It is both whimsical-causing our faces to crack into a smile-and deeply touching-causing our eyes to shimmer with tears. And its miraculous nature is such that the more acts of kindness we offer, the more of them we have to give, for acts of kindness are always drawn from the endless well of love. — Dawna Markova

I was always drawn to performing, but I never thought I could. I have no idea what I wanted to do outside of the old cowboy-or-fireman. When I was in college, I got serious about acting. I started examining history and then everything related to the theater. History, art, all the other studies, if I could link them into the theater, then it became alive for me. It just opened up my eyes. — Billy Crystal

Most people think that an enlightened Buddhist Teacher is a fireman; His job is to put the fire out so that you can live in your home safely. But seeker beware! A fully enlightened Buddhist teacher is an arsonist! His job is to set your spirit on fire ... by feeding the flames of your soul with love. — Frederick Lenz