Why We Burn Quotes & Sayings

We already had all the songs, and it turns out all you have to do is burn them to some CDs, so why not? — David Gilmour

We were young. We were 23. I was a kid, growing up, that would burn and fry. I didn't understand why. We did all this study and research and learned so much about skin cells and rejuvenation and how the body works and (how) everybody is different. (We) learned what doctors do for treatment of certain things and so I changed my direction and opened up a skin-care company - healthy tanning, skin-care products and rejuvenation and all of that and it took off. — Drew Waters

Sorrow is so woven through us, so much a part of our souls, or at least any understanding of our souls that we are able to attain, that every experience is dyed with its color. This is why, even in moments of joy, part of that joy is the seams of ore that are our sorrow. They burn darkly and beautifully in the midst of joy, and they make joy the complete experience that it is. But they still burn. — Christian Wiman

The reality for teachers is we don't know if we've been successful or not. It takes years to see how a kid turns out, and it's impossible to know what role we've played, for better or worse. It's why so many teachers burn out - our successes are limited and rarely celebrated, but our failures are always out there for everyone to see and judge. — Tucker Elliot

I really do think how we frame things determines so much of our experience, and I've been talking to a lot of oncologists, like, why don't we call them transformation suites and give people transformation juice and have guides that support people when they're going through chemo so you could actually burn away what needs to be burned away, as opposed to this dread, terror, horror, which is a very different experience. — Eve Ensler

It is rubbish and that's exactly why we have to burn it. It's fun seeing the books fall to pieces as they land. It's fun jumping in the big pile, trampling on them, breaking the spines, ripping off covers, tearing out pages and scrunching them into balls and throwing them at one another, yelling out, just like in a snowball fight. — Sarah Cohen-Scali

The history of the world? Just voices echoing in the dark; images that burn for a few centuries and then fade; stories, old stories that sometimes seem to overlap; strange links, impertinent connections. We lie here in our hospital bed of the present (what nice clean sheets we get nowadays) with a bubble of daily news drip-fed into our arm. We think we know who we are, though we don't quite know why we're here, or how long we shall be forced to stay. And while we fret and write in bandaged uncertainty - are we a voluntary patient? - we fabulate. We make up a story to cover the facts we don't know or can't accept; we keep a few true facts and spin a new story round them. Our panic and our pain are only eased by soothing fabulation; we call it history. — Julian Barnes

Well, I can certainly see why we're trying to keep them alive. Who wouldn't want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once? — J.K. Rowling

We swallowed a few bites-not to much scince the food of the gods can burn you to ashes is you overindulge. I guess thats why you don't see many fat gods — Rick Riordan

Goddamn. what is this shit?
early times, called j-bone. best little old drink they is. drink that and you wont feel a thing the next mornin.
or any morning.
whoo lord, give it here. hello early, come to your old daddy.
here, pour some of it in this cup and let me cut it with coca-cola.
can't do it, bud.
why not?
we done tried it. it eats the bottom out.
watch it suttree. don't spill none on your shoes
lord honey i know they make that old splo in the bathtub but this here is made in the toilet. he was looking at the bottle, shaking it. bubbles the size of gooseshot veered greasily up through the smoky fuel it held.
the last time i drank some of that shit i like to died. i stunk from the inside out. i laid in a tub of hot water all day and climbed out and dried and you could still smell it. i had to burn my clothes.
early times, he called. make your liver quiver.
(page 26) — Cormac McCarthy

Why travel to the Moon or Mars if we only continue our wars there with Russia or China or Africa? Why build rockets at all? For fun? For adventure? Or is this the same process that sends the salmons back upstream year after year to spawn and die - a subliminal urge in mankind to spread, in self-preservation, to the stars? Are we then secretly fearful that one day the sun might freeze and the the earth grow cold or the sun explode in a terrific thermal cataclysm and burn down our house of cards? — Ray Bradbury

The true division of humanity is this: the luminous and the dark.
To diminish the number of the dark, to increase the number of the luminous, there is the aim.That is why we cry: education, knowledge! to learn to read is to kindle a fire; every syllable spelled sparkles.
But whoever say light does not necessarily say joy.
There is suffering in light; an excess burns. Flames is hostile to the wing. To burn and yet to fly, this is the miracle of genius — Victor Hugo

makes me more than sad, it makes my heart burn within me, to see that folk can make a jest of striving men; of chaps who comed to ask for a bit o' fire for th' old granny, as shivers i' th' cold; for a bit o' bedding, and some warm clothing to the poor wife who lies in labour on th' damp flags; and for victuals for the childer, whose little voices are getting too faint and weak to cry aloud wi' hunger. For, brothers, is not them the things we ask for when we ask for more wage? We donnot want dainties, we want bellyfuls; we donnot want gimcrack coats and waistcoats, we want warm clothes; and so that we get 'em, we'd not quarrel wi' what they're made on. We donnot want their grand houses, we want a roof to cover us from the rain, and the snow, and the storm; ay, and not alone to cover us, but the helpless ones that cling to us in the keen wind, and ask us with their eyes why we brought 'em into th' world to suffer?" He — Elizabeth Gaskell

And the Lord said: I burn down your cities - how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That's why I love mankind. — Randy Newman

The true diversity of humanity is this: the luminous and the dark.
To diminish the number of dark, to increase the number of luminous, that is the aim. That is why we cry: education, knowledge! To learn to read is to kindle a fire; every syllable spelled sparkles.
But whoever says light does not necessarily say joy. There is suffering in the light; an excess burns. Flame is hostile to the wing. To burn and yet to fly, this is the miracle of genius.
When you know and when you love you will suffer. The day dawns in tears. The luminous weep, be it only for the dark ones. — Victor Hugo

Vimes, listening with his mouth open, wondered why the hell it was that dwarfs believed that they had no religion and no priests. Being a dwarf was a religion. People went into the dark for the good of the clan, and heard things, and were changed, and came back to tell ...
And then, fifty years ago, a dwarf tinkering in Ankh-Morpork had found that if you put a simple fine mesh over your lantern flame it'd burn blue in the presence of the gas but wouldn't explode. It was a discovery of immense value to the good of dwarfkind and, as so often happens with such discoveries, almost immediately led to a war.
"And afterwards there were two kinds of dwarf," said Cheery sadly. "There's the Copperheads, who all use the lamp and the patent gas exploder, and the Schmaltzbergers, who stick to the old ways. Of course we're all dwarfs," she said, "but relations are strained. — Terry Pratchett

We're gonna get high, high, high, when we're low. The fires burn from better days. She scream why, oh why? I said I don't know! — Billie Joe Armstrong

God loves violence. You understand that, don't you?" "No," Teddy said, "I don't." The warden walked a few steps forward and turned to face Teddy. "Why else would there be so much of it? It's in us. It comes out of us. It is what we do more naturally than we breathe. We wage war. We burn sacrifices. We pillage and tear at the flesh of our brothers. We fill great fields with our stinking dead. And why? To show Him that we've learned from His example. — Dennis Lehane

It is never possible to completely reconstruct a person's life from what they leave behind - the absurdity of it all, the pain, the triumphs. What's lost is lost forever, and the silences are telling. But why mourn what we'll lose anyway? Laughter truly is the best medicine, and I find whisky tends to numb and burn what's left behind. — Thackery T. Lambshead

As I look back over the other best friendships I've had that also ended, I wonder if, in addition to simply having a finite amount of time for such intimacy, we also have certain periods in our lives in which we seek out people who seem to embody the things we lack. Then, when we gain those things for ourselves, we no longer need that friend in the same way, which causes a serious dissonance in the relationship. Perhaps this is why these particular friendships burn so bright and then disappear so completely. — Megan Crane

Why? Why do the fools fly?' said Denethor. 'Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must. Go back to your bonfire! And I? I will go now to my pyre. To my pyre! No tomb for Denethor and Faramir. No tomb! No long slow sleep of death embalmed. We will burn like heathen kings before ever a ship sailed hither from the West. The West has failed. Go back and burn! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Daily study of the scriptures is [an] important family activity. I remember when my son was seven years old. He was taking a shower one night during a storm when we lost the power in our home. My wife called to him and told him to hurry to finish his shower and to then take a candle and come slowly downstairs for our family prayer. She warned him to be careful to not drop the candle on the carpet because it could start a fire and the house could burn down. Several minutes later he came down the stairs struggling to hold the candle in one hand, and with his other arm he was carrying his scriptures. His mother asked him why he was bringing his scriptures. His answer to her was 'Mom, if the house burns down, I must save my scriptures!' We knew that our efforts to help him to love the scriptures had been planted in his heart forever. — Claudio Costa

Someone should say that; why we shouldn't burn their schools and destroy their buildings and infrastructures instead of burning our own homes. — M.F. Moonzajer

I've spent my entire life listening to people tell me why I can't be loved and how I'm nothing but a worthless piece of shit. I always told myself that I didn't care, that I didn't need anyone else. It was a lie, you know. I do care and I want Kiara. If it costs me my life to be with her, it doesn't matter. I've already lived past my prime, anyway. I get up every morning with more pain in my joints than the day before. If I have to die, I'd rather die knowing someone cared about me, just once. Is that really too much to ask? (Nykyrian)
For us? Yes. It is. We are the gutter and the gutter is all we'll ever be. Don't reach out for the stars. They'll burn you until there's nothing left. (Syn)
Then let me burn. (Nykyrian) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

People admire inner bonfires that burn so bright, and out of ignorance to these things, they gather around and think that the bonfire is some kind of blessing on their behalf, is some kind of untouched thing that knows only the purity of everything. It's all ignorance. The larger the bonfire, and the brighter it burns, the more evident the fact that it has consumed more wood and more air than the smaller ones. You burn because you have to burn. And you're not burning for others, you're not burning to be a blessing; you burn because you have to burn. — C. JoyBell C.

There are a hundred trillion cells in the human body, and every single one of the cells of my body loves you. We shed cells, and grow new ones, and my new cells love you more than the old ones, which is why I love you more every day than I did the day before. It's science. And when I die and they burn my body and I become ashes that mix with the air, and part of the ground and the trees and the stars, everyone who breathes that air or sees the flowers that grow out of the ground or looks up at the stars will remember you and love you, because I love you that much. — Cassandra Clare

Revelation is everything, not for its own sake, because most self-revelation is just garbage
oop!
yes, but we have to purge the garbage, toss it out, throw it into a bunker and burn it, because it is fuel. It's fossil fuel. And what do we do with fossil fuel? Why, we dump it into a bunker and burn it, of course. No, we don't do that. But you get my meaning. It's endlessly renewable, usable without diminishing one's capacity to create more. — Dave Eggers

When we get our money, you can burn kruge to keep you warm."
"I'm going to pay someone to burn my kruge for me."
"Why don't you pay someone else to pay someone to burn your kruge for you? That's what the big players do. — Leigh Bardugo

Nine times out of ten, failure is resorting to Plan B when Plan A gets too risky, too costly, or too difficult. That's why most people are living their Plan B. They didn't burn the ships. Plan A people don't have a Plan B...

There are moments in life when we need to burn the ships to our past. We do so by making a defining decision that will eliminate the possibility of sailing back to the old world we left behind. You burn the ships named Past Failure and Past Success. You burn the ship named Bad Habit. You burn the ship named Regret. You burn the ship named Guilt. You burn the ship named My Old Way of Life. — Mark Batterson

Why didn't you guys dress up?" Lindsey asks.
"We did." Calliope cracks her first smile. "we're dressed as twins."
Lindsey grins back. "Hmm, I see it now. Fraternal or identical?"
"You'd be surprised how many people ask," Cricket says.
"What do you tell them?" Lindsey asks.
"That I have a penis."
Oh God. My cheeks burn as they all burst into laughter. Think about something else, Dolores. ANYTHING else. Cucumbers, Bananas, Zucchini. AHHHH! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. I turn my face away from them as Calliope fakes a yakking sound. — Stephanie Perkins

Sure, if you saw your friend in hell, you would persuade him hard to come thence, if that would serve ; and why do you not now persuade him to prevent it? The charity of our ignorant forefathers may rise up in judgment against us, and condemn us. They would give all their estates almost, for so many masses, or pardons, to deliver the souls of their friends from a feigned purgatory, and we will not so much as importunately admonish and entreat them, to save theme from the certain flames of hell ; though this may be effectual to do them good, and the other will do none (403). Hadst thou rather he should burn for ever in hell, than thou shouldst lose his favour, or the maintenance thou hast from him? (408) — Richard Baxter

I really believe that is helping people. I've been talking to oncologists about how we can re-frame and re-think the chemo process, so it becomes a much more spiritual, psychological journey. Where people really could burn away what needs to be burned away. It's happening anyway. Why not frame it in a psychological way where it can serve as a transformation? — Eve Ensler

In our own country, we have seen America pay a terrible price for any form of discrimination. And we have seen us grow stronger as we have steadily let more and more of our hatreds and our fears go, as we have given more and more of our people the chance to live their dreams. That is why the flame of our Statue of Liberty, like the Olympic flame carried all across America by thousands of citizen heroes, will always burn brighter than the fires that burn our churches, our synagogues, our mosques, always. — William J. Clinton

Again, this week as I walked on Broadway, in front of giant photographs of voluptuous supermodels at a Victoria Secret mega-store, who was rebuilding the sidewalks? With sweaty headbands, ripped-up jeans, and dust on their brown faces? Their muscled hands quivered as they worked the jack-hammers and lugged the concrete chunks into dump trucks. Two men from Guanajuato. Undocumented workers. They both shook my hand vigorously, as if they were relieved I wasn't an INS officer.
I imagined how much money Victoria Secret was making off these poor bastards. I wondered why passersby didn't see what was in front of their faces. We use these workers. We profit from them. In the shadows, they work to the bone, for pennies. And it's so easy to blame them for everything and nothing simply because they are powerless, and dark-skinned,and speak with funny accents. Illegal is illegal. It is a phrase, shallow and cruel, that should prompt any decent American to burn with anger. — Sergio Troncoso

America is a place of opportunity. It's people-friendly! Very much so, compared to the Muslim countries in the world. People looking for better lives flock to America because we as a society do not mutilate young girls' genitals, do not cut off people's hands for stealing. We do not stone people to death for committing adultery. We do not rape women and men for speaking up against our government. We do not forbid people to go to school and to learn because of their gender. We assume people are innocent until proven guilty. We give people the freedom to criticize our government and even burn our flag as an expression of speech. This is but a partial list of why America is superior in culture and values to many other countries in the world. This type of culture also thrives in Israel, the only Western-style nation in the Middle East, one that Arabs despise, feel threatened by, and vow to destroy. — Brigitte Gabriel

This is why I am not religious. If and when we do learn the true secret of the universe, some kind of religion will be there to hide it. To cover it up. To persecute and shred, to burn and destroy. They stay in business by keeping us in the Dark Ages. — John Dunning

But why?" Gabriel asks. "Why do they wish to cause such pain to another human?"
"Why does the Spanish Inquisition do what it does?" I ask. "Why does our own Church burn witches at the stake? Why did our own crusaders punish the Moors so exquisitely?"
Gabriel thinks about this. He knows I don't beg answers for these questions.
"Of course it's easy to say that we mete out punishment to those who are an abomination in God's eyes," I say. "But it's more than that, isn't it? I think we don't just allow torturers but condone them as a way to excise the fear we all have of death. To torture someone is to take control of death, to be the master of it, even for a short time. — Joseph Boyden

I thought I would get calmer, surer, but each time we come close I feel almost sick at first. As though each time vibrates with the times before. I feel a terrible sorrow coming up my throat, I don't know why. And it can only be consoled against the length of her body. Lying down with her for the first time ... all the pain I didn't know I had, till at her touch it disappeared like smoke. Is this what purgatory feels like? To burn painlessly? If so, why isn't it called heaven? — Ann-Marie MacDonald

The story of money is very funny. Others burn what we earn. Why not give as we live, so the world will cry when we die. -RVM — R.v.m.

People always ask, Why does God allow suffering? Why does He allow a child to be beaten? A woman to cry? A holocaust to happen? A good dog to die painfully? Simple truth is, He wants to see for Himself what we'll do. He's stood up the candle, put the devil at the wick, and now He wants to see if we blow it out or let it burn down. God is suffering's biggest spectator. — Tiffany McDaniel

And then the third night was after we broke up, which was worth a million matches but instead just took all I had. That night it felt that somehow by flicking them off the roof, the matches would burn down everything, the sparks from the tips of the flames torching the world and all the heartbroken people in it. Up in smoke I wanted everything, up in smoke I wanted you, although in a movie that wouldn't work, even, too many effects, too showy for how tiny and bad I felt. Cut that fire from the film, no matter how much I watch it in dailies. But I want it anyway, Ed, I want what can't possibly happen, and that is why we broke up. — Daniel Handler

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

This was fun. We should find out we're still married more often."
"Why, so every day can be a special new plunge into hell?"
"Nobody I'd rather burn with than you, babe. — Erin McCarthy