Chicago Fire Quotes

Simply calling the Great Fire an accident did not satisfy some people, most notably the local newspapers. They demanded a culprit-- ~ Jim Murphy

Before the Great Chicago Fire, no one took notice of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary, two Irish immigrants who lived with their five children on the city's West Side. ~ Karen Abbott

...a single tongue of flame shooting out the side of the O'Learys' barn.
(Where the fire started) ~ Jim Murphy

The fire was barely fifteen minutes old. What followed was a series of fatal errors that set the fire free and doomed the city to a fiery death. ~ Jim Murphy

You don't know anyone at the party, so you don't want to go. You don't like cottage cheese, so you haven't eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don't kid yourself: it's also the flinch.

Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it's really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy.

You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can't write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that's really not you. It's not ingrained. It's not your personality. You personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like.

If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it's the only way.

Set fire to your old self. It's not needed here. It's too busy shopping, gossiping about others, and watching days go by and asking why you haven't gotten as far as you'd like. This old self will die and be forgotten by all but family, and replaced by someone who makes a difference.

Your new self is not like that. Your new self is the Great Chicago Fire - overwhelming, overpowering, and destroying everything ~ Julien Smith

In the immediate aftermath of the great Chicago fire, a business proprietor erected a shack in front of his burned-out business. On a sign, he placed his name and the tagline that everything was gone but wife, children, and energy. ~ H.W. Brands

If 'Chicago Fire' goes for a long run, maybe I'll look for a place, but in my line of work, you can't throw your eggs into one basket because you might have to move. I'm not big on 'things,' though, so I don't own TVs, couches or cars because I wouldn't know where to put them. ~ Taylor Kinney

They've hung everything on me except the Chicago fire. ~ Al Capone

Marriage is a land mine. A really intimate land mine. Adultery to kitchen fires. Never a dull [moment]. ~ Nora Roberts

The day Flag went on tour forever we set the loading dock on fire. It was a special kind of concrete that burned.

Rollins was too pissed for a tour kickoff set. We just stood on the roof til it started falling in, watching their backs get small in the heatshimmer. After a while there's just four black bars against the road. You can't ever tell what comes true. ~ Noah Wareness

The day my father came to claim me, my mother did not wish for me to go. 'She is a girl,' she said, 'and I do not think that she is yours. I had a thousand other men.' He tossed his spear at my feet and gave my mother the back of his hand across the face, so she began to weep. 'Girl or boy, we fight our battles,' he said, 'but the gods let us choose our weapons.' He pointed to the spear, then to my mother's tears, and I picked up the spear. ~ George R R Martin

8But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and t a thousand years as one day. 9 u The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise v as some count slowness, but w is patient toward you, [1] x not wishing that any should perish, but y that all should reach repentance. 10But z the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then a the heavens will pass away with a roar, and b the heavenly bodies [2] will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. [3] 11Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, c what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 d waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and e the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13But according to his promise we are waiting for f new heavens and a new earth g in which righteousness dwells. ~ Anonymous

Once when I was a tree, African sun woke me up green at dawn. African wind combed the branches of my hair. African rain washed my limbs. Once when I was a tree, flesh came and worshipped my roots. Flesh came to preserve my voice. Flesh came honoring my limbs. Now flesh comes with metal teeth, with chomping sticks and fire launchers. And flesh cuts me down and enslaves my limbs to make forts, ships, pews for other gods. Now flesh laughs at my charred and beaten frame, discarding me in the mud, burning me up in the flames. Flesh has grown pale and lazy. Flesh has sinned against the fathers. Now flesh listens no more to the voice of spirits talking through my limbs. If flesh would listen, I would warn him that the spirits are displeased and are planning what to do with him. But flesh thinks I am dead, charred and gone. Flesh thinks that by fire he can kill, thinks that with metal teeth, I will die. Thinks that all the voices linked from root to limb are silenced. Flesh does not know that he does not give me life, nor can he take it away. That Is What the spirits are singing now. It is time that flesh bow down on his knee again. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

I'm everything that makes everything. I'm everything that unmakes everything. I'm fire. I'm flood. I'm pestilence. I'm the ink, the paper, the grass, the tree, the leaves, the leaf, the greenness in the leaf. I'm the vein in the leaf. I'm the voice that tells no story. ~ Ali Smith

For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution. And ~ Alexander Hamilton

Well I've got a thick skin and an elastic heart ~ Choon Ling Sia

Little boys jump, but they do not know where. Into the mouth of the demon lair. Hold still and you will see, in his hand is the key. Fire and brimstone. Brimstone and fire. Your ally is clever. a thief and a liar. All is not lost. You can turn it around. But, for a moment...all will be well.....peaceful and sound." Alice. ~ Kathy Cyr

She was insane, and this was Janie. This was the Janie who loved fire and carried rocks. This was the Janie Vivian who trusted rarely but deeply, and hoped with everything she was. This was the Janie Vivian, who I had loved with every atom in every cell in my body before memory was relevant. ~ Amy Zhang

There is a certain kind of pain that can change you. Even the strongest sword, when placed in a raging fire, will soften and bend and change its form ...
Trust me on this one. I know this from personal experience. I hope that you never will, but, since you're a person, and therefore prone to making horrible, soul-splitting mistakes, you probably will one day know what this kind of guilt and shame feels like. And when that time comes, I hope you have the strength ... to take advantage of the fire and reshape your own sword. ~ Adam Gidwitz

The fire roared down upon us. It curled through our hair, then wrapped around our wrists and faces, trying to drag us apart. It seared across my skin, hotter than the Heart of Fire, and yet more painful was how it seared through my mind. The fire burned away my memories, taking back his name and mine, both of my pasts and all of my hopes, the sky and the sparrow and the world itself. I clung to somebody I did not know, could not imagine knowing, but I still knew beyond all doubt that he was mine.
We fell until we had been falling forever and always, and always would continue falling, because nothing existed outside this chaos of fire and shadow.
But I held on to him.
And he held on to me. ~ Rosamund Hodge

Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn't smooth. You'll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don't believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don't give up. ~ Mark Zuckerberg

I rise.
Again. And again.
Not as the morning bird
whose song springs
to sudden glorious life
at the dawning of the light,
but as the sun
who touches the horizon
with tender fingertips
before reaching open arms
across the sky
to embrace another day
to weather the storms
to stand tall and breathe fire
and then to descend into rest
until it's time to rise again.
And again
I rise. ~ L.R. Knost

Love and hatred are not blind, but are blinded by the fire they bear within themselves. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

How many centuries must have elapsed before men reached the point of seeing any other fire than that in the sky? ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The sweet heavy smell grew very much less. For though the whole fire had not been put out, a good bit of it had, and what remained smelled very largely of burnt Marsh-wiggle, which is not at all an enchanting smell. ~ C.S. Lewis

Memory"

I've memorized all the fish in the sea
I've memorized each opportunity strangled
and
I remember awakening one morning
and finding everything smeared with the color of
forgotten love
and I've memorized
that too.

I've memorized green rooms in
St. Louis and New Orleans
where I wept because I knew that by myself I
could not overcome
the terror of them and it.

I've memorized all the unfaithful years
(and the faithful ones too)
I've memorized each cigarette that I've rolled.
I've memorized Beethoven and New York City
I've memorized
riding up escalators, I've memorized
Chicago and cottage cheese, and the mouths of
some of the ladies and the legs of
some of the ladies
I've known
and the way the rain came down hard.
I've memorized the face of my father in his coffin,
I've memorized all the cars I have driven
and each of their sad deaths,
I've memorized each jail cell,
the face of each new president
and the faces of some of the assassins;
I've even memorized the arguments I've had with
some of the women
I've loved.

best of all
I've memorized tonight and now and the way the
light falls across my fingers,
specks and smears on the wall,
shades down behind orange curtains;
I light a rolled cigarette and then laugh a little,
yes, I've memorized it all.

Charles Bukowski

I ought to fire one of my two employees into the other one's asshole. ~ Jarod Kintz

It was not full dark where I lay; the fire kept the worst of the shadows at bay. Curiously, ~ Christine Pope

I do not know who coined the statement "an idle mind is the devil's playground," but it is true. When camping in dangerous places, it is often recommended that you keep a campfire going to keep the predators away. When we set our hearts on fire, demonic predators stay out of our camp, which is my main point in this chapter. The apostle Paul put it best: "Love never fails" (see 1 Corinthians 13:8). We have spent several chapters talking about how to win spiritual battles in our own lives and in the lives of others. But when all else fails, remember this: Love cannot be defeated. ~ Kris Vallotton

All such uncertainties about undecidability and inconsistency apply only to mathematical structures with infinitely many elements. Are infinities, undecidability and potential inconsistency really inherent in the ultimate physical reality, or are they merely mirages, artifacts of our playing with fire and using powerful mathematical tools that are more convenient to work with than those that actually describe our Universe? More specifically, how well defined do mathematical structures need to be to be real, i.e., to be members of the Level IV multiverse? ~ Max Tegmark

When we hold it (amber) in our hands, we hold also that furious epoch where rioted all monsters and poisons, where death fecundated and life destroyed, where superabundance demanded such existences, no souls, but fiercest animal fire - just for that I hate it! ~ Harriet Prescott Spofford

His voice might be stern, but in the sternness there was still the accent of yearning love; his eyes might flash fire, but the flame was the flame of love. ~ William Barclay

I think that stupidity is like a wild fire burning through the social fabric of an intrinsically reasonable existence. ~ Travis Culliton

Levana agreed to a cease-fire," said Wolf, "but we're waiting to hear if it's been implemented." "Also, Cress destroyed me in a game of Mountain Miners," said Iko. Thorne nodded, as if these two announcements carried the same weight. "She is a genius." Cress ~ Marissa Meyer

My skin will never work like that again, so aware of the other person that I'm unsure where she ends and I begin. Never again. Never again will my skin be a thing that can so perfectly communicate; in losing my skin to the fire, I also lost the opportunity to make it disappear with another person. ~ Andrew Davidson

I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that's in me should set hell on fire. ~ William Shakespeare

I have of late
but
wherefore I know not
lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. ~ William Shakespeare

Mi Corazon. Mi alma. Son tuyos." My heart. My soul. They are yours, he whispered against the generous curve of her breast as a million sensations, all of them hot, all of them rich, all of them straddling the razor-sharp edge of pain, ripped through his loins like a flash fire and stripped him of everything but consciousness.
"Tuyo. Todo que tengo es tuyo." Yours. Everything I have is yours. ~ Cindy Gerard

I visualized myself at Norma's house, stretched out on her couch, my eyes closed, and she at bthe paino playing a powerful movement from some Symphony in D major by Beethoven, by Brahms, by Sibelius, by Tschaikowsky, by anybody, by Thomas Wolfe, by Ernest Hemmingway, by William Saroyan, by Jack Kerouac, by George Apostolos, by Sebastian the Prince, by Love, by Earth, by Fire, by Water, by All, Everything, Love you and I, me myself, egotist, Earth, Fire, a mad and wild concoction of all Life, and of the all-embracing All. ~ Jack Kerouac

Why do so many today want to wander off to South Africa or Kenya or India or Russia or Honduras or Costa Rica or Peru to help with justice issues but not spend the same effort in their own neighborhood or community or state? Why do young suburbanites, say in Chicago, want to go to Kentucky or Tennessee to help people but not want to spend that same time to go to the inner city in their own area to help with justice issues? I asked this question to a mature student in my office one day, and he thought he had a partial explanation: 'Because my generation is searching for experiences, and the more exotic and extreme the better. Going down the street to help at a food shelter is good and it is just and some of us are doing that, but it's not an experience. We want experiences. ~ Scot McKnight

Sometimes there's a fire in your life and you ask God,
"Lord, let me go around the fire." And God says, "No."
Then you ask, "Lord, then let me go over the fire."
And God says, "No." Then you ask,
"Well Lord, please let me go under the fire."
And God says, "No. Go through the fire and I'll be with you. ~ Lydia Thornton

When I look at these stiffs by the fire, I am looking at a graveyard. There is hardly room to move between the tombstones. . . . The epitaphs are chiseled in sunken shadows on their cheeks ~ Tom Kromer

Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire. ~ Jennifer Lee

Our love is a forest fire and we are the little things that live in the trees. ~ Joey Comeau

I wanted to learn a little bit about acting, not because I thought I'd find a star vehicle and set the world on fire, but I thought the discipline of it would be good for me. I met a good coach, and I joined her class - with a lot of hungry young actors who really didn't acre if I was a rock 'n' roll singer or not. I started to learn to get a focus, without having to jump up and down every few seconds. ~ Iggy Pop

I grew up in Chicago, so hip-hop has always been a part of my life. ~ Gina Rodriguez

She was smiling as she leaned toward Reed, who stooped down to put his lips against her ear. He would tell her that he wanted to travel to Merendon, or Marring Cross or Cranfield, someplace far away and exotic. He was the sort of man whose wish altered every year.
He said in a voice that only she could hear: "I wish you were not my sister."
She pulled back and stared up at him. He smiled, his face just faintly touched with sadness, and tossed his true-love into the fire. ~ Sharon Shinn

Who taught you to shoot?" he asked when she was standing beside him.
"Our coachman."
"Better the coachman than your brother," Ian mocked, handing her the loaded gun. "The target's that bare twig over there - the one with the leaf hanging off the middle of it."
Elizabeth flinched at his sarcastic reference to his duel with Robert. "I'm truly sorry about that duel," she said, then she concentrated all her attention for the moment on the small twig.
Propping his shoulder against the tree trunk, Ian watched with amusement as she grasped the heavy gun in both her hands and raised it, biting her lip in concentration. "Your brother was a very poor shot," he remarked.
She fired, nicking the leaf at its stem.
"I'm not," she said with a jaunty sidewise smile. And then, because the duel was finally out in the open and he seemed to want to joke about it, she tried to follow suit: "If I'd been there, I daresay I would have - "
His brows lifted. "Waited for the call to fire, I hope? ~ Judith McNaught

In that cocoon of darkness, she bided her time, letting him think her gone, letting them do what they wanted to the mortal shell around her. It was in that cocoon where the shadowfire began to flicker, fueling her, feeding her. Long ago, when she was small and clean, flames of gold had crackled at her fingers, secret and hidden. Then they vanished, as all good things had vanished. ~ Sarah J. Maas

One Day:

One day, you will heal
One day, you will be grateful for the deepest cuts of pain
One day, you will glance at yourself
And see a stronger person through your reflection
One day, you will kiss away your hurt... gently, and with grace
Until then, use it all to propel you forward
Like a white-hot pyre through your star-spangled eyes
A fire to regenerate every shadowy cell
And open your heart to every experience
Knowing that one day
You will search your heart
And understand that love is the only thing to ever hold onto ~ Christine Evangelou

When night comes on in a room lit by kerosene, any flicker of the flame can give the sense that darkness is about to triumph. ~ Larry Watson

And it was in the midst of shouts rolling against the terrace wall in massive waves that waxed in volume and duration, while cataracts of colored fire fell thicker through the darkness, that Dr. Rieux resolved to compile this chronicle, so that he should not be one of those who hold their peace but should bear witness in favor of those plague-stricken people; so that some memorial of the injustice and outrage done them might endure; and to state quite simply what we learn in time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise. ~ Albert Camus

So, Grace, how's school?" I asked myself.
Dad nodded, eyes on the baby koala now struggling in the guest's arms.
"Oh, it's fine," I continued, and Dad made a mumbling noise of agreement. I added, "Nothing special, aside from the load of pandas they brought in, and the teachers abandoning us to cannibalistic savages-" I paused to see if I'd caught his attention yet, then pressed on. "The whole building caught fire, then I failed drama, and then sex, sex, sex."
Dad's eyes abruptly focused, and he turned to me and frowned. "What did you say they were teaching you in school? ~ Maggie Stiefvater

You're like something drawn with the sun's fire, and I can take only little glimpses of you. ~ Kenneth Oppel

Everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder. ~ Honore De Balzac

Trees spit scarlet and orange leaves to the earth, turning the fields to fire. ~ Maggie Stiefvater