Fire And Thorns Trilogy Quotes

The people around me gasp in recognition of the seal. ~ Rae Carson

Is there any one among you who believes he can be spared the way? Can he swindle his way past the pain of Christ? I say: Such a one deceives himself to his own detriment. He beds down on thorns and fire. No one can be spared the way of Christ, since this way leads to what is to come. ~ C. G. Jung

You must not lose faith, child. No matter what. Do not doubt God or his choosing of you. He knows infinitely more than we can imagine. ~ Rae Carson

On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.'

Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighboring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever - which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale.

("The Three Strangers") ~ Thomas Hardy

Mr. Edwards and the Spider"

I saw the spiders marching through the air,
Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed day
In latter August when the hay
Came creaking to the barn. But where
The wind is westerly,
Where gnarled November makes the spiders fly
Into the apparitions of the sky,
They purpose nothing but their ease and die
Urgently beating east to sunrise and the sea;

What are we in the hands of the great God?
It was in vain you set up thorn and briar
In battle array against the fire
And treason crackling in your blood;
For the wild thorns grow tame
And will do nothing to oppose the flame;
Your lacerations tell the losing game
You play against a sickness past your cure.
How will the hands be strong? How will the heart endure?

A very little thing, a little worm,
Or hourglass-blazoned spider, it is said,
Can kill a tiger. Will the dead
Hold up his mirror and affirm
To the four winds the smell
And flash of his authority? It's well
If God who holds you to the pit of hell,
Much as one holds a spider, will destroy,
Baffle and dissipate your soul. As a small boy

On Windsor Marsh, I saw the spider die
When thrown into the bowels of fierce fire:
There's no long struggle, no desire
To get up on its feet and fly
It stretches out its feet
And dies. This is the sinner's last retreat;
Yes, and no ~ Robert Lowell

The road to freedom is full of thorns and fire, yet happy is he who follows it! ~ Aminu Kano

I glanced at Tamlin, biting my lip. I'd practically floated into my bedroom that morning. But Tamlin's gaze now roved my face as if searching for any tinge of regret, of fear. Ridiculous.
"You bit my neck on Fire Night," I said under my breath. "If I can face you after that, a few kisses are nothing."
He braced his forearms on the table as he leaned closed to me. "Nothing?" His eyes flicked to my lips. Lucien shifted in his seat, muttering to the Cauldron to spare him, but I ignored him. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Tell me "The Subtle Briar" again,' she asked. She knew I would still know it by heart. I whispered to her in the dark.

'When you cut down the hybrid rose,
its blackened stump below the graft
spreads furtive fingers in the dirt.
It claws at life, weaving a raft
of suckering roots to pierce the earth.
The first thin shoot is fierce and green,
a pliant whip of furious briar
splitting the soil, gulping the light.
You hack it down. It skulks between
the flagstones of the garden path
to nurse a hungry spur in shade
against the porch. With iron spade
you dig and drag it from the gravel
and toss it living on the fire.

'It claws up towards the light again
hidden from view, avoiding battle
beyond the fence. Unnoticed, then,
unloved, unfed, it clings and grows
in the wild hedge. The subtle briar
armors itself with desperate thorns
and stubborn leaves – and struggling higher,
unquenchable, it now adorns
itself with blossom, till the stalk
is crowned with beauty, papery white
fine petals thin as chips of chalk
or shaven bone, drinking the light.

'Izabela, Aniela, Alicia, Eugenia,
Stefania, Rozalia, Pelagia, Irena,
Alfreda, Apolonia, Janina, Leonarda,
Czeslava, Stanislava, Vladyslava, Barbara,
Veronika, Vaclava, Bogumila, Anna,
Genovefa, Helena, Jadviga, Joanna,
Kazimiera, Ursula, Vojcziecha, Maria,
Elizabeth Wein

There is a land, where the roses are without thorns, where the flowers are not mixed with brambles. In that land, there is eternal spring, and light without any cloud. The tree of life groweth in the midst thereof; rivers of pleasures are there, and flowers that never fade. Myriads of happy spirits are there, and surround the throne of God with a perpetual hymn. The angels with their golden harps sing praises continually, and the cherubim fly on wings of fire! This country is Heaven ... ~ Anna Letitia Barbauld

Fury is like a monster inside me, the one thing in my life I've been unable to master. I sent up a quick prayer of apology. "I know you don't listen to me the way you listen to my sister. But I'm sorry just the same." And then, because I am me and not my sister, I add: "Of course if you would help me see the strength in her, or nudge her to be a little more useful, then I wouldn't have to be sorry." Very likely this is why my prayers are seldom answered. (Alodia speaking of her sister Elisa) ~ Rae Carson

My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns;Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals;The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls. ~ Robert Southwell

He studies me thoughtfully. "You are a beautiful queen, Elisa," he says voice pitched low.
I never expected he would say such a thing. "A month or two of pastries will fix that," I say. Then I smile to show him I mean it flippantly.
His expression does not change. "Even then. ~ Rae Carson

Do you know why the leaves change colour, Makin?" They did look spectacular. The forest had grown around us as we traveled and the canopy burned with colour, from deepest red to flame orange, an autumn fire spreading in defiance of the rain.
"I don't know," he said, "Why do they change?"
"Before a tree sheds a leaf it pumps it full of all the poison it can't rid itself of otherwise. That red there - that's a man's skin blotching with burst veins after an assassin spikes his last meal with roto-weed. The poison spreading through him before he dies. ~ Mark Lawrence

Imagine what it's like to be (untouchable)
Better not take a chance on me (untouchable)
I'm the bad boy your mama told you about
I'm dangerous, without a doubt
Even coming off a ten-year drought
Untouchable

I'm the rose with hidden thorns (untouchable)
Don't tell me that you haven't been warned (untouchable)
I'm pretty poison under the skin,
The bite of the apple that's a mortal sin
In a game of love you'll never win
Untouchable

My reputation's fairly earned (untouchable)
If you play with fire, you will get burned (untouchable)
Stay out of the kitchen if you can't take the heat,
My kisses are deadly as they are sweet,
I'm a runaway bus on a dead-end street
Untouchable

Fools rush in, that's what they say(untouchable)
But angels fall, too, most every day (untouchable)
I'm the snake in the garden, the siren on the reef
I have the face of a saint and the heart of a thief
I'll promise you love! And bring you nothing but grief
Untouchable

Hearing Jonah sing like this was like watching him slice himself open and show off his insides. Why would he do that? Why would be write such a song?
And then Emma answered her own question. Because good music always tells the truth, no matter how much it hurts.
Emma couldn't be the only one who felt the bite of the blade, but everyone else seemed to take it in stride. Did they know? Did ~ Cinda Williams Chima

You will do well in everything you seek out to do ... because you don't give up. Others make mistakes, fall down, lose heart, and you do too, but you don't give up. You don't lose yourself in the process. You keep moving forward and pushing for only the very best' (Miss Shaw to Daisy, 'Friendship on Fire', p. 446) ~ Danielle Weiler

Religious fanaticism and hatred are a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench. ~ Bahaullah

Hawks have a flying weight, just as boxers have a fighting weight. A hawk that's too fat, or high, has little interest in flying, and won't return to the falconer's call. Hawks too low are awful things: spare, unhappy, lacking the energy to fly with fire and style. Taking the hawk back onto my fist I feel for her breastbone with the bare fingers of my other hand. She is plump, her skin hot under her feathers, and through my fingertips I feel the beating of her nervous heart. I shiver. Draw my hand back. Superstition. I can't bear to feel that flickering sign of life, can't help but suspect that my attention might somehow make it stop. ~ Helen Macdonald

The conclusion is simple: if a 200-man project has 25 managers who are the most competent and experienced programmers,
fire the 175 troops and put the managers back to programming. ~ Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

The fire breather is beneath the clover, and beneath his breathing there is cold clay forever ~ Joanna Newsom

Can't fucking believe it's come to this," it muttered. "Negotiating with a fucking herdsman - you know, sometimes it's - listen, I was the thief of fire once, you goat-shagging thug. You know that? The fucking doom bringer to kings." An arm thrown out in exasperation. "Back when the earth was young, back when there was still a moon in the fucking sky, I pulled on whatever flesh was needful and I struck terror into the hearts of the powerful and enthroned all across this mudball world, and another dozen like it. I took the spirit form and strode across measureless ... ah, fuck it, never mind. ~ Richard K. Morgan

On September 11, it was government that failed. Law enforcement agencies didn't detect the plot. The FBI had reports that said young men on the terrorist watch list were going from flight school to flight school, trying to find an instructor who would teach them how to fly a commercial jet. But the FBI never acted on it. The INS let the hijackers in. Three of them had expired visas. Months after the attack, the government issued visas to two dead hijackers.
The solution to such government incompetence is to give the government more power?
Congress could have done what Amsterdam, Belfast, Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Paris, and Rome did: set tough standards and let private companies compete to meet them. Many of those cities switched to private companies because they realized government-run security wasn't working very well. Private-sector competition keeps the screeners alert because the airport can fire them. No one can fire the government; that's a reason government agencies gradually deteriorate. There's no competition. ~ John Stossel

O bid these strangers go ;
Turn to my lips till their cup overflow ;
Hurt me with kisses, kill me with desire,
Consume me and destroy me with the fire
Of bleeding passion straining at the heart,
Touched to the core by sweetnesses that smart ;
Bitten by fiery snakes, whose poisonous breath
Swoons in the midnight, and dissolves to death ! ~ Aleister Crowley

Why I love the ancients so much? Aside from everything else, when I read them, the entire past between them and me unfolds at thesame time. The hearts of how many heroes and poets may have been set on fire by Plutarch's biographies which now inspire me with their own and with borrowed flames! ~ Franz Grillparzer

He nodded. "Okay. We got it out in the open. Here it is. This is your moment to be angry at your own laziness and wallow in self-pity. A moment is all you get, because any minute Adam Pierce might set Houston on fire. Take a few minutes for your pity party. Would five be enough?"
"You're an asshole."
"Yes, but I'm a very well-trained asshole. I'm offering you the use of my expertise. So suck it up, get over this bump, and let's go. Are you with me?"
You know what? No: if he ever fell in love, it wouldn't be great romantic devotion. It would be an exercise in frustration and lust, and at the end of it his significant other would strangle him. ~ Ilona Andrews

It is an old and wise caution, that when our neighbor's house is on fire, we ought to take care of our own. For tho', blessed be God, I live in a government where liberty is well understood, and freely enjoy'd; yet experience has shown us all that bad precedent in one government is soon set up for an authority in another; and therefore I cannot but think it mine, and every honest man's duty that we ought at the same time to be upon our guard against power, wherever we apprehend that it may affect ourselves or our fellow subjects.
I should think it my duty, if required, to go to the utmost part of the land, where my service could be of any use in assisting to quench the flame of prosecutions upon informations, set on foot by the government, to deprive a people of their right to remonstrating (and complaining too) of the arbitrary attempts of men in power. ~ Andrew Hamilton

Man's natural desire is to better oneself. But when does this admirable attribute become a wedge in the growing tree of progress, destined for irreversible and devastating consequences? We see such monstrous consequences come to fruition over and over throughout history. When fire is not contained, the whole land will burn. ~ Johan Twiss

Anger was a fire in a grate, and I'd never had any wood to burn. Until now, it seemed. ~ Naomi Novik

Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden. ~ Voltaire

My dear, dear girl [ ... ] we can't turn back the days that have gone. We can't turn life back to the hours when our lungs were sound, our blood hot, our bodies young. We are a flash of fire
a brain, a heart, a spirit. And we are three-cents-worth of lime and iron
which we cannot get back. ~ Thomas Wolfe

The glowworm shows the matin to be near And gins to pale his uneffectual fire. ~ William Shakespeare

Ronan, I think you need to tell them, too.
Ronan's expression, if anything, was betrayed. This was wearying; Gansey could see precisely the argument that it was heaving towards. Adam would shoot something cool and truthful over the bow, Ronan would fire back a profanity cannon, Adam would drip gasoline in the path of the projectile, and then everything would be on fire for hours. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

It is warmer here. Can you see the light? Trust it. It is safe. It has lived a long time. It has seen much more than you. You fight a demon that you once knew but the demon is already slain. And from the corner of your eye you will see the scattered, sacred fire reform again. Settle, settle. Peace, peace ~ Donna Goddard

The rain hit the windows like rice; the fire roared hollowly; the autumn afternoon discoloured into darkness. ~ Elizabeth Taylor

The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose. ~ Kahlil Gibran

We enter the government essentially in a hotel that is on fire. We're throwing people from the windows into the pool to save their lives and this is the evaluation of the Olympic diving committee: Well, the splash was too big. ~ Austan Goolsbee

Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; he had acute sensibility to the higher forces. Fire taught him secrets that no other animal could learn; running water probably taught him even more, especially in his first lessons of mechanics; the animals helped to educate him, trusting themselves into his hands merely for the sake of their food, and carrying his burdens or supplying his clothing; the grasses and grains were academies of study. ~ Henry Adams

I pushed my pile of papers to one side, stroked Shadow and stared into the fire, longing for the comfort of a story where everything had been planned well in advance, where the confusion of the middle was invented only for my enjoyment, and where I could measure how far away the solution was by feeling the thickness of pages still to come. I had no idea how many pages it would take to complete the story of Emmeline and Adeline, nor even whether there would be time to complete it. ~ Diane Setterfield

And when a person goeth through fire for his teaching -- what doth that prove! It is more, verily, when out of one's own burning cometh one's own teaching! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The cushions of my friend's couch were some kind of rubberized velour, the windows were uncurtained, and at five a.m. the birds were all atwitter and the light, the L.A. light everyone goes on and on about, was right in my East Coast eyes. Give me New York any day, I thought. But when New York came, it was with fangs and claws, in a nightmare I now woke from screaming. ~ Garth Risk Hallberg

Hell,huh? Well,hopefully we'll be able to disprove that theory soon.Besides, if it were hell,would I be here with you?"
"I don't know,if hell called for an eternity of annoyance instead of torment,maybe."
"I like you more every day.But neither of us qualifies for hell. We're victims." He smiled, the last word laced with venom. "And if we're occasionally wicked,well, certainly we'd be justified."
i wondered if he was trying to comfort me about Vivian,but he stared into the distance as though anticipating future wickedness. What did he want me to light on fire this time? I didn't think I was up for more destruction. ~ Kiersten White

Then, with a stately leap, the sun bounded into the sky, and the whole, messy, beautiful, broken world was stained with fire. ~ Kate Constable

Magic is a power, much like madness but so much more like fire. ~ Cynthia Gael

A lot of people don't have fond memories of high school. It's often a war of politics and personalities, set off by the cannon fire of hormones. ~ Nora Roberts

Why didn't they ask two of the guards to go with them?" Milo asked.
"A soldier's not a servant," I told him. "The most loyal Spartan warrior would be insulted if he was asked to be a weapons bearer, even for a prince. It looks like Castor and Polydeuces will have to take care of themselves."
Milo looked away from me. I was puzzled by this sudden shyness and tried to catch his eye, but he deliberately avoided my gaze. He reeked of guilty secrets.
"You're the one," I said. "You're the scrawn--the boy Castor asked to go with him." His silence was the same as shouting Yes! I knew it. "You just told me you wanted to join the quest for the fleece. You could have done it: Why didn't you?"
"I couldn't," he mumbled.
"Why not? Because it's safer to talk about dreams than to try making them real? What are you so afraid of?"
"Nothing!" He yelled so fiercely that a pair of oxen grazing in a nearby field snorted and moved farther away from us. It was the first time I ever saw fire in Milo's eyes. "I'm no coward. That's not why I wouldn't go with your brothers. I have to go with you."
"Who said so? You're free now, Milo. Don't you know what that means? You can come and go anywhere you like. You ought to appreciate it."
"I appreciate you, Lady Helen!" Once Milo raised his voice, he couldn't stop. He shouted so loudly that the two oxen trotted to the far side of the pasture as fast as they could move their massive bodies. "You're the one who gave me my ~ Esther M. Friesner

This isn't the hand of some swooning princess who sits tatting lace and waiting for some prince to save her. This is the hand of a woman who would climb a rope of her own hair to freedom, or kill a captor ogre in his sleep. And this is the hand of a woman who would have made it through the fire on her own if I hadn't been there. Singed perhaps, but safe. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

You are my friend, Prairie Flower. If I tell you what is in my heart, will you promise never to tell?"
Prairie Flower laid a hand on Jesse's shoulder, pulling it away quickly when her friend flinched in pain. "I will not betray my friend."
Taking a deep breath, Jesse lifted her head. "When Rides the Wing comes near to me, my heart sings.But I do not believe that he cares for me.I am clumsy in all of the things a Lakota woman must know.I cannot speak his language without many childish mistakes. And..." Jesse reached up to lay her hand on her short hair, "I am nothing to look at.I am not..."
Prairie Flower grew angry. "I have told you he cares for you.Can you not see it?"
Jesse shook her head.
Prairie Flower spoke the unspeakable. "Then,if you cannot see that he cares for you in what he does,you must see it in what he has not done. You have been in his tepee. Dancing Waters has been gone many moons."
"Stop!" Jesse demanded. "Stop it! I..just don't say any more!" She leaped up and ran out of the tepee-and into Rides the Wind, who was returning from the river where he had gone to draw water.
Jesse knocked the water skins from both of his hands. Water spilled out and she fumbled an apology then bent stiffly to pick up the skins, wincing with the effort.
"I will do it, Walks the Fire." His voice was tender as he bent and took the skins from her.
Jesse protested, "It is the wife's job." She blushed, realizing that she had used a wrong wor ~ Stephanie Grace Whitson

The assassin in the night. The fire on the Jana. The woman in Judgment Square. Each event had led Merik here, to Noden's temple. To a fresco of the god's Left Hand.
And only a fool ignored Noden's gifts. ~ Susan Dennard

God has made me so that when once I love I love for ever, and so I continue to pray for this girl and I love her still. When I saw how Céline loved one of the nuns, I tried to imitate her, but I didn't succeed, as I didn't know how to get into people's good graces. It was a fortunate ignorance which has saved me from much evil. I am profoundly grateful to Jesus who has never let me find anything but bitterness in earthly friendships. With a nature like mine, I should have been trapped and had my wings clipped and then how should I have "flown away and found rest"? It's impossible for one bound by human affection to have intimate union with God. I've seen so many souls, dazzled by this deluding light, fly into it and burn their wings like silly moths. Then they turn again to the true unfading light of love and, with new and more splendid wings, fly to Jesus, that divine Fire which burns yet does not destroy. I know that Jesus considered me too weak to be exposed to temptation. If I had seen this false light shining before me, I should have been wholly destroyed. I've been saved from that. I have found nothing but bitterness where stronger souls have found happiness and yet remained properly detached. So it's no merit on my part that I never became entangled by love of creatures; I was saved only by the great mercy of God. ~ John Beevers