Fireplace Quotes

Once I entered the house late at night and overheard Mark and my mom having sex by the fireplace. She was moaning like she was flying on a magic carpet. I almost puked into the kitchen sink. I would give anything for her to dump him. Jade's mom says it will never happen because women over 45 have a better chance of getting blown up by a terrorist than finding a man. Haha! If I ever get that desperate, I will buy a giant vibrator and never leave the house. ~ Allison Burnett

...the book had been written with winter nights in mind. Without a doubt, it was a book for when the birds had flown south, the wood was stacked by the fireplace, and the fields were white with snow; that is, for when one had no desire to venture out and one's friends had no desire to venture in. ~ Amor Towles

You've been in the mating frenzy before."
Eric looked up at her, his eyes quiet. "Yes."
"With Kirsten."
"Yes."
Iona touched her hands together. "You must have loved her very much."
Eric nodded. "Yes. Very much."
"Then why do you want another mate?"
Eric pushed himself from the fireplace and came to her, the first flickers of fire shadowing his tall, naked body. He skimmed warm hands down her arms.
"Because I saw you. ~ Jennifer Ashley

Candlelight flickered in the adjacent bedroom. She followed the ambient warmth to the threshold and paused there, marveling at what she saw. Lucan's austere bedroom had been transformed into something out of a dream. Four tall black pillar candles set into intricate silver sconces burned in each corner. Red silk draped the bed. On the floor before the fireplace was a cushioned next of fluffy pillows and even more crimson silk. It looked so romantic, so inviting.
A room intended for lovemaking.
She took a step farther inside. Behind her, the door closed softly on its own.
No, not quite on its own. Lucan was there, standing on the other side of the room, watching her. His hair was damp from a shower. He wore a loosely tied, satiny red robe that skated around his bare calves, and there was a heated look in his eyes that melted her where she stood.
"For you," he said, indicating the romantic setting. "For us tonight. I want things to be special for you."
Gabrielle was moved, instantly aroused by the sight of him, but she couldn't bear to make love the way things had been left between them.
"When I left tonight, I wasn't going to come back," she told him from the safety of distance. If she went any closer, she didn't think she'd have the strength to say what had to be said. "I can't do this anymore, Lucan. I need things from you that you can't give me."
"Name them." It was a soft command, but still a command. He moved toward her with careful ste ~ Lara Adrian

Ella turned to the fireplace where a blackened kettle hung over what Granny Weatherwax always called an optimist's fire: two logs and hope. ~ Terry Pratchett

I Pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessing on THIS HOUSE, and on All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof! President Franklin D. Roosevelt had this lettered in gold in the marble over the fireplace in the State Dining Room of the White House. The quotation above follows the capitalization used in the inscription. ~ John Adams

What I am trying to achieve is a voice sitting by a fireplace telling you a story on a winter's evening. ~ Truman Capote

I had this idea ... I wanted the sound to sing and have that thickness but yet still have an edge so that it could articulate. So my dad and I designed the guitar ... the one that was made from an old fireplace. ~ Brian May

He thought about history, the hidden human anxieties behind momentous events. The tiny trivial things that were probably bothering Einstein or Darwin or Newton as they formulated their theories: arguments with the landlady, maybe, or concern over a blocked fireplace. The pilots who bombed Dresden, fretting over a phrase in a letter from back home: What did she mean by that? Or what about Columbus, when he was sailing toward the New Land ... who knows what was on his mind? The last words spoken to him by an old friend, perhaps, a person not even remembered in history books ... ~ Michel Faber

Lucinda and Mr. Wiley were returning at last, and she ran to Lucinda, hastily stepping around the black horse, who laid his ears back evilly in warning. "Lucy!" she burst out while Lucinda waited calmly for Mr. Wiley to help her down. "Lucy! Disaster has struck."
"A moment, if you please, Elizabeth," said the unflappable woman. "Whatever it is, it will surely wait until we're inside and can be comfortable. I declare, I feel as if I were born atop this horse. You cannot imagine the time we had finding suitable servants…"
Elizabeth scarcely heard the rest of what she was saying. In a torment of frantic helplessness she had to wait while Lucinda dismounted, limped into the house, and sat down upon the sofa. "Now then," said Lucinda, flicking a speck of dust off her skirts, "what has happened?"
Oblivious to the vicar, who was standing by the fireplace looking mystified and alarmed on her behalf, Elizabeth handed Lucinda the note. "Read this. It-it sounds as if he's already accepted him."
As she read the brief missive Lucinda's face turned an awful gray with two bright splotches of angry color standing out on her hollow cheeks. "He'd accept an offer from the devil," Lucinda gritted wrathfully, "so long as he had a noble title and money. This shouldn't come as a surprise."
"I was so certain I'd persuaded Belhaven that we couldn't possibly suit!" Elizabeth almost wailed, twisting her blue skirt in her hands in her agitation. "I did everything, Lucy, everythi ~ Judith McNaught

Marriage is sacred. It was created to be the wedding portrait of Christ and His Bride hung over the blazing fireplace of judgment. A match made in Heaven, a contract signed in blood. In the bond of marriage, we are to stand at the altar of Sacrifice or we're not to stand at all. ~ Beth Moore

A cat's paw. It's an old fable. The monkey wanted some chestnuts that were roasting in the hot coals inside the fireplace. So he convinced the cat to get them out for him, promising to share them. The cat reached his paw in and scooped out the chestnuts one by one. And as each chestnut was removed, the monkey gobbled it up. The cat was left with nothing but a burnt paw. He was used by a cleverer creature at great expense to himself." "Now ~ Heather Blackwood

The room was full of people. "Ninety-eight days," said the queen, folding her hands in her lap. "You said it would take six months." Eugenides picked at a nub in the coverlet. "I like to give myself a margin. When I can." "I didn't believe you," the queen admitted with a delicate smile. "Now you know better." The king smiled back. They might as well have been alone. The queen turned her head to listen. There was shouting in the guardroom. Costis tensed. His hand went to his belt, looking for his sword. "That will be Dite," said the king. "He must have been in the outer rooms. I may as well see him." The queen rose and stepped behind the embroidered screen in front of the fireplace. Her attendants withdrew. The king's attendants remained, digesting the fact that their helpless, inept king had promised his wife to destroy the house of Erondites in six months and had done it in ninety-eight days. ~ Megan Whalen Turner

The rest of the year, I wondered if the point of Christmas was just spending money and getting fat and opening gifts. Indulging.
But when Christmas finally comes, and that warm, tingly, mints-and-sweaters-and-fireplace-fires feeling gathers in the bottom of your stomach, and you're lying on the floor with all the lights off but the ones on the Christmas tree, and listening to the silence of the snow falling outside, you see the point. For that one instance in time, everything is good in the world. It doesn't matter if everything isn't actually good. It's the one time of the year when pretending is enough. ~ Francesca Zappia

Over the past two decades screens have proliferated, filling our purses, pockets, and bedside tables. The living room is no longer configured around a single blazing digital fireplace, the television; instead it flashes with decentralized brushfires: ereaders, tablets, laptops, desktops, smartphones, televisions, refrigerator screens. As for the radios and bookshelves that were supposed to vanish with the digitalization of the American home, they've stubbornly remained. ~ Virginia Heffernan

I stand so abruptly that Leiza startles.

"If Violet wants to find me, I'll be outside chopping wood," I tell her, causing her to choke back a sound that suspiciously resembles a smothered laugh.

When I eye her, she's the picture of seriousness, nodding once again. "Of course, Alpha," she says so graciously.

Tearing my shirt over my head, I toss it to the ground. Leiza's phone rings, and she puts it aside.

"A vampire is calling me. That can't be good," she says as she meets my eyes, almost asking for permission to answer Shera's call.

"They're trying to reach me. Not you. They can kiss my ass. I need a minute to deal with this."

"I thought you were tired and going to get some sleep," Leiza states, and then swallows down whatever else is on the tip of her tongue.

"I'm no longer tired," I point out dryly.

Another nod from Leiza, and I walk out shirtless to go chop some fucking wood for the fireplace Violet rarely ever uses.

There's an axe wedged into one of the piles of wood near the chopping block, making this simpler than expected, so I get to work.

Before I can even make one small pile, Damien is wheeling into the driveway, barely putting the brake on, before he hops out.

His eyes narrow on me, and then his brow furrows. It's when his lips start to twitch that I bristle, feeling a little too transparent.

"Didn't realize you'd gotten this pathetic ~ Kristy Cunning

The fireplace is warm nook Penina Mezei's house in fairy tale in which the "fairy-tale-in Jukebox" can listen to while in the "fairy library" books are fairy tales and books of fairy tales, but also some fairy-tale subject. ~ Penina Mezei

A soldier picked up the still-living girl and carried her to the barren fireplace. ~ James Rollins

I consider the television set as the American fireplace, around which the whole family will gather. ~ Red Skelton

I am a man raking through ashes, a man struggling to find the embers of life in the bottom of a fireplace. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

For the millennium [New Year's Eve], you really have a choice to make. You either have to be naked with your head on fire and a shotgun in Bali or else you have to spend time with friends or family around the fireplace. And I'm choosing option B ~ Tom Morello

To be set on fire, you must get close to God. When you feel cold, distant, and "out of it" spiritually, it's time to retreat to the closet, place yourself before the fireplace of His word, and allow the intensity of His face to restore your fervency. ~ Bob Sorge

You were coshed with a fireplace poker," Mrs. Seaton said, bending over him to sift through the hair above his nape. "These wounds will require careful cleaning." She wadded up his shirt and folded it to hold against the scalp wound. "Passive voice," the earl said through clenched teeth, "will not protect you, Mrs. Seaton, since you did the coshing. Jesus and the apostles, that hurts." Her hand came up to hold his forehead even as she continued to press the linen of his ruined shirt against the bleeding wound. "The bleeding is slowing down," she said, "and the wounds on your back are not as messy." "Happily for me," her patient muttered. ~ Grace Burrowes

I spent the last month building this
with the help of many of the villagers. This is our own castle."
"What?"
Gaston opened the
door to reveal the cozy inside. It was one room with a giant bed and a fireplace
with flames crackling as they nipped at newly chopped wood. "This stopped being
about sex, Adam." Gaston left the door open and walked up to him. "I think
somewhere in that cold, dark, spider-filled castle … I fell in love with you."
"You did?"
"Yes." Gaston
grinned softly. "While you mourned and then sulked, I've been building this
place. I hoped, I hope it'll be our home." Gaston turned to stare at the house
fondly. "It's not perfect or a grand castle, but … if you want it can be ours."
"I … I want." Adam
sputtered. "I want this. I want you." He wanted it all so badly that his head
swam in emotions and his body felt a surge of desire. "Gaston…" But he couldn't
have it. ~ James Cox

the design actually makes him look more like a fireplace elf. Bob ~ Lauernce Yep

And this is the library," Mrs. Simcosky said, leading Beth into a generous room with a fire flickering in a river rock fireplace. "Or, as Mason liked to call it, my love den." She drifted to one of the floor to ceiling book shelves and trailed her fingers down a bevy of colorful spines. "He used to call my books 'the other men'. ~ Trish McCallan

That's a lovely piece," Kat said, pointing at a Louise XV armoire near the fireplace.
The man raised his eyebrows. "Did you come to steal it?"
"Darn it," Kat said with a snap of her fingers."I knew I should have brought my big purse. ~ Ally Carter

In truth, my Anglophilia is fundamentally bookish: I yearn for one of those country house libraries, lined on three walls with mahogany bookshelves, their serried splendor interrupted only by enough space to display, above the fireplace, a pair of crossed swords or sculling oars and perhaps a portrait of some great English worthy. ~ Michael Dirda

What's up, Albert?" said the same balding wizard who had followed Harry out of the fireplace earlier. He looked nervous.
"This lot need to leave before you seal the exits," said Harry with all the authority he could muster.
The group of wizards in front of him looked at one another.
"We've been told to seal all exits and not let anyone--"
"Are you contradicting me?" Harry blustered. "Would you like me to have your family tree examined, like I had Dirk Cresswell's?"
"Sorry!" gasped the balding wizard, backing away. "I didn't mean nothing, Albert, but I thought…I thought they were in for questioning and…"
"Their blood is pure," said Harry, and his deep voice echoed impressively through the hall. "Purer than many of yours, I daresay. Off you go," he boomed to the Muggle-borns, who scurried forward into the fireplaces and began to vanish in pairs. ~ J.K. Rowling

Walter looked about him lingeringly and lovingly. This spot had always been so dear to him. What fun they all had had here lang syne. Phantoms of memory seemed to pace the dappled paths and peep merrily through the swinging boughs–Jem and Jerry, bare-legged, sunburned schoolboys, fishing in the brook and frying trout over the old stone fireplace; Nan and Di and Faith, in their dimpled, fresh-eyed childish beauty; Una the sweet and shy, Carl, poring over ants and bugs, little slangy, sharp-tongued, good-hearted Mary Vance–the old Walter that had been himself lying on the grass reading poetry or wandering through palaces of fancy. They were all there around him–he could see them almost as plainly as he saw Rilla–as plainly as he had once seen the Pied Piper piping down the valley in a vanished twilight. And they said to him, those gay little ghosts of other days, "We were the children of yesterday, Walter–fight a good fight for the children of today and tomorrow. ~ L.M. Montgomery

The sound of a crackling fire going in the fireplace, a nice warm blanket and a good book is just about heaven for me. ~ E.L. Grimm

We were halfway back to the fireplace when Set caught us by surprise.
He was going on with his list of ridiculous ingredients: "And snakeskins. Yes, three large ones, with a sprinkling of hot sauce
" Then he stopped abruptly, like he'd had a revelation. He spoke in a much louder voice, calling across the room. "And a sacrificial victim would be good! Maybe a young idiot magician who can't do a proper invisibility spell, like CARTER KANE over there!"
Menshikov stared right at me. "My, my ... how kind of you to deliver yourselves. Well done, Set."
"Hmm?" Set asked innocently. "Do we have visitors? ~ Rick Riordan

If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe -no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside us as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that's just what we do find inside us. ~ C.S. Lewis

Harriet, to hide her excitement, had turned to the bookshelves in the corner between the windows and the fireplace. The books, untidily arranged, some standing, some piled on their sides, with newspapers and magazines wedged among them, confused her. There were no sets and a great many were paper-backed. She saw friends - Mr. Dickens was present - and nodding acquaintances - Laurence Sterne, for instance, and Theodore Dreiser - but they were among strangers: Henry Miller, Norman Douglas, Saki, Ronald Firbank, strangers all. ~ Jack Iams

Mister went to his spot before the fireplace and demanded that it be made warm. ~ Jim Butcher

I look at Danny. If I'd thrown a torn-up wishlist into a fireplace, he's the guy Mary Poppins would have delivered. ~ Sally Thorne

Behind her, the glow of the hotel's fireplace mixed with the aroma of nuts cooking in a cinnamon glaze. Although it was ~ Deborah Garner

To eat one's fill, eat until the exhaustion of the appetite, was the principal pleasure that the peasants dangled before their imagination, and one that they rarely realized in their lives.
They [the peasants] also imagined other dreams coming true, including the standard run of castles and princesses. But their wishes usually remained fixed on common objects in the everyday world. One hero gets "a cow and some chickens"; another, an armoire full of linens. A third settles for light work, regular meals, and a pipe full of tobacco. And when gold rains into the fireplace of a fourth, he uses it to buy "food, clothes, a horse, land." In most of the tales, wish fulfillment turns into a program for survival, not a fantasy of escape. ~ Robert Darnton

the Law of Inevitable Occurrence. In layman's terms, this law states that some things simply have to happen. If there's a red button on a console with the words don't push taped above it, someone will push it. If there's a gun hanging conspicuously above Chekhov's fireplace, someone is going to end up shooting it (probably at Nietzsche). ~ Brandon Sanderson

I feel utterly flimsy, yet I don't look in the mirror, nothing like that; I just stand for a moment, my back to the door and my tapering hands side by side on the worktop, pressing down. Pressing down with the concentrated effort of trying to give myself a little more density. I go to the doorway. I go to the window. I go to the entrance and push closed the top half of the door. And then I move across to the fireplace; sometimes I put both hands flat against the oak beam, and then I turn, and then I finally turn.

But no, that is not it. I appear to have turned but I have only twisted in fact; some of me has turned, and some of me has remained away. And yet it is an adequate gesture, enough to create a general impression of having turned fully and thus of being engaged and unopposed, even of enjoying the conversation perhaps. I do not have the courage to take the risk. To risk turning entirely and coming to face something very ordinary. I couldn't stand that so I stay twisted. ~ Claire-Louise Bennett

Pearl the Wonder Dog was asleep on her back, in the armchair next to the fireplace, with her feet sticking up in the air. ~ Robert B. Parker

Always take a banana to a party. ~ Steven Moffat

Cinder hurried to join her, eager to see what the boys had done. But when she stepped into the sitting room, it was not the decorations that caught her attention first, but Wolf, standing in front of the fireplace altar in his formal black-and-red tuxedo. Thought it had been made especially for him, the jacket still stretched across his broad chest and shoulders, and the red bow tie was almost humorous against his fierce features and lupine bone structure.
Almost.
Despite everything Levana had tried to do to him, Cinder had to admit that he was still handsome, with his olive skin and vivid green eyes and unkempt hair. Most of all, though, it was the look he was giving Scarlet, which would have taken away the breath of any girl.
Kai and Thorne were there, too, each of them standing with their hands in their pockets, rocking back on their heels with supremely smug looks on their faces, like they were daring anyone to suggest it wasn't the most beautiful impromptu wedding ever created. ~ Marissa Meyer

As I went to stand up, I felt a tiny point of pressure on my back.
"Don't move," Kasey whispered.
I stayed bent over.
"Drop the knife," she said.
"Excuse me, I'm using it," I said.
She swallowed hard. "For what?"
"Mom and Dad. You."
The pressure on my back increased. "Drop it, Alexis."
Drop it? Like I was a bad dog running around with a sock in my mouth.
"How long will this take?" I asked, setting the knife on the floor. "I'm in the middle of something."
Get in the bathroom," she said.
The faster I indulged her, the faster it would be over with. So I walked into the bathroom. She followed, kicking the knife toward the end of the hallway and flipping on the bathroom light.
"What's this all about, Kasey?" I asked, turning around. At the sight of my face, she gasped, and the point of the fireplace poker she was holding wavered in her hands. I realized a second too late that I'd missed my chance to grab it and smash it into the side of her head.
"What's happening to you?" she whispered.
I glanced in the mirror. The darkness had begun to spread from my mouth and eyes. It leached out in inky puddles with thin tendrils of black snaking out in delicate feathery patterns.
What's happening to me? What was she talking about?
"So you have a pointy stick," I said. "Big deal. get out of my way."

"What are you going to do?" I sneered.

"Poke me?"
'I'll hit you, Lexi." Her face was s ~ Katie Alender

I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do or any place I wanted to be more than home. Where I can walk around the yard, sweeping leaves off the slate paths to my heart's content. Where I can spend all day in my pajamas puttering around the house, or curled up in my favorite chair in the family room next to the big stone fireplace. The walls are papered deep red, hung with Madison's paintings and lined with our favorite books. The furniture is comfortable and inviting. Our house is made to be lived in; we use every inch of it and don't mind the signs of wear and tear. There's a deep dent in the floor next to the hearth ... It's part of the story of this house, where a family has left its mark, and where it continues to grow and evolve. ~ Sissy Spacek

Above the rustic stone fireplace was a deer's head-but not an everyday deer's head. This mangy thing surveyed the room with a huge toothy grin. Either he had died with a smile on his face or the taxidermist had had a rare sense of humor. But the funniest thing was that, somehow, the ridiculous creature seemed to fit the room perfectly. ~ Charlotte McPherren

The statesman received us with that old-fashioned courtesy for which he is remarkable, and seated us on the two luxuriant lounges on either side of the fireplace. Standing on the rug between us, with his slight, tall figure, his sharp features, thoughtful face, and curling hair prematurely tinged with gray, he seemed to represent that not too common type, a nobleman who is in truth noble. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

When I retire I'm going to spend my evenings by the fireplace going through those boxes. There are things in there that ought to be burned. ~ Richard M. Nixon

Granny disapproved of magic for domestic purposes, but she was annoyed. She also wanted her tea. She threw a couple of logs into the fireplace and glared at them until they burst into flame out of sheer embarrassment. ~ Terry Pratchett

He's not here. The Black Earl."

"I know."

"So, for the moment, we are safe from that madness."

"I am always safe with you. No matter what happens, no matter what, I am safe with you and not with anyone else."

He inhaled. "How long have you been seeing the Black Earl?"

"A few days now." She bit her lower lip. "You?"

"Since I came to Pennhyll." He walked to the fireplace. She turned sideways on her chair, but all he did was stare at the fire, hands clasped and pressed against the small of his back. The fingers of one hand clenched and unclenched. He turned. "What of me? How long have I been in your head?"

"Before the Black Earl, I think. Only I didn't know they weren't just dreams."

"More and more intimate." His mouth thinned. "I confess to once or twice in my life imagining making love to a woman I admire. God knows you're a pretty woman, but I don't just imagine being with you. When I make love to you, you're not thoughts and images in my head, you're in my arms, real and warm. I can taste you and breathe in the scent of you, feel your skin against mine. We've never made love, but I've been inside you. Jesus, Olivia, you know I have."

She nodded.

"Hell, for all we know it's possible I've made a child in you." His eyes pinned her. "Did anything like that happen between you and Andrew?"

"No."

"You sound certain."

"I am."

"You ~ Carolyn Jewel

When the logs in the fireplace crackle merrily, the corpse of a beech or oak is going up in flames. The paper in the book you are holding in your hands right now is made from the shavings of spruce, and birches were expressly felled (that is to say, killed) for this purpose. Does that sound over the top? I don't think so. For if we keep in mind all we have learned in the previous chapters, parallels can definitely be drawn to pigs and pork. Not to put too fine a point on it, we use living things killed for our purposes. Does that make our behavior reprehensible? Not necessarily. After all, we are also part of Nature, and we are made in such a way that we can survive only with the help of organic substances from other species. We share this necessity with all other animals. The real question is whether we help ourselves only to what we need from the forest ecosystem, and-analogous to our treatment of animals-whether we spare the trees unnecessary suffering when we do this.

That means it is okay to use wood as long as trees are allowed to live in a way that is appropriate to their species. And that means that they should be allowed to fulfill their social needs, to grow in a true forest environment on undisturbed ground, and to pass their knowledge on to the next generation. And at least some of them should be allowed to grow old with dignity and finally die a natural death. ~ Peter Wohlleben

Comedy clubs have brick walls behind the performer. Bricks make you funny. When I'm in front of a fireplace, I'm hilarious. ~ Mitch Hedberg

At thirty-nine, I learned how to change a tyre, how to shovel snow, how to stack wood. I learned how to meet a deadline without a shoulder to whine on. I became obsessed with firewood. If only there was alsways a fire in the fireplace, I knew that everything would be all right. (Prometheus must have been a women. I reverted to my ancient nature: inventing fire all day, having my liver plucked out all night.) ~ Erica Jong

They were supposed to be different, different from all the people who didn't want things and didn't do things and weren't special. They were supposed to be the kind of people who said to hell with it, who threw their wine glasses into the fireplace, who jumped off cliffs. They were not supposed to be careful people. ~ Liza Klaussmann

Apart from the peace and emptiness of the landscape, there is a special smell about winter in Provence which is accentuated by the wind and the clean, dry air. Walking in the hills, I was often able to smell a house before I could see it, because of the scent of woodsmoke coming from an invisible chimney. It is one of the most primitive smells in life, and consequently extinct in most cities, where fire regulations and interior decorators have combined to turn fireplaces into blocked-up holes or self-consciously lit "architectural features." The fireplace in Provence is still used - to cook on, to sit around, to warm the toes, and to please the eye - and fires are laid in the early morning and fed throughout the day with scrub oak from the Luberon or beech from the foothills of Mont Ventoux. Coming home with the dogs as dusk fell, I always stopped to look from the top of the valley at the long zigzag of smoke ribbons drifting up from the farms that are scattered along the Bonnieux road. It was a sight that made me think of warm kitchens and well-seasoned stews, and it never failed to make me ravenous. ~ Peter Mayle

Young Reinette: Monsieur, be careful!
The Doctor: It's just a nightmare, Reinette, don't worry, everyone has nightmares. Even monsters under the bed have nightmares!
Young Reinette: What do monsters have nightmares about?
The Doctor: Me! ~ Steven Moffat

For a moment she was truly terrified. This was Abbadon the Cruel. The Angel of Destruction. He could and would destroy her if he had to. If he felt like it. He had destroyed worlds before. He had decimated Paradise in the name of the Morningstar.
She trembled in his grasp.
All his gentleness, all his kindness, all the bright shining gorgeousness of his love, he had always given to
someone else. He had adored Gabrielle, had worshiped her, had written her poems and sang her songs, and for Schuyler there were novels and love notes and sweet kisses and furtive tender meetings by a fireplace.
But for his twin, Azrael, he had shown nothing but his anger and violence. His strength and destruction.
He saved the best of himself for those who did not deserve it. Never showed his true face to those damnable Daughters of the Light.
For Azrael, there was only darkness and annihilation.
Rape and carnage.
War and pillage.
A tear escaped from her eye and glittered in the moonlight. ~ Melissa De La Cruz

I have done without electricity, and tend the fireplace and stove myself. Evenings, I light the old lamps. There is no running water, and I pump the water from the well. I chop the wood and cook the food. These simple acts make man simple; and how difficult it is to be simple! ~ C. G. Jung

By the time dusk fell, he was back in his room. The last of the daylight lay like fine ashes on the roof-tops. He did not light his lamp, but sat by the fireplace in the dark, seeking in the far distance of his past some vague memory of a love-affair, some recollection of a friendship, with which to soften the hard tyranny of isolation. ~ Francois Mauriac

It is a dreary world out there. It makes one thankful after all to be indoors with a fire burning in the hearth. ~ Mary Balogh

And this is how we danced: with our mothers'
white dresses spilling from our feet, late August

turning our hands dark red. And this is how we loved:
a fifth of vodka and an afternoon in the attic, your fingers

sweeping though my hair - my hair a wildfire.
We covered our ears and your father's tantrum turned

into heartbeats. When our lips touched the day closed
into a coffin. In the museum of the heart

there are two headless people building a burning house.
There was always the shotgun above the fireplace.

Always another hour to kill - only to beg some god
to give it back. If not the attic, the car. If not the car,

the dream. If not the boy, his clothes. If not alive,
put down the phone. Because the year is a distance

we've traveled in circles. Which is to say: this is how
we danced: alone in sleeping bodies. Which is to say:

This is how we loved: a knife on the tongue turning
into a tongue. ~ Ocean Vuong

HALLOWE'EN

Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite
All are on their rounds to-night,-
In the wan moon's silver ray
Thrives their helter-skelter play.

Fond of cellar, barn,or stack,
True unto the almanac,
They present to credulous eyes
Strange hobgoblin mysteries.

Cabbage-stomps-straws wet with dew-
Apple-skins, and chestnuts too,
And a mirror for some lass,
Show what wonders come to pass.

Doors they move, and gates they hide,
Mischiefs that on moon-beams ride
Are their deeds, and, by their spells,
Love records its oracles.

Don't we all, of long ago,
By the ruddy fireplace glow,
In the kitchen and the hall,
Those queer, coofllke pranks recall?

Eery shadows were they then-
But to-night they come again;
Were we once more but sixteen,
Precious would be Halloween.
~ Joel Benton

He didn't need to get up and look in the ornate, gilt-edged mirror over the massive fireplace to know that calamitous was the accurate word for his face. His right eye drooped, and the right half of his face was a gnarled mess of scar tissue. He was missing a small chunk of his nose on the right side, and he wore his hair shaggy to conceal the scar where his right ear used to be. But no amount of hairstyling could conceal the fact that his right arm was missing below the elbow. And his right leg, also injured in the blast, would always cause him to walk with a slight limp. Once a handsome young man, he was now a monster. A beast. ~ Katy Regnery

He was a prosperous old bachelor, and his open window looked into a prosperous little garden and orchard, and there was a prosperous iron safe let into the wall at the side of his fireplace, and I did not doubt that heaps of his prosperity were put away in it in bags. ~ Charles Dickens

There were shadows galore in the dim light, but there was one shadow that did not correspond to any object in the room. It lurked next to the fireplace, a formless, undulating darkness. ~ Bentley Little

LONDON. TRINITY TERM one week old. Implacable June weather. Fiona Maye, a High Court judge, at home on Sunday evening, supine on a chaise longue, staring past her stockinged feet toward the end of the room, toward a partial view of recessed bookshelves by the fireplace and, to one side, by a tall window, a tiny Renoir lithograph of a bather, bought by her thirty years ago for fifty pounds. Probably a fake. Below it, centered on a round walnut table, a blue vase. No memory of how she came by it. Nor when she last put flowers in it. The fireplace not lit in a year. Blackened raindrops falling irregularly into the grate with a ticking sound against balled-up yellowing newsprint. A Bokhara rug spread on wide polished floorboards. Looming at the edge of vision, a baby grand piano bearing silver-framed family photos on its deep black shine. On the floor by the chaise longue, within her reach, the draft of a judgment. ~ Ian McEwan

But it is already light. How long has it been light? All this while, light has come percolating in, along with the cold morning air flowing now across his nipples: it has begun to reveal an assortment of drunken wastrels, some in uniform and some not, clutching empty or near-empty bottles, here draped over a chair, there huddled into a cold fireplace, or sprawled on various divans, un-Hoovered rugs and chaise longues down the different levels of the enormous room, snoring and wheezing at many rhythms, in self-renewing chorus, as London light, winter and elastic light, grows between the faces of the mullioned windows, grows among the strata of last night's smoke still hung, fading, from the waxed beams of the ceiling. All these horizontal here, these comrades in arms, look just as rosy as a bunch of Dutch peasants dreaming of their certain resurrection in the next few minutes. ~ Thomas Pynchon

I'm not leaving this cabin again until you've laid your egg."
Kellan snuggled up to Vic. "Our egg, remember?"
"Mmm. Our baby." Vic buried his nose in Kellan's hair. "This is all so surreal, but I couldn't be more thrilled."
They held each other in silence, the only sound being the rustle of the branches in the light wind and the crackle of the well-seasoned wood in the fireplace. Part of what Vic had said sunk in.
"Hey, Vic?"
"Yeah?"
"You can't stay here round the clock with it being so busy at the inn and everything. It's Christmas week. I've heard you say plenty of times that it gets crazy between now and New Year's Day."
Vic tightened his hold. "I don't care."
Kellan rolled his eyes. "But it's not fair to everyone else. It's bad enough that I'm not there helping as it is." He glanced up at Vic. "And what about food?" They took most of their meals at the restaurant since it was so convenient.
Vic stuck out his lower lip. "I'll make Dora deliver them to the cabin."
Kellan sighed. "Vic, you're not being reasonable."
He huffed. "Reasonable? Who cares about reasonable? My mate is about to lay an egg at any minute!"
Kellan let out a laugh, then grabbed his abdomen. It didn't hurt, but it sure as hell felt weird. Too much pressure.
Vic gasped, grabbing Kellan's upper arms then holding him back, his gaze roaming Kellan's body. "Is it time? Should you go lie down in the nest?"
This is going to be fu ~ M.M. Wilde

Pacing back across the floorboards, she paused by the fireplace, a tingling sensation flirting with her. ~ M.J. Gallagher

Yes.' He drank it all down and then casually threw the glass at the fireplace. I stared at the fragments. 'You don't mind, do you?' He gestured to the broken glass with a sarcastic smile. 'I surely hope you don't, because there's nothing much you can do about it if you do mind. ~ Anne Rice

Every now and then you have to get away from that ugly Old Politics trip, or it will drive you to kicking the walls and hurling AR3's into the fireplace. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Books in towering stacks lean against the fireplace and on small end tables, and crowd the bookshelves so tightly I fear the entire structure will burst in an explosion of paper and dust. They're the large books too, great archaic things that look so old, so fragile, that I worry I might disintegrate them just by breathing too hard. ~ Sara Raasch

CHRISTMAS EVE: There's a fire blazing in the fireplace, food enough for five thousand, and a new TV as big as Wyoming tuned to a football game no one cares about. ~ Richard Powers

After watching - with a twinge of satisfaction - the letters burn to ashes in the fireplace, Evie felt sleepy. She went to the master bedroom for a nap. In spite of her weariness, it was difficult to relax while she was worried about Sebastian. Her thoughts chased round and round, until her tired brain put an end to the useless fretting and she dropped off to sleep.
When she awakened an hour or so later, Sebastian was sitting on the bed beside her, a lock of her bright hair clasped loosely between a thumb and forefinger. He was watching her closely, his eyes the color of heaven at daybreak. She sat up and smiled self-consciously.
Gently Sebastian stroked back her tumbled hair. "You look like a little girl when you sleep," he murmured. "It makes me want to guard you every minute."
"Did you find Mr. Bullard?"
"Yes, and no. First tell me what you did while I was gone."
"I helped Cam to arrange things in the office. And I burned all your letters from lovelorn ladies. The blaze was so large, I'm surprised no one sent for a fire brigade."
His lips curved in a smile, but his gaze probed hers carefully. "Did you read any of them?"
Evie lifted a shoulder in a nonchalant half shrug. "A few. There were inquiries as to whether or not you've yet tired of your wife."
"No." Sebastian drew his palm along the line of her thigh. "I'm tired of countless evenings of repetitive gossip and tepid flirtation. I'm tired of meaningless encounters with wom ~ Lisa Kleypas

I went back to the door of Georges's study and pushed it open. He and Camille were sitting at either side of the empty fireplace, not speaking, just staring into each other's faces.
"Am I interrupting you?"
"No," Camille said, "we were just staring into each other's faces. I hope you weren't discomfitted by what you heard when you were listening at the door just now? ~ Hilary Mantel

Whats it like, to be in love? The servants speak of it when they think I can't hear. I only wonder."
Lia turned around and tossed the cushion back to the chaise lounge. She found she didn't have an answer to Mari's question. She couldn't say what she'd heard her sisters always say, It's thrilling, or It's bliss, or He makes me so happy. She raised her head and swallowed the strangeness in her throat, walking to the fireplace, to the pianoforte, pressing a finger against the honey-buffed wood.
"It is," she said at last, "the most terrible feeling in the entire world."
And she meant it.
"Yes," the girl agreed, examining her face. "I think it must be. ~ Shana Abe

Decision time. It's too dark for you to see your surroundings. So I'll describe. You choose." He pulled the pins out of her hair, tunneling his fingers through it as it tumbled to her shoulders. "The fireplace is across the hall. There's a shag rug in front of it. The living room's to our right. It has a wide, cushy sectional sofa. The den's to our left. It has a leather recliner that tilts way, way back. Upstairs, there are two bedrooms. The guest room's got a queen-size bed and a huge area rug. The master's got a king-size bed and extra pillows. What's your pleasure?"

"Where are the condoms?"

"In the master."

"Sold. ~ Andrea Kane

Do you remember that I said I have something to show you?"
Back when they were entering the house. Before she'd seen Hugh. Before their argument. "Yes?"
He pushed open the door to her bedroom. "Look."
She went inside and saw Valente sitting on the floor in front of her fireplace with a basket. He had a silly grin on his face.
She glanced over her shoulder to Raphael. "What-?"
Her husband tilted his chin toward Valente and the basket. "Go and see."
At the same time she heard an animal whimper.
Her lips parted and she picked up her skirts to hurry to the basket. It was lined with a soft blanket and inside was the sweetest little blond puppy, looking very sorry for itself.
Iris stared, torn. Did Raphael think a 'puppy' would be an adequate substitution for him?
The moment the puppy saw her it began whimpering and yipping, trying to climb from its wicker prison, but its legs were too short to make the attempt and it ended by falling backward, revealing that it was female.
It was hardly the puppy's fault that she was angry with Raphael.
"Oh," Iris breathed, sinking to her knees on the carpet opposite Valente. "She's perfect."
Somehow the words made tears start in her eyes again.
She picked up the puppy, which wriggled in Iris's hands until she held the small animal against her chest. The puppy promptly began licking Iris's chin with a tiny pink tongue.
Iris looked up at Raphael through her tears. "What is her ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

my feelings for her - dark and forgotten as a fireplace in summer ~ John J. Geddes

How did you get into the castle, Alexandre, son of Gilles Smith?"
Sand shrugged. "A saint kidnapped me from his shrine and put me into a fireplace here. So I guess the answer is, a miracle of Saint Melor. Or so I think. He has not told me."
"If you are trying to antagonize him, you are doing a good job," Perrotte whispered.
Sand scuffed his shoe at her. "I'm just telling the truth!"
"You're very good at telling it in the most maddening way possible."
"Thank you? ~ Merrie Haskell

The house smelled like fireplace kindling, and hot water in old brass pipes - like metal melting into wood and becoming something all its own. It smelled like his childhood. Like chaos and terror and oatmeal cookies and lamb stew, and nighttime in front of that drafty front window. And the smell of it brought back thoughts, long past, about escaping from inside the walls and evoked the helplessness of every board that kept the place upright. ~ Melodie Ramone

He has. A fucking. Rothko. Over the fireplace ~ Jean Hanff Korelitz

And a fire in the fireplace? Wow, that's impressive." I continued, walking backwards into the room.
"Yeah, I saw it in a book about how to woo women ... apparently you all like to be boinked in front of a roaring fire. ~ Alice Clayton

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet. ~ Mason Cooley

Hair burns very quickly. If you have long hair, tie it back securely when you are cooking, building a fire in the fireplace, lighting your space heater, leaning toward a lit grill, or doing anything else involving flames. ~ Cheryl Mendelson

Indignation caused Mercedes to puff out her cheeks temporarily, causing her narrow face to resemble a set of inflated fireplace bellows. "You don't like Mr. Swift any more than I do," she retorted.
"No," Lillian said frankly. "But much as I hate to admit it, that puts us in a minority. Swift is liked by everyone in the northern hemisphere, including Westcliff and his friends, my friends, the servants, the neighbors - "
"You are exaggerating - "
" - children, animals and the higher order of plants," Lillian finished sardonically. "If root vegetables could talk, I've no doubt they would say they like him, too."
Daisy, who was sitting by the window with a book, looked up with a sudden grin. "His charm doesn't extend to poultry," she said. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The Cinderella story in reverse. I only wish there were ashes in the fireplace so I could order you to sweep them out. ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Miss Trent regarded her thoughtfully. "Well, it's an odd circumstance, but I've frequently observed that whenever you boast of your beauty you seem to lose some of it. I expect it must be the change in your expression."
Startled, Tiffany flew to gaze anxiously into the ornate looking-glass which hung above the fireplace. "Do I?" she asked naively. "Really do I, Ancilla?"
"Yes, decidedly," replied Miss Trent, perjuring her soul without the least hesitation. ~ Georgette Heyer

Sometimes life begins like a bad dream and ends up like a kid's fairytale. The kind our
grandmothers used to tell us about sitting next to a fireplace, with their white braids shining under
the fire's light. They knew that even in an era like ours, there is nothing wrong with dreaming.. ~ Georgia Kakalopoulou

The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den. ~ Lewis H. Lapham

Call me an alarmist, but there are certain words I don't like to hear together: cheap fireplace, discount brakes, cut-rate surgery ... ~ Margo Kaufman

Look at the way the walls curve,' Macey said, her gaze panning around the strangely shaped room. 'it's almost like ... '
'The library,' Liz said, and immediately I knew that she was right. It was exactly like the library at the Gallagher Academy, from the position of the fireplace to the tall windows that overlooked the grounds.
'How do you know?' Zach asked.
Liz looked totally insulted. 'Because ... uh ... library.'
'Okay.' Zach threw up his hands. 'Point taken. ~ Ally Carter

If my favorite, most comfortable place is by our fireplace in cold weather, expedient places are on an airplane, in a waiting room or even waiting in line; frequently these days, while on the phone having been 'put on hold.' ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Before he reached the door the old man called to him again. The boy turned and stood. The matrix will not help you, the old man said. He said to catch the wolf the boy should find that place where the acts of God and those of man are of one piece. Where they cannot be distinguished ... The old man said that it was not a question of finding such a place but rather of knowing it when it presented itself. He said that it was at such places that God sits and conspires in the destruction of that which he has been at such pains to create. ~ Cormac McCarthy

I never waited for my Irish Cream coffee to be the right temperature, with a storm happening outside and my fireplace crackling ... I wrote every day, at home, in the office, whether I felt like it or not, I just did it. ~ Stephen J. Cannell

One afternoon, when I was four years old, my father came home, and he found me in the living room in front of a roaring fire, which made him very angry. Because we didn't have a fireplace. ~ Victor Borge

Books were everywhere in their large apartment. Histories, biographies, novels, studies on Quebec antiques, poetry. Placed in orderly bookcases. Just about every table had at least one book on it, and oftern several magazines. And the weekend newspapers were scattered on the coffee table in the living room, in front of the fireplace. If a visitor was the observant type, and made it further into the apartment to Gamache's study, he might see the story the books in there told. ~ Louise Penny

Every walk carves out a new city. And each of these tiny cities has its main square, a downtown area all its own, its own memorial statue, its own landmarks, laundromats, bus terminal - in short, its own focal point (from the Latin word focus, meaning fireplace, hearth, foyer, home), warm spot, sweet spot, soft spot, hot spot. ~ Andre Aciman

Tessa looked quickly to Will, but he only crossed the room as he always did to lean against the fireplace mantel. Cecily had never been able to decide if he did this because he was perpetually cold or because he thought he looked dasing standing before the leaping flames. ~ Cassandra Clare

Whatever the losses in warmth and comfort, the gains in space proved irresistible. So the development of the fireplace became one of the great breakthroughs in domestic history: they allowed people to lay boards across the beams and create a whole new world upstairs. ~ Bill Bryson