Fireworks Display Quotes

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Once," he says, "I was flying to California on the Fourth of July." She turns her head, just slightly. "It was a clear night, and you could see all the little fireworks displays along the way, these tiny flares going off below, one town after another.
Jennifer E. Smith (The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight)
We kissed all the way through the fireworks display. We didn’t even notice that there was a fireworks display… …I guess because we’d been making fireworks of our own.
Meg Cabot (Teen Idol)
If it was possible for two people to make sparks, simply by connecting at their lips, I would think we would have been a firework display in the dark.
Kristen Hope Mazzola (Crashing Back Down (Crashing, #1))
How keen everyone is to make this world their home forgetting its impermanence. It's like trying to see and name constellations in a fireworks display.
Nadeem Aslam (The Wasted Vigil)
I didn’t have any money or ID. I didn’t have a credit card. Hell, I didn’t have a business card. What would it say? 'Harry Dresden, Winter Knight, Targets Slain, No Barbecues, Waterslides, or Fireworks Displays.
Jim Butcher (Cold Days (The Dresden Files, #14))
In fireworks are released, all the explosive pyrotechnics of a dream. The inflammable desires, dampened by day under the cold water of consciousness, are ignited at night by the libertarian matches of sleep, and burst forth in showers of shimmering incandescence. These imaginary displays provide a temporary relief.
Kenneth Anger
Yet you’re helping me. Why? (Arik) Nothing better to do. Eternity is boring. Really boring. I’m hoping that when you pop the seal on Atlantis, there will be a giant explosion to add some humor and interest to my life. If we’re really lucky, Apollymi will come out and thoroughly entertain us with a massive fireworks display. Hell, if she does half of what she did last time, there will be belly rolls aplenty for those of us who hate the Olympians and humanity. (Solin)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (The Dream-Hunter (Dark-Hunter, #10; Dream-Hunter, #1))
Graham glanced up at the sky, which was pale and pocked with birds, the whole thing like a negative of yesterday's fireworks display.
Jennifer E. Smith (This Is What Happy Looks Like (This is What Happy Looks Like, #1))
The evolution of the world can be compared to a display of fireworks that has just ended: some few red wisps, ashes and smoke. Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the slow fading of the suns, and we try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of worlds.
Georges Edouard Lemaître
When you lose enough, you learn to take happiness where you can find it. You don’t wait for it to be handed to you. You don’t expect it in big firework-like displays.
Mariana Zapata (All Rhodes Lead Here)
Matter,” Vittoria repeated. “Blossoming out of nothing. An incredible display of subatomic fireworks. A miniature universe springing to life. He proved not only that matter can be created from nothing, but that the Big Bang and Genesis can be explained simply by accepting the presence of an enormous source of energy.” “You mean God?” Kohler demanded. “God, Buddha, The Force, Yahweh, the singularity, the unicity point—call it whatever you like—the result is the same. Science and religion support the same truth—pure energy is the father of creation.
Dan Brown (Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1))
They sat and he drew her into him. Their lips met, sparking an internal firework display. His soft exquisite lips pressed gently against hers. His kiss held the exact right balance between tenderness and a kind of passionate urgency.
Amanda Turner
Look at all those stars. God has fireworks on display all the time, doesn't He?
Cheryl St. John
How do you commemorate a year? A paper anniversary, but we are the words written down, not the paper. If I could, I would give him a lime-green couch, a cabin by a lake, a fireworks display, an orchard of butterflies, and the certainty that I love him.
David Levithan (The Realm of Possibility)
The fireworks went on for nearly half an hour, great pulsing strobes, fiery dandelions and starbursts of light brightening both sky and water. It was hard to tell which was reality and which was reflection, as if there were two displays, above and below, going on simultaneously—one in space-time, mused Max, and the other in time-space.
Sol Luckman (Snooze: A Story of Awakening)
Harry Dresden, Winter Knight, Targets Slain, No Barbecues, Waterslides, or Fireworks Displays.
Jim Butcher (Cold Days (The Dresden Files, #14))
It's like an entire Fourth of July fireworks display going off inside me
Elle Kennedy (The Deal (Off-Campus, #1))
Leave your fireworks display at home. No one really wants to see or hear your show.
Christine E. Szymanski
I remember one Fourth of July evening in Philadelphia, about a year after my surgery. I was walking home arm in arm with Lisa, my lover at the time, after the fireworks display. We were leaning in to one another, walking like lovers walk. Coming towards us was a family of five: mom, dad, and three teenage boys. "Look it's a coupla faggots," said one of the boys. "Nah, it's two girls," said another. "That's enough outa you," bellowed the father, "one of 'em's got to be a man. This is America!
Kate Bornstein
Later, getting ready for the evening’s fireworks display, Hudson came up behind me as I primped in the bedroom mirror. He wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed along my neckline. “We’ve been pu**y-footing around each other all day,” he said at my ear. “I’m warning you now that I’m done. It’s time for me to start treating you like what you are: Mine.” My breath caught sharply. “And yes, that means that you’ll be fucked later. Hard.” Just like that, our tentativeness was over. And I needed a change of panties.
Laurelin Paige (Forever with You (Fixed, #3))
As I stared at him, elation,excitement, and lust began exploding within me like a fireworks display, rising within and bursting with a range of exquisite emotion that I had never known existed, let alone experienced, leaving me breathless, nervous, and excited.
Bindu Adai (The Chrysalis: A Novel)
It says so much about contemporary American life that our Independence Day celebrations include 1. fireworks displays, which are essentially imitation battles complete with rockets and bombs, and 2. a contest in which people from around the world attempt to discover how many hot dogs and buns can be ingested by a human within ten minutes.
John Green (The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet)
The hungry kid smiles, as though the cascade of waste paper is a firework display. She squints into the sun to follow them as they fly.
M.R. Carey (The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl With All the Gifts, #1))
Death is the night sky, the background against which the fleeting fireworks of life are displayed, an empty stage upon which the drama of life is played.
James Rozoff
The Claude glass was also known as the ‘black mirror’ and was responsible for a number of minor mishaps. This is where history catches up with us. Our version of the black mirror, carried in the pocket, used by millions to ‘see’ rock concerts, fireworks displays and sunsets, is the smartphone. We look through it to make sure we are catching grainy footage of the wondrous thing we are missing.
Vybarr Cregan-Reid (Footnotes: How Running Makes Us Human)
the true test of a country’s level of civility has nothing to do with building the tallest skyscraper or driving the fastest car, nor does it matter how advanced your weapons system is or how powerful your military might be; it is also not about how advanced your technology is or even your artistic achievements, and it is especially not related to how lavish your official government meetings are or how splendid your firework displays are, or even how many rich Chinese tourists you have buying up different parts of the world. There is only one true test, and that is how you treat the weakest and most vulnerable members of your society.
Fang Fang (Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City)
The carillon is, after all, the music of the people. Elsewhere, in the glittering capitals, public festivals are celebrated with fireworks, that magical offering that can thrill the very soul. Here, in the meditative land of Flanders, among the damp mists so antagonistic to the brilliance of fire, the carillon takes their place. It is a display of fireworks that one hears: flares, rockets, showers, a thousand sparks of sound which colour the air for visionary eyes alerted by hearing.
Georges Rodenbach (The Bells of Bruges)
Look you," Pandora told him in a businesslike tone, "marriage is not on the table." Look you? Look you? Gabriel was simultaneously amused and outraged. Was she really speaking to him as if he were an errand boy? "I've never wanted to marry," Pandora continued. "Anyone who knows me will tell you that. When I was little, I never liked the stories about princesses waiting to be rescued. I never wished on falling stars, or pulled the petals off daisies while reciting 'he loves me, he loves me not.' At my brother's wedding, they handed out slivers of wedding cake to all the unmarried girls and said if we put it under our pillows, we would dream of our future husbands. I ate my cake instead. Every crumb. I've made plans for my life that don't involve becoming anyone's wife." "What plans?" Gabriel asked. How could a girl of her position, with her looks, make plans that didn't include the possibility of marriage? "That's none of your business," she told him smartly. "Understood," Gabriel assured her. "There's just one thing I'd like to ask: What the bloody hell were you doing at the ball in the first place, if you don't want to marry?" "Because I thought it would be only slightly less boring than staying at home." "Anyone as opposed to marriage as you claim to be has no business taking part in the Season." "Not every girl who attends a ball wants to be Cinderella." "If it's grouse season," Gabriel pointed out acidly, "and you're keeping company with a flock of grouse on a grouse-moor, it's a bit disingenuous to ask a sportsman to pretend you're not a grouse." "Is that how men think of it? No wonder I hate balls." Pandora looked scornful. "I'm so sorry for intruding on your happy hunting grounds." "I wasn't wife-hunting," he snapped. "I'm no more interested in marrying than you are." "Then why were you at the ball?" "To see a fireworks display!" After a brief, electric silence, Pandora dropped her head swiftly. He saw her shoulders tremble, and for an alarming moment, he thought she had begun to cry. But then he heard a delicate snorting, snickering sound, and he realized she was... laughing? "Well," she muttered, "it seems you succeeded." Before Gabriel even realized what he was doing, he reached out to lift her chin with his fingers. She struggled to hold back her amusement, but it slipped out nonetheless. Droll, sneaky laughter, punctuated with vole-like squeaks, while sparks danced in her blue eyes like shy emerging stars. Her grin made him lightheaded. Damn it.
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Spring (The Ravenels, #3))
Women are more powerful than most of us give ourselves credit for. When we actually decide to stop the jealousy and the finger pointing, and band together to laugh with one another and understand one another, it's like a beautiful firework display on the Fourth of July in Vegas, baby!
Helen Edwards (Nothing Sexier Than Freedom)
Without the pathos of distance, the sort which grows out of the deeply rooted difference between the social classes, out of the constant gazing outward and downward of the ruling caste on the subjects and work implements, and out of their equally sustained practice of obedience and command, holding down and holding at a distance, that other more mysterious pathos would have no chance of growing at all, that longing for an ever new widening of distances inside the soul itself, the development of ever higher, rarer, more distant, more expansive, more comprehensive states, in short, simply the enhancement in the type 'man,' the constant 'self-conquest of man,' to cite a moral formula in a supra-moral sense. Of course, where the history of the origins of aristocratic society is concerned (and thus the precondition for that raising of the type 'man' —), We should not surrender to humanitarian illusions: truth is hard. So without further consideration, let's admit to ourselves how up to this point every higher culture on earth has started! People with a still natural nature, barbarians in every dreadful sense of the word, predatory men still in possession of an unbroken power of the will and a desire for power, threw themselves on weaker, more civilized, more peaceful, perhaps trading or cattle-raising races, or on old, worn cultures, in which at that very moment the final forces of life were flaring up in a dazzling fireworks display of spirit and corruption. At the start the noble caste has always been the barbarian caste: its superiority has lain not primarily in physical might but in psychical power — it has been a matter of more COMPLETE human beings (which at every level also means 'more complete beasts').
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
Honey’s Cottage Miss Honey joined Matilda outside the school gates and the two of them walked in silence through the village High Street. They passed the greengrocer with his window full of apples and oranges, and the butcher with bloody lumps of meat on display and naked chickens hanging up, and the small bank, and the grocery store and the electrical shop, and then they came out at the other side of the village on to the narrow country road where there were no people any more and very few motor-cars. And now that they were alone, Matilda all of a sudden became wildly animated. It seemed as though a valve had burst inside her and a great gush of energy was being released. She trotted beside Miss Honey with wild little hops and her fingers flew as if she would scatter them to the four winds and her words went off like fireworks, with terrific speed. It was Miss Honey this and Miss Honey that and Miss Honey I do honestly feel I could move almost anything in the world, not just tipping over glasses and little things like that . . . I feel I could topple tables and chairs, Miss Honey . . . Even when people are sitting in the chairs I think I could push them over, and bigger things too, much bigger things than chairs and tables . . . I only have to take a moment to get my eyes strong and then I can push it out, this strongness, at anything at all so long as I am staring at it hard enough . . . I have to stare at it very hard, Miss Honey, very very hard, and then I can feel it all happening behind my eyes, and my eyes get hot just as though they were burning but I don’t mind that in the least, and Miss Honey . . .
Roald Dahl (Matilda)
The time he spent could have been more usefully applied, it might seem, to finishing the Adoration of the Magi or Saint Jerome. But just as today we love halftime shows and Broadway extravaganzas, fireworks displays and choreographed performances, the events staged by the Sforza court were considered vital, and their producers, including Leonardo, were highly valued. The entertainments were even educational at times, like an ideas festival; there were demonstrations of science, debates over the relative merits of various art forms, and displays of ingenious devices, all of which were a precursor to the public science and edifying discourse that later became popular during the Enlightenment.
Walter Isaacson (Leonardo da Vinci)
The ideal is not to build tools but to make bombs, because when you have used up your own bombs, nobody else can use them. And I must add that my dream, my personal dream, is not exactly to build bombs, because I don't like to kill people. I would like to write book-bombs - that means books that are useful just at the moment in which they are written or read by people. Then they would disappear. Books would be such that they would disappear soon after they have been read or used. Books should be a kind of bomb and nothing else. After the explosion, people could be reminded that the books made a very beautiful fireworks display. In later years historians and others could recount that such and such a book was useful as a bomb and was beautiful as fireworks.
Michel Foucault
right arm got wrecked in a fireworks calamity, of all things. He was setting some off for a big display and part of the metal rig that they were resting on had a loose bolt or something, and the whole thing came down and crushed his arm. He can’t use it much and it looks a bit weird, kind of twisted to one side. He got some money from the insurance company, and he stopped working at the factory.
Ross Welford (Time Travelling with a Hamster)
So without further consideration, let's admit to ourselves how up to this point every higher culture on earth has started! People with a still natural nature, barbarians in every dreadful sense of the word, predatory men still in possession of an unbroken power of the will and a desire for power, threw themselves on weaker, more civilized, more peaceful, perhaps trading or cattle-raising races, or on old, worn cultures, in which at that very moment the final forces of life were flaring up in a dazzling fireworks display of spirit and corruption. At the start the noble caste has always been the barbarian caste: its superiority has lain not primarily in physical might but in spiritual power — it has been a matter of more complete human beings (which at every level also means 'more complete beasts').
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
The ongoing hostilities involving the French and their shifting alliances with Italian city-states often resembled pageantry and processionals more than war. “A march through Italy was an occasion for feasts, spectacles, firework displays, jousts, the expropriation of estates, and occasional massacres,” wrote Robert Payne. “The French aristocracy acquired new titles, new experiences, new mistresses, new diseases.”1
Walter Isaacson (Leonardo da Vinci)
But what weighed on his father the most—what weighed on them both—was the realization that when Emmett’s mother had gripped her husband’s hand as the fireworks began, it hadn’t been in gratitude for his persistence, for his fealty and support, it had been in gratitude that by gently coaxing her from her malaise in order to witness this magical display, he had reminded her of what joy could be, if only she were willing to leave her daily life behind.
Amor Towles (The Lincoln Highway)
On Easter Monday there was a great display of fireworks from the Castle of St. Angelo. We hired a room in an opposite house, and made our way, to our places, in good time, through a dense mob of people choking up the square in front, and all the avenues leading to it; and so loading the bridge by which the castle is approached, that it seemed ready to sink into the rapid Tiber below. There are statues on this bridge (execrable works), and, among them, great vessels full of burning tow were placed: glaring strangely on the faces of the crowd, and not less strangely on the stone counterfeits above them. The show began with a tremendous discharge of cannon; and then, for twenty minutes or half an hour, the whole castle was one incessant sheet of fire, and labyrinth of blazing wheels of every colour, size, and speed: while rockets streamed into the sky, not by ones or twos, or scores, but hundreds at a time. The concluding burst - the Girandola - was like the blowing up into the air of the whole massive castle, without smoke or dust. In half an hour afterwards, the immense concourse had dispersed; the moon was looking calmly down upon her wrinkled image in the river; and half - a - dozen men and boys with bits of lighted candle in their hands: moving here and there, in search of anything worth having, that might have been dropped in the press: had the whole scene to themselves.
Charles Dickens
Let the sky celebrate! Let it pour some rain to wash away the past years' grief. Let the fireworks speak announcing a New Year to break, displaying seasons of different flavours. Oh New Year, can you restore our hopes and spill our fears? I wonder.. What will you bring? Happiness, confusion, or sadness? Let the other years witness.. your joy, your pity, your cruelty, and your niceness. So New Year, I have too many hopes in you. My wishes are infinite, what are you going to do? Don't disappoint me, I suppose you already know. The hope fountain knows no chains, Don't tell me it's all in vain.. Tell me how I can refrain myself from dreaming in my dale. If only there was a chance or even an opportunity in disguise, I wouldn't cease proving and proving my worth all the time, I would use my ship to sail, And you will witness my success.. This is what I promise, And here comes the test.. Let me declare it in that feast.. So New Year, I have too many hopes in you..
Noha Alaa El-Din (Norina Luciano)
It is not a young man’s response, which was more what we expected, but that of an elderly man of letters, which is all the more significant, perhaps, because it shows us the unexpected direction taken by Pasternak on his interior journey in his long period of silence. This last survivor of the Westernising, avant-garde poets of the 1920s has not detonated in the ‘thaw’ a display of stylistic fireworks long held in reserve; after the end of the dialogue with the international avant-garde, which had been the natural space for his poetry,
Italo Calvino (Why Read the Classics?)
Like what? What else have you found in a book?" "Well..." he looked around, like the walls might have ears and reopened the cigar box, faced it towards him so I couldn't see the contents. "Things like this." He showed me a pressed blue flower as big as my fist, it's stamens flattened in all directions like a firework display. A cookie fortune that read simply 'woe betide you'. A neatly clipped page of personal ads dated September 1, 1970 from a paper called the East Village Chronicler. "Funny stuff right?" It was. I liked it. The thought that you could find harmless, interesting things tucked inside books. A reminder that the world contained mysteries.
Melissa Albert (The Night Country (The Hazel Wood, #2))
out of their equally sustained practice of obedience and command, holding down and holding at a distance, that other more mysterious pathos would have no chance of growing at all, that longing for an ever new widening of distances inside the soul itself, the development of ever higher, rarer, more distant, more expansive, more comprehensive states, in short, simply the enhancement in the type 'man,' the constant 'self-conquest of man,' to cite a moral formula in a supra-moral sense. Of course, where the history of the origins of aristocratic society is concerned (and thus the precondition for that raising of the type 'man' —), we should not surrender to humanitarian illusions: truth is hard. So without further consideration, let's admit to ourselves how up to this point every higher culture on earth has started! People with a still natural nature, barbarians in every dreadful sense of the word, predatory men still in possession of an unbroken power of the will and a desire for power, threw themselves on weaker, more civilized, more peaceful, perhaps trading or cattle-raising races, or on old, worn cultures, in which at that very moment the final forces of life were flaring up in a dazzling fireworks display of spirit and corruption. At the start the noble caste has always been the barbarian caste: its superiority has lain not primarily in physical might but in psychical power — it has been a matter of more COMPLETE human beings (which at every level also means 'more complete beasts').
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
It was fantastic to dive from the side of the boat into the dark waters, for as you hit them they burst into a firework display of greeny-gold phosphorescence so that you felt as though you were diving into a fire. Swimming under water, people left trails of phosphorescence behind them like a million tiny stars and when finally Leonora, who was the last one to come aboard, hauled herself up, her whole body for a brief moment looked as though it was encased in gold. “My God, she's lovely,” said Larry admiringly, “but I'm sure she's a lesbian. She resists all my advances.” “She's certainly very lovely,” said Sven, “so beautiful, in fact, that it almost makes me wish I weren't a homosexual. However, there are advantages to being homosexual.” “I think to be bisexual is best,” said Larry, “then you've got the best of both worlds, as it were.
Gerald Durrell (Fillets of Plaice)
Crusher took off their shoes. Xar wasn’t wearing any shoes anyway because he had left the Learning Place for Gifted Wizards dressed as a hob. Crusher walked ahead a few steps and carefully laid down his shoes in the grass at the edge of the beach. And for the first time the children noticed that all along the outer perimeter of the shore, higher than the tide could reach, was a line of shoes patiently waiting for their owners to come back. Some of them had been waiting a long, long time. Their leather was wind-battered, storm-eaten, half-broken and buried in the sand. Others looked perkier and more hopeful, as if their owners had only just taken them off and were about to return. ‘Not very many people come back to collect their ssshooessssss …’ squeaked Bumbleboozle in nervous alarm. Ariel’s eyes gleamed green and then red. ‘Particularly when you conssssider these are the shoes of some of the greatest Wizards in the wildwoods … ’ They couldn’t find Bodkin’s shoes, so they weren’t sure if he had got there before them or not. Crusher picked up the small boat, carefully carried it across the beach and put it gently in the water. The others followed in his giant footsteps. There were will-o’-the-wisps flying right out of the bogs and on to the beach in a glorious firework display, singing and taunting and pulling the hair of the sprites. Will-o’-the-wisps are mean little faeries that sprites hate
Cressida Cowell (The Wizards of Once: Knock Three Times: Book 3)
Like Italian or Portuguese or Catalan, Spanish is a wordy language, bountiful and flamboyant, with a formidable emotional range. But for these same reasons, it is conceptually inexact. The work of our greatest prose writers, beginning with Cervantes, is like a splendid display of fireworks in which every idea marches past, preceded and surrounded by a sumptuous court of servants, suitors, and pages, whose function is purely decorative. In our prose, color, temperature, and music are as important as ideas and, in some cases-Lezama Lima or Valle Inclan, for example-more so. There is nothing objectionable about these typically Spanish rhetorical excesses. They express the profound nature of a people, a way of being in which the emotional and the concrete prevail over the intellectual and the abstract. This is why Valle Inclan, Alfonso Reyes, Alejo Carpentier, and Camilo Jose Cela, to cite four magnificent prose writers, are so verbose in their writing. This does not make their prose either less skillful or more superficial than that of Valery or T.S. Eliot. They are simply quite different, just as Latin Americans are different from the English and the French. To us, ideas are formulated and captured more effectively when fleshed out with emotion and sensation or in some way incorporated into concrete reality, into life-far more than they are in logical discourse. That perhaps is why we have such a rich literature and such a dearth of philosophers.
Mario Vargas Llosa
The term stray refers to dogs and cats, animals traditionally viewed as pet animals, that are homeless and thus devoid of human companionship and protection. Stray animals are often perceived by individual residents as “pests” and by societal officials (specifically with respect to municipal and county animal control policies) as “nuisance animals/throwaways,” especially in the context of disease control (rabies, etc.). They are particularly vulnerable to the vagaries of existence on the street and are viewed by many people as being throwaway animals; millions of them are destroyed at animal shelters and animal control facilities in the United States each year. Four of the five violent subjects who reported acts of cruelty against stray animals reported frequent acts. Stray animals, genetically coded to bond and coexist with humans, may by necessity revert to feral (or wild) behavior, but they are not wild animals. As a result, they often seek the company of humans for food and shelter. The trust that they frequently display toward humans can be dangerous. Some of the most horrific reports of animal cruelty either committed or observed by the subjects in this study involved stray animals. These reports included exploding animals by inserting fireworks into the animal’s mouth or anus, using “Crazy Glue” to glue the paws of kittens and puppies to the middle of streets and then watching the animals be killed by passing cars, throwing stray animals to their death from rooftops, and setting animals on fire after drenching them in gasoline. Stray animals who are victims of cruelty can be analogized to the victims of serial killers, such as prostitutes and runaway juveniles; their deaths are often unseen and unknown by the average citizen until the remains are found.
Linda Merz-Perez (Animal Cruelty: Pathway to Violence Against People)
I’d take you home with me, see, but two of us in the same Behold? Just wouldn’t work, ends up in all sorts of squabbles over interior design; and the human, well, one faery in the Behold of the Eye, that just gives them a little twinkle of imagination, but more than one and it’s like a bloody fireworks display. They get all unstable and artistic, blinded by the glamour of everything, real or imagined, concrete or abstract. They get confused between beauty and truth and meaning, you see, start thinking every butterfly-brained idea must be true; before you know it they’ve gone schizo on you and you’re in a three-way firefight with all the angels and the demons, them and their bloody ideologies.
Hal Duncan (Scruffians! Stories of Better Sodomites)
Faith is more than a matter of heart alone. The unique position of Transfiguration Sunday and its beautiful theophanies declares that the mountain is never the end of the journey. God does not gather us together just for a divine fireworks display, God always has something to say, usually something to ask. BRIAN ERICKSON
Kathleen Long Bostrom (Daily Feast: Meditations from Feasting on the Word, Year B: Meditations from Feasting on the Word: Year B)
the Battle of San Juan. Two years later, the regiment held its first reunion, with a grand three-day celebration at Oklahoma City. The young metropolis would show the world that it could do things. There would be visitors from every state. "T. R.," national hero, would attend. A grand display of fireworks, the largest ever seen west of the Mississippi, was ordered. Quanah was besought to bring a troop of Indians for the parade. They would be fed and cared for, paid a small sum, and could see the show. The agent agreed, and there was no difficulty in assembling a troop. The young men gathered their gayest finery and borrowed the carefully saved costumes of their fathers, war bonnets, belts, and beads and feather ornaments.
University of California Berkeley (Novembers Winter, The Indian Cries: The Most Powerful Indian Story in American History)
A lesser-known spot from which to watch the nightly fireworks display is by the planters that surround King Arthur's Carousel. Not only does the edge of the planter provide a rare place to sit, but Tinkerbell's flight path takes her directly above you.
David Hoffman
After I made it my business to find out how much money people have been squandering on these frivolous and insanely ostentatious fireworks displays we’ve seen in every corner of Istanbul every night this summer, I had to ask myself if the people celebrating at those weddings might not have been happier—bearing in mind that we are now a city of ten million people—if the money had been spent on educating the children of the poor. Am I right or wrong [1997]? Especially
Orhan Pamuk (Istanbul (Vintage International))
In the evening, having zero interest in the town fireworks display, Vince and I saw a film at the cute little movie theater, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, which was intelligent and carefully made, as his films always are. Walter and I once had a bizarre interaction with Anderson’s fans over the Internet, which started when we posted a couple of humorous letters (we thought) on the Steely Dan website.
Donald Fagen (Eminent Hipsters)
And now the sound comes toward us: bassy, crackly, like a fireworks display that never lets up. The sound goes right through you, and if you have become too emotionally involved in the space program, this sound will make you cry. It’s the sound of American exploration, the sound of missiles put to better use than killing or threatening to kill, a sound that means we came in peace for all mankind.
Margaret Lazarus Dean (Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight)
Milton did his best to keep up, which is to say, he lagged behind, baying like a mortally wounded basset hound. The Fausters were to singing as Napoleon was to Extreme Frisbee. Milton’s Pang gullet only made things worse, drawing out each tortured “note” until it whimpered for release. Mr. Presley pulled the emergency brake on their duet. “We’ve all got talent, son,” he consoled. “Some folks just got to dig deeper than others to find it. Now, let’s give someone else a chance. You”—he waved his diamond-ringed fingers lazily toward Virgil—“step on up and show us what you’ve got.” Virgil rose nervously, his metal chair sighing with relief, and trudged up to the stage as Milton shambled off. Ever the good friend, Virgil tried to high-five Milton after his disastrous debut, but due to Milton’s Pang-suited delayed reaction, he just ended up slapping him in the head. “Sorry,” Virgil mumbled to his friend as he stood before the chalkboard. “Just follow my lead, son, and relax,” Mr. Presley slurred supportively. Mr. Presley began to mournfully croon. “Au signal du plaisir, Dans la chambre du drille, Tu peux bien entrer fille, Mais non fille en sortir …” Virgil pulled in a great breath and began to sing. “Bonne nuit, hélas! Ma petite, bonne nuit. Près du moment fatal.” In a word, Virgil’s voice was stunning. In another word, he was a virtuoso. In four more words, Milton was very surprised. Virgil’s thrilling spectacle of pitch and tone was like a vocal fireworks display, and his breath control left the rest of the class breathless. “Fais grande résistance, S’il ne t’offre d’avance Un anneau conjugale.” Riding
Dale E. Basye (Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck)
That night, fifty thousand residents attended a massive rally at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Organized under the theme “Freedom Under God Needs You,” the night featured eight circus acts, a jet plane demonstration, and a fireworks display that the local chapter of the American Legion promised would be the largest in the entire country. Reverend Fifield had the honor of offering the invocation for the evening ceremonies, while actor Gregory Peck delivered a dramatic reading of the Declaration’s preamble.
Kevin M. Kruse (One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America)
Finally there is “montage by attraction,” the creation of S. M. Eisenstein, and not so easily described as the others, but which may be roughly defined as the reenforcing of the meaning of one image by association with another image not necessarily part of the same episode—for example the fireworks display in The General Line following the image of the bull.
André Bazin (What is Cinema?: Volume 1)
I’m sorry if I seem to digress, but that is precisely what I was thinking at the moment. It’s the way my mind works. Things are not the same in real life as they are in, for instance, the fictional world of Sherlock Holmes. Brains, in reality, do not go clickety-clickety-clickety-click from A to B to C to D and so forth, rushing like a train along the rails, until at the end, with a happy “Toot-toot!” they arrive at their destination, Z, and the case is suddenly solved. Quite the contrary. In reality, analytical minds such as my own are forever shooting wildly off in all directions simultaneously. It’s like joyously hitting jelly with a sledgehammer; like exploding galaxies; like a display of fireworks in which the pyrotechnic engineer has had a bit too much to drink and set off the whole conglobulation all at once, by accident.
Alan Bradley (Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd (Flavia de Luce, #8))
As a manager, you have the potential to create a fire—passion—in others, but to do this, first, we have to create a spark. Think of the Fourth of July. People gather to watch the sky light up with beautiful fireworks. It’s fun watching a child gaze into the dark sky to see it light up with a spectrum of colors. And how much fun are sparklers, right? From sparklers to rockets, fireworks have one thing in common—they start with a spark. They are ignited! This spark allows each firework to leave the ground and explode, and thereby create joy for all those watching. Sometimes fireworks are beautiful, but if not done correctly they can just fizzle out. Consider yourself a pyro-technician of people. A pyro-technician is the person responsible for the safe storage, handling, and functioning of fireworks and some explosives. As managers, you are in charge of the safe storage, handling, and functioning of the people you supervise. The fireworks you see will be displayed in your employee’s attitudes. When an employee is fizzling out, we call this burnout and it can happen to any employee, even yourself. You need to be able to recognize it.
Denise Wilkerson (HIRE with FIRE: The Relationship-Driven Interview and Hiring Method)
Splashing Fireworks by Maisie Aletha Smikle Like earthly stars Fireworks lit the skies Flashing in magnificent grandeur Showing off Its beauty and its splendor Like the colors of the rainbow Sparks flew some violet blue Swimming floating gliding Like starry streams colliding Joining in an ocean of air Then spectacularly disappear Sprinkling glows and glitters Of shining starry litters Glowing and hovering gracefully in the air We sat on a chair And watched and cheer To behold fireworks so dear Mystical magical elliptical Burst of lights so hypnotical Splendidly arrayed beams Appear in glowing streams Showers of light with its mist Mystically disperse without a twist As sporadic lights focus in a parabolic embrace To disseminate in space A precious sight and delight It is to behold fireworks dark at night And to glimpse the bright And beautiful light Oh such graceful outlay Of lights in an array Its beauty to portray The fireworks on display
Maisie Aletha Smikle
A display cake read JUNETEENTH! in red frosting, surrounded by red, white, and blue stars and fireworks. A flyer taped to the counter above it encouraged patrons to consider ordering a Juneteenth cake early: We all know about the Fourth of July! the flyer said. But why not start celebrating freedom a few weeks early and observe the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation! Say it with cake! One of the two young women behind the bakery counter was Black, but I could guess the bakery's owner wasn't. The neighborhood, the prices, the twee acoustic music drifting out of sleek speakers: I knew all of the song's words, but everything about the space said who it was for. My memories of celebrating Juneteenth in DC were my parents taking me to someone's backyard BBQ, eating banana pudding and peach cobbler and strawberry cake made with Jell-O mix; at not one of them had I seen a seventy-five-dollar bakery cake that could be carved into the shape of a designer handbag for an additional fee. The flyer's sales pitch--so much hanging on that We all know--was targeted not to the people who'd celebrated Juneteenth all along but to office managers who'd feel hectored into not missing a Black holiday or who just wanted an excuse for miscellaneous dessert.
Danielle Evans (The Office of Historical Corrections)
Piers Morgan Piers Morgan is a British journalist best known for his editorial work for the Daily Mirror from 1995 through 2004. He is also a successful author and television personality whose recent credits include a recurring role as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. A controversial member of the tabloid press during Diana’s lifetime, Piers Morgan established a uniquely close relationship with the Princess during the 1990s. We’d finished our coffee. The lunch was over. Two bizarre hours that had flashed by like some high-octane fireworks display. The Princess took me downstairs back to the real world, asking me as we walked not to tell James Whitaker, our royal correspondent, too much about our lunch. “Just throw him a morsel every six months to drive him mad,” she said. “He’s a terrible skier,” said William. We stepped out into the forecourt. Diana shook my hand, then darted over to speak to my very excited driver. As she shook his hand, too, she reached for his ample neck and exclaimed: “Ooh, what a nice tie--is it from Tie Rack?” It was. He will never wash it again. What a gal. I sat in the car, and started frantically scribbling notes. I didn’t want to forget any of this.
Larry King (The People's Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, From Those Who Knew Her Best)
The promotional material for Fourth Island is far more lavish and not at all defensive. From the Permanent Living Reenactment of the Flag Raising on Iwo Jima to the Rockets’ Red Glare Four-Hour Fireworks Display every night, from the United We Stand Steak House by way of the statue-lined Avenue of the Presidents to the Under God Indivisible Prayer Chapel, it is all on a grand scale, and every last piece of it is red, white, blue, striped, and starred. The Great Joy Corporation is evidently expecting or receiving patriotic visitors in great numbers. Interactive displays of the Museum of Our Heroes, the Gun Show, and the All-American Victory Gardens (salvia, lobelia, candytuft) feature large on the Web site, where one can also at all times recite the Pledge of Allegiance interactively with a chorus
Ursula K. Le Guin (Changing Planes: Stories)
Now that’s my kind of fireworks display!” shouted Otis, clinching his fist. “It would be very bright and loud and smoky and stinky,” said Bob. “It would smell like victory,” said Harold.
Dr. Block (The Complete Baby Zeke: The Diary of a Chicken Jockey, Books 1-9 (Life and Times of Baby Zeke #1-9))
When you lose enough, you learn to take happiness where you can find it. You don’t wait for it to be handed to you. You don’t expect it in big firework-like displays. You take it in small moments, and sometimes those come shaped in a two-hundred-and-fortyish pound man going above and beyond. I wanted to understand what was happening. I needed to.
Mariana Zapata (All Rhodes Lead Here)
The Napoli had turned into the bay and was running close to shore where an area of the water had been roped off for the evening’s display of fireworks. A small grandstand had been erected along the bank. In the water two large scows contained the set pieces and the rockets which would be sent skyward during the celebration. “Looks as if it’ll be a good show,” Tony remarked. Chet proposed that they come early in the Sleuth and anchor as close as possible to the two barges so they could get an excellent view of the performance. At eight-thirty Frank and Joe went to their boathouse where Chet and the girls were waiting. Soon the group was aboard the Sleuth, heading out to the area where the fireworks were to be displayed. Nearing it, they could hear band music from the grandstand on the shore.
Franklin W. Dixon (The Secret of Pirates' Hill (Hardy Boys, #36))
I had dared criticize the one place, the one environment where my soft-brained superior really felt at home: the blazing glow of the pyres and the spiraling smoke of the crematorium stacks; the air heavy with the odor of burning bodies; the walls resounding with the screams of the damned and the metallic rattle of machine guns fired pointblank; it was to this that the demented doctor came for rest and relaxation after each selection, after each display of “fireworks.” This was where he spent all his free time; here, in this man-made hell, the fiendish physician of Auschwitz made me cut open the bodies of hundreds of freshly murdered people, whose flesh was also used for the cultivation of bacteria in an electric incubator. Obsessed with the belief that he had been chosen to discover the cause of multiple births, here, within these bloodstained walls, Dr. Mengele sat hunched for hours at a time over his microscopes.
Miklós Nyiszli (Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account)
She knew a lot about nature, and although she wasn't one for volunteering information or lecturing her daughter, she could always be counted on to notice and share small instances of beauty. The curled side of a gray-green gum leaf, a delicate discarded nest, the way an Illawarra flame tree in flower was a firework against a deep blue sky. They never managed a trip down to the beach without amassing a collection of seaweed and shells and elegant pieces of driftwood that would then be carted home and displayed on windowsills or turned, by Polly, into a striking mobile, or even, on one occasion, a spidery dreamcatcher for Jess.
Kate Morton (Homecoming)
Next moment, what seemed to be a great green-and-gold comet had come zooming into the stadium. It did one circuit of the stadium, then split into two smaller comets, each hurtling towards the goalposts. A rainbow arced suddenly across the pitch, connecting the two balls of light. The crowd ‘oooohed’ and ‘aaaaahed’, as though at a firework display. Now the rainbow faded and the balls of light reunited and merged; they had formed a great shimmering shamrock, which rose up into the sky and began to soar over the stands. Something like golden rain seemed to be falling from it – ‘Excellent!’ yelled Ron, as the shamrock soared over their heads, and heavy gold coins rained from it, bouncing off their heads and seats. Squinting up at the shamrock,
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4))
Leave your personal fireworks display at home. No one really wants to see or hear your show.
Christine E. Szymanski
She backed away from the boat. She started to flail in the mud, but before she could tumble backward, a set of strong arms braced around her. "I have you," Naveen said. He was so close she could feel his warm breath against her ear. Tiana did her best to ignore the goose bumps pebbling up and down her skin, but she would have had a better chance of ignoring a fireworks display taking place on her front porch.
Farrah Rochon (Almost There)
If God’s love is not the primary thing we see displayed at the cross, like fireworks exploding in the sky, then we’re not looking through the same lens that Jesus does.
Joshua Ryan Butler (The Pursuing God: A Reckless, Irrational, Obsessed Love That's Dying to Bring Us Home)
All of the parents and children, waiting in Christchurch park for the firework display to start, how disappointed they’ll be. Their sparklers will fizzle out, they’ll be cold.
Ruth Dugdall (The Things You Didn't See)
the cricketer-prince Ranjitsinhji obliged his peasantry, in the midst of a crippling drought, to contribute to the British coffers during World War I; and as his state choked in the grip of famine, he literally burned up a month’s revenues in a fireworks display for a visiting viceroy.
Shashi Tharoor (An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India)
People flocked like lemmings to the water's edge all across Michigan's vast coastline every pretty summer evening to watch the spectacular sunsets. They were marvelous spectacles, a fireworks display most nights- a kaleidoscope of color and light in the sky, white clouds turning cotton candy pink, Superman ice cream blue, and plum purple, the sun a giant fireball that seemed to melt in the water as it began to slink behind the wavy horizon. Sunsets are one of our simplest and most profound gifts, Sam remembered her grandma telling her years ago as they walked the shoreline looking for witches' stones- the ones with holes in them- or pretty Petoskeys to make matching necklaces. They remind us that we were blessed to have enjoyed a perfect day, and they provide hope that tomorrow will be even better. It's God's way of saying good night with His own brand of fireworks.
Viola Shipman (The Recipe Box)
Dare to push away from your inner thoughts that sabotage you. Dare to expect better from whatever love interest you meet who thinks you should be grateful for compliments or act as if they're some kind of superhero for finding you attractive. Dare to roll your eyes at this person who thinks that pulling a Mark Darcy and telling you, "I like you very much, just as you are," should end up body surfing out the room with a fireworks display going off in the background. Dare to do for yourself what Bridget couldn't do: Look at yourself in the mirror and say, "I like myself just the way I am.
Phoebe Robinson
During the past week, Severin had turned the negotiations into a cat-and-mouse game. It had required inhuman discipline and a surplus of energy to contend with Severin’s accelerations, delays, surprises, and amendments. At several points, the lawyers had fallen silent while the two of them feuded and sparred. Finally Devon had been able to force the concessions he’d wanted, just as he had found himself considering the prospect of leaping across the table and strangling his friend. The infuriating part had been knowing that Severin, unlike anyone else in the room, had been having a perfectly splendid time. Severin loved excitement, conflict, anything to entertain his voracious brain. Although people were drawn to him and he was invited everywhere, it was difficult to tolerate his feverish energy for long. Spending time with him was like attending a fireworks display: enjoyable for a short time, but fatiguing if it lasted for too long.
Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))