“
I regret nothing. No woman with any self-respect would have done less. The question of good and evil will always be one of philosophy's most intriguing problems, up there with the problem of existence itself. I'm not quarreling with your choice of issues, only with your intellectually diminished approach. If evil means to be self-motivated, to live on one's own terms, then every artist, every thinker, every original mind, is evil. Because we dare to look through our own eyes rather than mouth cliches lent us from the so-called Fathers. To dare to see is to steal fire from the Gods. This is mankind's destiny, the engine which fuels us as a race.
”
”
Janet Fitch (White Oleander)
“
I can hear our hearts breaking."
A tear wets my fingertips, his tears, and his other hand encases my face, the way mine does him. His lips nearly skim mine. "I’ll shield your ears from the sound of heartbreak.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters, #3))
“
We never touched, but I made love to your mind.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters, #3))
“
When you are rich and powerful, no one will challenge you to your face or give you a chance to explain yourself. All the whispers are behind your back. You are left with no means of clearing your own name. And after a while you realize there is no point in even attempting to do so. No one wants the truth. All anyone wants is the chance to add more fuel to the fires of gossip. The whispers become so loud that sometimes you think you will drown in them.
”
”
Amanda Quick (Ravished)
“
When I was seventeen you said you wanted to perform an autopsy on me, to crack open my ribcage and squeeze my heart until it burst between your fingers.” What is that—if not flirting? She lifts her head off a pillow to near me, propping her elbows on the mattress. “That was me hating you, Richard. I dreamed of your death.” “You dreamed of clutching my heart,” I rebut. “Of killing you,” she emphasizes. I lean closer to her, our eyes locking. “Vous m’aimiez.” You loved me.
”
”
Becca Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters, #3))
“
We all need small sparks, small accomplishments in our lives to fuel the big ones. Think of your small accomplishments as kindling. When you want a bonfire, you don’t start by lighting a big log. You collect some witch’s hair—a small pile of hay or some dry, dead grass. You light that, and then add small sticks and bigger sticks before you feed your tree stump into the blaze. Because it’s the small sparks, which start small fires, that eventually build enough heat to burn the whole fucking forest down.
”
”
David Goggins (Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds)
“
That is why enemies can be great motivators. They serve as fuel for your fire.
”
”
Simon Zingerman (We All Need Heroes: Stories of the Brave and Foolish)
“
Motivation is like fire—unless you keep adding fuel to it, it dies. Your fuel is your belief in your inner values.
”
”
Shiv Khera (You Can Win: A Step-by-Step Tool for Top Achievers)
“
At the bottom of the mountain you have your scoffers and doubters, by midpoint you have your envious and haters, and when you reach to the top you have new friends and family you never met or thought existed.
”
”
Anthony Liccione
“
You’re demanding when you want to be … And you’re so brilliant and attractive; it becomes maddening” – my heart pumps faster – “that someone like you exists, and that you should be here in our bedroom, that we should share a bedroom at all – it’s unreal and the most fulfilling life I could ever think to dream.” I whisper. “I’m tragically in love with you, and I wouldn’t want it any other way
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters, #3))
“
Connor’s eyes soak through me, his attention one-hundred percent mine. Your importance to Connor depends directly on the amount of time he gives you – and if I travel back in time, to our teenage years, I realize that I’ve always ranked near the top of his list.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters, #3))
“
An incomplete list:
No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. No more films, except rarely, except with a generator drowning out half the dialogue, and only then for the first little while until the fuel for the generators ran out, because automobile gas goes stale after two or three years. Aviation gas lasts longer, but it was difficult to come by.
No more screens shining in the half-light as people raise their phones above the crowd to take pictures of concert states. No more concert stages lit by candy-colored halogens, no more electronica, punk, electric guitars.
No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one's hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite.
No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light; no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. No more airplanes, no more requests to put your tray table in its upright and locked position – but no, this wasn't true, there were still airplanes here and there. They stood dormant on runways and in hangars. They collected snow on their wings. In the cold months, they were ideal for food storage. In summer the ones near orchards were filled with trays of fruit that dehydrated in the heat. Teenagers snuck into them to have sex. Rust blossomed and streaked.
No more countries, all borders unmanned.
No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup. No more spacecraft rising up from Cape Canaveral, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from Vandenburg, Plesetsk, Tanegashima, burning paths through the atmosphere into space.
No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.
”
”
Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven)
“
I need you to keep looking at me like you’re going to burn a hole through my heart, and I need you to tell me that you love the real me. Every day, I need you, Rose. That’s how I’m going to stomach this.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters, #3))
“
Children laugh for no reason at all. They laugh because they're alive and they're in your arms. It's senseless, but this senseless moment pounds against my heart more than a sound fact.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters, #3))
“
We dare not talk of the darkness for fear it will infect us.
We dare not talk of the fire, for fear it will destroy us.
And so we live in the half-light,
Like our mothers before us.
Come to the fire,
Feel it warm your skin.
Come to the fire,
Feel it burn in your belly,
Shine out through your eyes.
Come dance in the fire,
Let it fuel your prayers.
”
”
Lucy H. Pearce (Burning Woman)
“
Lo shoots a withering glare his way. "Your our goddamn publicist, not the king of the caste, so stop acting like you have authority to banish my brother into another room.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters, #3))
“
...As an artist, you need the naysayers and the nonbelievers to add fuel to your creative fire.
”
”
Ice-T (Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption—from South Central to Hollywood)
“
When you hang with your tribe, you feel invigorated, recognized, and understood—you can’t underestimate the powerful effects of being fortified in that way. When you have your tribe on speed dial, you’ve got all the resources you need to fuel up, fly straight, and head back out to face the world at large.
”
”
Danielle LaPorte (The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide to Creating Success on Your Own Terms)
“
Thanks for making me stronger in ways you don’t care to know. I will not accept your damaging criticisms anymore to fuel your fire.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (Dying on The Inside and Suffocating on The Outside)
“
You’ve helped me for years.” His brows pull hard. “Now it’s time I help you, and I’m not acting like you’re a leper because this guy tells me to. You may be fucking weird as hell when you and Rose start verbally sparring, but you’re my weirdo best friend. That’s not changing.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters, #3))
“
Take a nice, long look at your future, reaper. You'll soon be burning as fuel for hundreds of tiny fires."
Tod laughed out loud. "If that's your way of saying I'm hot, rest assured, I already know." He spread his arms, inviting Avari and his monstrous court to look him over. "But I'm going to have to keep lighting up the room with my dazzling personality, because you couldn't scrape enough fat off me to fill even one of your sick-ass human candles. And, based on the crowd behind you, I'm guessing most of your friends look better in the dark anyway.
”
”
Rachel Vincent (With All My Soul (Soul Screamers, #7))
“
But how?” she says, her voice breaking on the word. “How do I get them out of my head?” “Set them on fire.” Her eyes go wide. “In your mind,” I say, attempting a smile. “Let them fuel the fire that keeps you striving.” I reach out, touch my fingers to her cheek. “Idiots are highly flammable, love. Let them all burn in hell.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Restore Me (Shatter Me, #4))
“
Once I thought I saw you
in a crowded hazy bar,
Dancing on the light
from star to star.
Far across the moonbeam
I know that's who you are,
I saw your brown eyes
turning once to fire.
You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.
I am just a dreamer,
but you are just a dream,
You could have been
anyone to me.
Before that moment
you touched my lips
That perfect feeling
when time just slips
Away between us
on our foggy trip.
You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.
You are just a dreamer,
and I am just a dream.
You could have been
anyone to me.
Before that moment
you touched my lips
That perfect feeling
when time just slips
Away between us
on our foggy trip.
You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.
The song was written in July 1975 after Young had just undergone an operation on his vocal chords after a cocaine-fueled night with friend. "We were all really high, fucked up. Been out partying. Wrote it sitting up at Vista Point on Skyline. Supposed to be the highest point in San Mateo County, which was appropriate. I wrote it when I couldn't sing. I was on voice rest. It was nuts - I was whistling it.
I wrote a lot of songs when I couldn't talk.
”
”
Neil Young
“
I am burning. I have to live, I have to sing, I want to transform myself into a thousand different characters and carry their life with me onto the stage where it's so bright and so dark at the same time, just knowing there are three thousand people out there longing to be swept away by the passion that's about to flood out from scarlet curtains, to this I consecrate my body and my soul, I can give no more than all of myself, I feel my heart is a throbbing engine and my voice is the valve, like a wailing train, it has to sing or blow up, there's too much fuel, too much fire, and what am I to do with this voice if I can't let it out, it's not just singing. I am here as a speck, but I don't feel scared or about to be blown away, I feel like all New York is a warm embrace just waiting to enfold me. I am in love. But not with a person. I am passionately in love with my life.
”
”
Ann-Marie MacDonald (Fall on Your Knees)
“
Your body is made of the same elements that lionesses are built from. Three quarters of you is the same kind of water that beats rocks to rubble, wears stones away. Your DNA translates into the same twenty amino acids that wolf genes code for. When you look in the mirror and feel weak, remember, the air you breathe in fuels forest fires capable of destroying everything they touch. On the days you feel ugly, remember: diamonds are only carbon. You are so much more.
”
”
Curtis Ballard
“
A fire will burn itself out, unless you open a window and give it fuel.. And when flames are licking at your heels you've got to break a wall or two if you want to escape.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper)
“
Do not let anger over the past become the fuel that fire your future
”
”
Holly Bodger (5 to 1)
“
Truthfully though, it’s the reality. Once you change your nature, people question.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters #3))
“
I whisper, “I can hear our hearts breaking.” A tear wets my fingertips, his tears, and his other hand encases my face, the way mine does him. His lips nearly skim mine. “I’ll shield your ears from the sound of heartbreak.” My chest swells. “And what happens when I ache to hear your voice?” “I’ll whisper beyond every anguished sound.” He closes his lips over mine, once, before murmuring, “Tu m’entendras toujours, où que je sois.” You will always hear me, no matter where I am. He
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters #3))
“
The farther removed you are from people actually shooting at you, the more you forget that cannons can do something to you other than fire salutes.
”
”
Jeff Mach ("I Hate Your Time Machine": A fiction-fueled guide to some of the worst tropes of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
“
Anything else has no relevance. I can’t be what you need me to be. So you’ll have to accept this version or waste your time questioning something that has no answer. I know acceptance isn’t easy when you’re unsure of what you’re accepting, but all I can say is that you’re accepting me as me.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters #3))
“
Maybe you shouldn’t talk about anal sex behind our backs,” I retort, able to deduce the subject of their conversations.
“Fine, I’ll talk about it to your face,” Lo challenges. “I hear you like it in the ass.” He raises his can of Fizz Life to me. “Cheers.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters, #3))
“
Be a good companion to yourself and you will never be lonely”—that had to be the aspiration. She wanted to fuel her own fire. If you got your fuel from men, they could leave, and you’d be left alone in the cold.
”
”
Sophie Cousens (This Time Next Year)
“
As anyone who starts a business knows, it is a fantastic race. There is a statistic that hangs over your head - over 90 percent of all new businesses fail in the first three years. For anyone with even a bit of competitive spirit in them, especially for someone who defines himself or herself as an entrepreneur, these overwhelming odds of failure are not intimidating, they only add fuel to the fire. The foolishness of thinking that you're a part of the small minority of those who actually will make it past three years and defy the odds is part of what makes entrepreneurs who they are, driven by passion and completely irrational.
”
”
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
“
Catapult into your highest version by doing the things that fuels you with a swanky fire. Yes, even when it doesn't make sense to the world.
”
”
Hiral Nagda
“
Your success depends on how much fire of desire you have AND how much fuel of passion you feed it.
”
”
Vinita Kinra
“
Passion towards a dream is the fuel that fires every trace of impossibility in the environment, paving way for you to win with style.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Dream big!: See your bigger picture!)
“
She wanted to fuel her own fire. If you got your fire from men, they could leave, and you'd be left alone in the cold.
”
”
Sophie Cousens (This Time Next Year)
“
I see the fire in your eyes and all I wanna do is fuel it. Light me up, set my soul on fire. I’m yours.
”
”
Becka Mack (Consider Me (Playing For Keeps, #1))
“
Don’t know when I learned to play with matches
Must want it all to end in ashes
Foot on the gas, add fuel to the fire
I’m already high and going higher
Charging faster, ready to ignite
Headed for disaster, chasing the night
You turn wrong when you turn right
White light at first sight
Oh, you’re chasing the night
But it’s a nightmare chasing you
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Daisy Jones & The Six)
“
You think too much, Pearl. It’s your most irritating flaw, and, let us be honest, given the severity and sheer volume of your flaws, that is saying something. Since this seems to be a time for advice, I suggest you stop thinking entirely.’ ‘And how might I achieve that? Follow your lead, perhaps?’ ‘I think neither too much nor too little. I am perfectly balanced—this is what you find so attractive. As a capemoth is drawn to fire.’ ‘So I am in danger of being burned up?’ ‘To a blackened, shrivelled crust.’ ‘So, you’re pushing me away for my own good. A gesture of compassion, then.’ ‘Fires neither push nor pull. They simply exist, compassionless, indifferent to the suicidal urges of flitting bugs. That is another one of your flaws, Pearl. Attributing emotion where none exists.’ ‘I could have sworn there was emotion, two nights past—’ ‘Oh, fire burns eagerly when there’s fuel—’ ‘And in the morning there’s naught but cold ashes.
”
”
Steven Erikson (House of Chains (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #4))
“
When faced with contrast, take nothing personally and don’t try to defend yourself. Defending one’s self is a vibrational relative of guilt. People will think what they like; do not feed fuel to the fire by reacting. Simply ask questions for clarity and in response say ‘Is that so?’ Take responsibility for the energy you brought to the situation, acknowledge the illusions without attachment, and move forward. Other people’s opinions are none of your business. Remember that each person is on their own unique path, and the mirror of contrast you hold up to them may be exactly what is necessary for their conscious growth at that time.
”
”
Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
“
Hummingbird
Flitting, darting
A restless quest
To fuel a fire
That burns your breast
Seeking sweetness
For selfish glee
Bringing gifts
So heedlessly
Your touch a trigger
You fire life
Igniting beauty
In vibrant strife
To equal you
In colors bright
They dazzle, dumbfound
And delight
But in tableau
Their beauty ends
Enlivened only
By the wind
Whilst you with
Generous energy
Prove a lovely
Vibrant Persephone
Their season ends
Those blooms of spring
And hummingbird
On fragile wing
Too soon I fear
You will expire
Sweetness smolders
Consumed in fire.
”
”
Michael Sullivan
“
All sensible people know that vanity is the most devastating, the most universal, and the most ineradicable of the passions that afflict the soul of man, and it is only vanity that makes him deny its power. It is more consuming than love. With advancing years, mercifully, you can snap your fingers at the terror and the servitude of love, but age cannot free you from the thraldom of vanity. Time can assuage the pangs of love, but only death can still the anguish of wounded vanity. Love is simple and seeks no subterfuge, but vanity cozens you with a hundred disguises. It is part and parcel of every virtue: it is mainspring of courage and the strength of ambition; it gives constancy to the lover and endurance to the stoic; it adds fuel to the fire of the artist's desire for fame and is at once the support and the compensation of the honest man's integrity; it leers even cynically in the humility of the saint. You cannot escape it, and should you take pains to guard against it, it will make use of those very pains to trip you up. You are defenseless against its onslaught because you know not on what unprotected side it will attack you. Sincerity cannot protect you from its snare nor humour from its mockery.
[His Excellency]
”
”
W. Somerset Maugham
“
Fire What makes a fire burn is space between the logs, a breathing space. Too much of a good thing, too many logs packed in too tight can douse the flames almost as surely as a pail of water would. So building fires requires attention to the spaces in between, as much as the wood. When we are able to build open spaces in the same way we have learned to pile on the logs, then we can come to see how it is fuel, and absence of the fuel together, that make fire possible. We only need lay a log lightly from time to time. A fire grows simply because the space is there, with openings in which the flame that knows just how it wants to burn can find its way. 12 Judy Brown
”
”
Peter Scazzero (The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World)
“
Bravery is a choice. However, you can’t wait until the moment you need to be brave to reach for that bravery. Because if you haven’t been purposefully tending to it, building it up, you may find that it is not there when you need it. You must stoke the fires of courage little by little, day by day, so they are burning bright long before you ever need them. And you fuel or douse those fires—fanning the flames or snuffing them out—with the words you say to yourself. And with the words you allow others to say about you in your presence.
”
”
Stacia Stark (A Queen This Fierce and Deadly (Kingdom of Lies, #4))
“
Nothing can squelch your fire except turning your back on the thing that fuels it.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year)
“
Every aspect of you is fuel for your creative fire.
”
”
Chase Jarvis (Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Work + Life)
“
Her eyes are bright with unshed tears. “But how?” she says, her voice breaking on the word. “How do I get them out of my head?”
“Set them on fire.”
Her eyes go wide.
“In your mind,” I say, attempting a smile. “Let them fuel the fire that keeps you striving.” I reach out, touch my fingers to her cheek. “Idiots are highly flammable, love. Let them all hunt in hell.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Restore Me (Shatter Me, #4))
“
Sometimes you must allow your eyes to adjust to a truer shape of something you’d once molded and possibly loved but perhaps never wanted. Something to unravel now, straight from these roots. Something that at some point, you loosened your fingers around. Something that at some stage, you finally outgrew. So allow this chapter to hold you in darkly wrapped nights while allowing desires to just be desires before lighting that flame stemmed from your longing and churned into fuel so when it is time, you’ll have enough strength to surrender to fire that holds the burn long enough to finally take flight.
”
”
Victoria Erickson (Edge of Wonder: Notes from the Wildness of Being)
“
Only forest fires produce more black carbon than bunker fuel. Bunker fuel can have a sulfur content of up to 45,000 parts per million (ppm). Low-sulfur diesel for cars is supposed to contain 10 ppm. The sulfur is converted into acid
”
”
Rose George (Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate)
“
Does your hate make you happy, my dear, or does it continually eat through you, a cancer of its own making? Does the constant fueling of that angry fire not exhaust you and take away from living the wonderful life you’ve been given?
”
”
Cathy Gohlke (Promise Me This)
“
The power which rules within us, when its state is accordant with nature, so acts in every occurrence as easily to adapt itself to all present or possible situations. It requires no set material to work upon, but, under proper reservation, needs but the incitement to pursue, and makes matter for its activities out of every opposition. Even so a fire masters that which is cast upon it, and though a small flame would have been extinguished, your great blaze quickly makes the added fuel its own, consumes it, and grows mightier therefrom.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
“
In my dear pine-clad mountains of the Harz There’s a pitchlike smell, a smell I favor Most of all, excepting that of sulphur. But here among these Greeks there’s not a trace Of anything like that. I’m curious To find out what they use below in their Hell To stoke the fires with, their kind of fuel. DRYAD. I guess you’re smart enough in your own country, Abroad you’re something less than apt; 8220 Stop thinking home thoughts, try, Sir, to adapt And show due honor to our sacred oak tree. MEPHISTO. What you have lost, that’s what you think about,
”
”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust: A Tragedy, Parts One and Two)
“
[When asked where his drive comes from] " You're bullied, you're miserable...every artist has someone who told them they weren't worth dirt and someone who told them that they were the second coming of the baby Jesus and they believed them both, and that's the fuel that stirs the fire.
”
”
Bruce Springsteen
“
Remember, you are not your negative thoughts. You are not
your painful imaginations. See yourself as separate from your
thoughts. This will aid you in dismissing the horror films. Just as
fire fades when not fed additional fuel, so do emotional fires fade
away when we cease to fuel them with negative imagination.
”
”
Vernon Howard (Psycho-Pictography: The New Way to Use the Miracle Power of Your Mind)
“
There is a strong mind-body connection so depression and anxiety are important cofactors for pain. They don't cause it but they are accelerants. Think of whatever causes your pain as the match that started a fire. Depression and anxiety are fuel on that fire. It is hard to put out a fire when someone is dousing it with gasoline.
”
”
Jennifer Gunter (The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina—Separating the Myth from the Medicine)
“
Don't be afraid of what others may think. Your creativity belongs to you, your inspiration, your imagination is all yours. Be passionate and write with fire in your words. Allow no boundaries to what you feel and believe. The spark that drives you to write is the fuel for your desire to create great novels. Know that you have the spirit within.
”
”
Sheila Renee Parker
“
PC or not, Middle Eastern groups, including Abu Nidal’s, are not tacticians. They walk into nightclubs strapped with explosives, plant car bombs, spray crowded markets with machine-gun fire, and fly hijacked planes full of fuel into buildings. Plain and simple, they’re cowards. They won’t confront anyone on a one-to-one basis. They don’t have the savvy or the courage to do in-your-face operations.
”
”
Brad Thor (The Lions of Lucerne (Scot Harvath, #1))
“
Set them on fire.'
Her eyes go wide.
'In your mind,' I say, attempting a smile. 'Let them fuel the fire that keeps you striving.' I reach out, touch my fingers to her cheek. 'Idiots are highly flammable, love. Let them all burn in hell.'
She closes her eyes. Turns her face into my hand.
And I pull her in, press my forehead to hers. 'Those who do not understand you,' I say softly, 'will always doubt you.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Restore Me (Shatter Me, #4))
“
I can certainly throw out some observation about the process of creating which may be of use. Firstly, it's the best & the worst of worlds, because the only fuel you have to make the fire blaze on the page / screen is the stuff of your own being. An artist consumes his or herself in the act of making art. I can feel that consumption even now, sitting here at my desk at the end of a working day. In order to generate the ideas that I have set on the page for the last 10 or 11 hours I have burned the fuel of my own history. This is, obviously a double-edged sword. In order to give, the artist must take from himself. That's the deal. And it's very important to me that the work I do is the best I can make it, because I know what is being burned up to create. As the villain of Sacrament says: "living & dying, we feed the fire.
”
”
Clive Barker
“
I might be a shameless flirt, but at least I don't have a horrible temper. You should come tend to my wounds from our squabble in the snow. I'm bruised all over thanks to you.
Something clicked against the nightstand, and a pen rolled across the polished mahogany. Hissing, I snatched it up and scribbed:
Go lick your wounds and leave me be.
The paper vanished.
It was gone for a while- far longer than it should have taken to write the few words that appeared on the paper when it returned.
I'd much rather you licked my wounds for me.
My heart pounded, faster and faster, and a strange sort of rush went through my veins as I read the sentence again and again. A challenge.
I clamped my lips shut to keep from smiling as I wrote,
Lick you where exactly?
The paper vanished before I'd even completed the final mark.
His reply was a long time coming. Then,
Wherever you want to lick me, Feyre.
I'd like to start with "Everywhere," but I can choose, if necessary.
I wrote back,
Let's hope my licking is better than yours. I remember how horrible you were at it Under the Mountain.
Lie. He'd licked away my tears when I'd been a moment away from shattering.
He'd done it to keep me distracted- keep me angry. Because anger was better than feeling nothing; because anger and hatred were the long-lasting fuel in the endless dark of my despair. The same way that music had kept me from breaking.
Lucien had come to patch me up a few times, but no one risked quite so much in keeping me not only alive, but as mentally intact as I could be considering the circumstances. Just as he'd been doing these past few weeks- taunting and teasing me to keep the hollowness at bay. Just as he was doing now.
I was under duress, his next note read. If you want, I'd be more than happy to prove you wrong. I've been told I'm very, very good at licking.
I clenched my knees together and wrote back, Good night.
A heartbeat later, his note said, Try not to moan too loudly when you dream about me. I need my beauty rest.
I got up, chucked the letter in the burbling fire, and gave it a vulgar gesture.
I could have sworn laughter rumbled down the hall.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
“
I am burning. I have to live, I have to sing, I want to transform myself into a thousand different characters and carry their life with me onto the stage where it's so bright and so dark at the same time, just knowing there are three thousand people out there longing to be swept away by the passion that's about to flood out from scarlet curtains, to this I consecrate my body and my soul, I can give no more than all of myself, I feel my heart is a throbbing engine and my voice is the valve, like a wailing train, it has to sing or blow up, there's too much fuel, too much fire, and what am I to do with this voice if I can't let it out, it's not just singing. I am here as a speck, but I don't feel scared or about to be blown away, I feel like all New York is a warm embrace just waiting to enfold me. I am in love. But not with a person. I am passionately in love with my life.
”
”
Ann-Marie MacDonald (Fall on Your Knees)
“
There is nothing that the media could say to me that would justify the way they’ve acted. You can hound me. You can follow me, but in no way should you frighten those around me. To harm my wife and potentially harm my daughter—there is no excuse that could put any of you on the right side of morality. I met Rose when I was fifteen and she was fourteen, and through what she would call fate and I’d call circumstance of our hobbies, we’d cross paths dozens of times over the course of a decade. At seventeen, I attended the same national Model UN conference as Rose, and a delegate for Greenland locked us in a janitorial closet. He also stole our phones. He had to beat us dishonorably because he couldn’t beat us any other way. Rose said being locked in a confined space with me was the worst two hours of her life" They look bemused, brows furrowing. I can’t help but smile.
“You’re confused because you don’t know whether she was exaggerating or whether she was being truthful. But the truth is that we are complex people with the ability to love to hate and to hate to love, and I wouldn’t trade her for any other person. So that day, stuck beside mops and dirtied towels, I could’ve picked the lock five minutes in and let her go. Instead, I purposefully spent two hours with a girl who wore passion like a dress made of diamonds and hair made of flames. Every day of my life, I am enamored. Every day of my life, I am bewitched. And every day of my life, I spend it with her.”
My chest swells with more power, lifting me higher.
“I’ve slept with many different kinds of people, and yes, the three that spoke to the press are among them. Rose is the only person I’ve ever loved, and through that love, we married and started a family. There is no other meaning behind this, and for you to conjure one is nothing less than a malicious attack against my marriage and my child. Anything else has no relevance. I can’t be what you need me to be. So you’ll have to accept this version or waste your time questioning something that has no answer. I know acceptance isn’t easy when you’re unsure of what you’re accepting, but all I can say is that you’re accepting me as me. I leave them with a quote from Sylvia Plath.
“‘I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart.’” My lips pull higher, into a livelier smile. “‘I am, I am, I am.’”
With this, I step away from the podium, and I exit to a cacophony of journalists shouting and asking me to clarify.
Adapt to me.
I’m satisfied, more than I even predicted.
Some people will rewind this conference on their television, to listen closely and try to understand me. I don’t need their understanding, but my daughter will—and I hope the minds of her peers are wide open with vibrant hues of passion.
I hope they all paint the world with color.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters #3))
“
How did you combat it?” I felt it rising up in him, answering my call. Yet coolly, remotely, he thrust it away. He could have joined me, adding fuel to my fire. “You choose. Hero or villain.” “You told me you’re not the hero.” “Not the villain either.” “What else is there?” “A person that gets up every day and tries as hard as she can to live up to what she believes in. Aims for the stars. Misses sometimes. Tries again. Harder. With more commitment to protecting others and less selfishness.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Kingdom of Shadow and Light (Fever, #11))
“
I know you are tired. I know you are hurting. I know that even among the crowds and or with your closest loved ones, you feel terribly alone in the world. I know that in the quietness, a thousand hell hounds are barking and snarling at your heels.
They tell you, "Everything is wrong with you. You are a failure. You will never live to see your dreams and visions come to pass. You know you should just throw in the towel. No one would even miss you if you were gone. Exit from this cruel insane assylum you call home. We will even tell you how to end 'it'."
But don't you dare entertain those hounds of hell, no, not even for one moment. See, you not only have the elixir of Life inside of your organs and your veins; you are the Elixir of Life of a Celestial domain. For every hell hound nipping at your ears, there are eight hundred angels rushing to you with every holy breath....you take. Every step you make fuels the fire of Love in your behalf.
See, nothing is wrong with you. Every thing is right with you. You are cut from iron. You have long exchanged your velveteen fabric and cotton stuffing for blazen guts and a heart of gold. You are the head and not the tail. You are the water in the desert, the ripple in the steam, the sword AND the stone and you, glorious being, are not alone!
We are one and we are many. We've known lack, but we are plenty. We are not on the cusp of a break through. We are the cusp and we are the break --- through. We are the old and we are the new. Who knew? You did. You do. And don't you ever forget that.
”
”
Mishi McCoy (The Lovely Knowing)
“
CHASING THE NIGHT Trouble starts when I come around Everything’s painted red when I’m in town Light me up and watch me burn it down If you’re anointing a devil, I’ll take my crown Foot on the gas, add fuel to the fire I’m already high and going higher Charging faster, ready to ignite Headed for disaster, chasing the night You turn wrong when you turn right White light at first sight Oh, you’re chasing the night But it’s a nightmare chasing you Life’s coming to me in flashes Wearing my bruises like badges Don’t know when I learned to play with matches Must want it all to end in ashes Foot on the gas, add fuel to the fire I’m already high and going higher Charging faster, ready to ignite Headed for disaster, chasing the night You turn wrong when you turn right White light at first sight Oh, you’re chasing the night But it’s a nightmare chasing you Foot on the gas, add fuel to the fire I’m already high and going higher Foot on the gas, add fuel to the fire Look me in the eye and flick the lighter Oh, you’re chasing the night But it’s a nightmare, honey, chasing you
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Daisy Jones & The Six)
“
Couldn't it be said that it was in the seventeenth century that we started down the path that has brought us to where we are now? After all, it was then that Londoners began to use coal on a large scale, for heating, which was how our dependence on fossil fuels started. Would your Jacobean playwrights have written as they did if they hadn't had coal fires to warm them? Did they know that an angry beast, which had long lain dormant within the earth, was coming to life? Did Hobbes or Leibniz or any of the other thinkers of the Enlightenment have any understanding of this?
”
”
Amitav Ghosh (Gun Island)
“
AN INCOMPLETE LIST: No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. No more films, except rarely, except with a generator drowning out half the dialogue, and only then for the first little while until the fuel for the generators ran out, because automobile gas goes stale after two or three years. Aviation gas lasts longer, but it was difficult to come by. No more screens shining in the half-light as people raise their phones above the crowd to take photographs of concert stages. No more concert stages lit by candy-colored halogens, no more electronica, punk, electric guitars. No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one’s hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite. No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light; no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. No more airplanes, no more requests to put your tray table in its upright and locked position—but no, this wasn’t true, there were still airplanes here and there. They stood dormant on runways and in hangars. They collected snow on their wings. In the cold months, they were ideal for food storage. In summer the ones near orchards were filled with trays of fruit that dehydrated in the heat. Teenagers snuck into them to have sex. Rust blossomed and streaked. No more countries, all borders unmanned. No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup. No more spacecraft rising up from Cape Canaveral, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from Vandenburg, Plesetsk, Tanegashima, burning paths through the atmosphere into space. No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.
”
”
Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven)
“
What happened? Many things. But the overriding problem was this: The auto industry got too comfortable. As Intel cofounder Andy Grove once famously proclaimed, “Only the paranoid survive.” Success, he meant, is fragile—and perfection, fleeting. The moment you begin to take success for granted is the moment a competitor lunges for your jugular. Auto industry executives, to say the least, were not paranoid. Instead of listening to a customer base that wanted smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, the auto executives built bigger and bigger. Instead of taking seriously new competition from Japan, they staunchly insisted (both to themselves and to their customers) that MADE IN THE USA automatically meant “best in the world.” Instead of trying to learn from their competitors’ new methods of “lean manufacturing,” they clung stubbornly to their decades-old practices. Instead of rewarding the best people in the organization and firing the worst, they promoted on the basis of longevity and nepotism. Instead of moving quickly to keep up with the changing market, executives willingly embraced “death by committee.” Ross Perot once quipped that if a man saw a snake on the factory floor at GM, they’d form a committee to analyze whether they should kill it. Easy success had transformed the American auto
”
”
Reid Hoffman (The Startup of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career)
“
In the years after The Fire Next Time, Baldwin openly questioned capitalism—even commending, with Bobby Seale, a “Yankee Doodle”–type socialism. He relentlessly criticized white supremacy, railed against U.S. imperialism, and prophesied the end of the West. In his open letter to Angela Davis in 1970, he succinctly summarized that politics: “We know that we, the blacks, and not only we, the blacks, have been, and are, the victims of a system whose only fuel is greed, whose only god is profit. We know that the fruits of this system have been ignorance, despair, and death, and we know that the system is doomed because the world can no longer afford it—if, indeed, it ever could have….The enormous revolution in black consciousness which has occurred in your generation…means the beginning or the end of America
”
”
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own)
“
You use more than thirty pounds of ATP during a one-hour walk and more than your entire body weight of ATP over the course of a typical day—an obviously impossible amount to lug around in reserve.15 Consequently, a human body stores in toto only about a hundred grams of ATPs at any given moment.16 Fortunately, before our first few steps deplete the leg muscles’ scant supply of ATPs, they quickly tap into another ATP-like molecule known as creatine phosphate that also binds to phosphates and stores energy.17 Unfortunately, those creatine phosphate reserves are also limited, becoming 60 percent depleted after ten seconds of sprinting and exhausted after thirty seconds.18 Even so, the precious short burst of fuel they provide gives muscles time to fire up a second energy recharging process: breaking down sugar.
”
”
Daniel E. Lieberman (Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding)
“
I say, it sounds like some dangerous psychotic killer wrote this, and this buttoned-down schizophrenic could probably go over the edge at any moment in the working day and stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-180 carbine gas-operated semiautomatic. My boss just looks at me. The guy, I say, is probably at home every night with a little rattail file, filing a cross into the tip of every one of his rounds. This way, when he shows up to work one morning and pumps a round into his nagging, ineffectual, petty, whining, butt-sucking, candy-ass boss, that one round will split along the filed grooves and spread open the way a dumdum bullet flowers inside you to blow a bushel load of your stinking guts out through your spine. Picture your gut chakra opening in a slow-motion explosion of sausage-casing small intestine. My boss takes the paper out from under my nose. Go ahead, I say, read some more. No really, I say, it sounds fascinating. The work of a totally diseased mind. And I smile. The little butthole-looking edges of the hole in my cheek are the same blue-black as a dog’s gums. The skin stretched tight across the swelling around my eyes feels varnished. My boss just looks at me. Let me help you, I say. I say, the fourth rule of fight club is one fight at a time. My boss looks at the rules and then looks at me. I say, the fifth rule is no shoes, no shirts in the fight. My boss looks at the rules and looks at me. Maybe, I say, this totally diseased fuck would use an Eagle Apache carbine because an Apache takes a thirty-shot mag and only weighs nine pounds. The Armalite only takes a five-round magazine. With thirty shots, our totally fucked hero could go the length of mahogany row and take out every vice-president with a cartridge left over for each director. Tyler’s words coming out of my mouth. I used to be such a nice person. I just look at my boss. My boss has blue, blue, pale cornflower blue eyes. The J and R 68 semiautomatic carbine also takes a thirty-shot mag, and it only weighs seven pounds. My boss just looks at me. It’s scary, I say. This is probably somebody he’s known for years. Probably this guy knows all about him, where he lives, and where his wife works and his kids go to school. This is exhausting, and all of a sudden very, very boring. And why does Tyler need ten copies of the fight club rules? What I don’t have to say is I know about the leather interiors that cause birth defects. I know about the counterfeit brake linings that looked good enough to pass the purchasing agent, but fail after two thousand miles. I know about the air-conditioning rheostat that gets so hot it sets fire to the maps in your glove compartment. I know how many people burn alive because of fuel-injector flashback. I’ve seen people’s legs cut off at the knee when turbochargers start exploding and send their vanes through the firewall and into the passenger compartment. I’ve been out in the field and seen the burned-up cars and seen the reports where CAUSE OF FAILURE is recorded as "unknown.” No, I say, the paper’s not mine. I take the paper between two fingers and jerk it out of his hand. The edge must slice his thumb because his hand flies to his mouth, and he’s sucking hard, eyes wide open. I crumble the paper into a ball and toss it into the trash can next to my desk. Maybe, I say, you shouldn’t be bringing me every little piece of trash you pick up.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
“
what is known as a neutron moderator, which, in an RBMK reactor, is comprised of vertical graphite blocks surrounding the fuel channels. Each RBMK contains 1850 tons of graphite. This graphite slows - moderates - the speed of neutrons moving in the fuel, because slowed neutrons are far more likely collide with uranium235 nuclei and split. When playing golf, for example, if your ball is a few centimeters from the hole, you don’t hit it as hard as you possibly can, you give it a slow tap to the target. It’s the same principle with neutrons in a reactor. The more often the resulting atomic split occurs, the more the chain reaction sustains itself and the more energy is produced. In other words, the graphite moderator creates the right environment for a chain reaction. Think of it as oxygen in a conventional fire: even with all the fuel in the world, there will be no flame without oxygen.
”
”
Andrew Leatherbarrow (Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster)
“
Pull out a match and light up a million notes and a million words, consume the energy on papers like its fuel, and all the long lost feelings are your coal. Set the whole thing on fire and never look back, an expert on regrets and mistakes, tell the story as easy as a philosophical theory; devils disguised as angels, angels turning into devils, and the perfectionist in between always stuck in the middle. Tired and hurt, but angry till I burn, watching a sinner blaming life and life taking his side still, anyway I took my advice and kept the things I loved from day one aside, so I'm not alone and love is also taking my side. Save the date, it's 365 days in training, and we finally reached the end of our magical tragic failure and if you are smart then it's not a surprise; you know that my sky is not raining. Take out a match and burn this house down, it took me two seconds to figure out that I deserve solid better-looking ground. So let me feel the heat in my brain blow out and my heart beating in its place safe and sound inside.
”
”
Mennah al Refaey
“
At age sixty-seven, Thomas Edison returned home early one evening from another day at the laboratory. Shortly after dinner, a man came rushing into his house with urgent news: A fire had broken out at Edison’s research and production campus a few miles away. Fire engines from eight nearby towns rushed to the scene, but they could not contain the blaze. Fueled by the strange chemicals in the various buildings, green and yellow flames shot up six and seven stories, threatening to destroy the entire empire Edison had spent his life building. Edison calmly but quickly made his way to the fire, through the now hundreds of onlookers and devastated employees, looking for his son. “Go get your mother and all her friends,” he told his son with childlike excitement. “They’ll never see a fire like this again.” What?! Don’t worry, Edison calmed him. “It’s all right. We’ve just got rid of a lot of rubbish.” That’s a pretty amazing reaction. But when you think about it, there really was no other response. What should Edison have done? Wept? Gotten angry? Quit and gone home?
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage)
“
You have insulted me and degraded me every time I’ve been in your presence. If my brother were here, he’d call you out! Since he is not here,” she continued almost mindlessly, “I shall demand my own satisfaction. If I were a man, I’d have the right to satisfaction on the field of honor, and as a woman I refuse to be denied that right.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Perhaps,” Elizabeth said softly, “but I also happen to be an excellent shot. I’m a far worthier opponent for you on the dueling field than my brother. Now, will you meet me outside, or shall I-I finish you here?” she threatened, so beside herself with fury that she never stopped to think how reckless, how utterly empty her threat was. Her coachman had insisted she learn to fire a weapon for her own protection, but although her aim was excellent when she’d practiced with targets, she had never shot a living thing.
“I’ll do no such silly damned thing.”
Elizabeth raised the gun higher. “Then I’ll have your apology right now.”
“What am I to apologize for?” he asked, still infuriatingly calm.
“You may start by apologizing for luring me into the greenhouse with that note.”
“I didn’t write a note. I received a note from you.”
“You have great difficulty sorting out the notes you send and don’t send, do you not?” she said. Without waiting for a reply she continued, “Next, you can apologize for trying to seduce me in England, and for ruining my reputation-“
“Ian!” Jake said, thunderstruck. “It’s one thing to insult a lady’s handwriting, but spoilin’ her reputation is another. A thing like that could ruin her whole life!”
Ian shot him an ironic glance. “Thank you, Jake, for that helpful bit of inflammatory information. Would you now like to help her pull the trigger?”
Elizabeth’s emotions veered crazily from fury to mirth as the absurdity of the bizarre tableau suddenly struck her: Here she was, holding a gun on a man in his own home, while poor Lucinda held another man at umbrella point-a man who was trying ineffectually to sooth matters by inadvertently heaping more fuel on the volatile situation. And then she recognized the stupid futility of it all, and that banished her flicker of mirth.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
Identify your strengths, and then—this is important—major in them. Take a few irons out of the fire so this one can get hot. Failing to focus on our strengths may prevent us from accomplishing the unique tasks God has called us to do. A lighthouse keeper who worked on a rocky stretch of coastline received oil once a month to keep his light burning. Not being far from a village, he had frequent guests. One night a woman needed oil to keep her family warm. Another night a father needed oil for his lamp. Then another needed oil to lubricate a wheel. All the requests seemed legitimate, so the lighthouse keeper tried to meet them all. Toward the end of the month, however, he ran out of oil, and his lighthouse went dark, causing several ships to crash on the coastline. The man was reproved by his superiors, “You were given the oil for one reason,” they said, “to keep the light burning.”1 We cannot meet every need in the world. We cannot please every person in the world. We cannot satisfy every request in the world. But some of us try. And in the end, we run out of fuel. Have a sane estimate of your abilities and stick to them.
”
”
Max Lucado (Just Like Jesus: A Heart Like His)
“
when a really cold day like this come along he’d take my grammaw, and the kids, my uncle and my aunt and my daddy—he was the youngest—and the serving girl and the hired man, and he’d go down with them to the creek, give ’em a little rum-and-herbs drink, it was a recipe he’d got from the old country, then he’d pour creek water over them. Course they’d freeze in seconds, stiff and blue as so many popsicles. He’d haul them to a trench they’d already dug and filled with straw, and he’d stack ’em down there, one by one, like so much cordwood in the trench, and he’d pack straw around them, then he’d cover the top of the trench with two-b’-fours to keep the critters out—in those days there were wolves and bears and all sorts you never see any more around here, no hodags though, that’s just a story about the hodags and I wouldn’t ever stretch your credulity by telling you no stories, no, sir,—he’d cover the trench with two-b’-fours and the next snowfall would cover it up completely, save for the flag he’d planted to show him where the trench was. “Then my grampaw would ride through the winter in comfort and never have to worry about running out of food or out of fuel. And when he saw that the true spring was coming he’d go to the flag, and he’d dig his way down through the snow, and he’d move the two-b’-fours, and he’d carry them in one by one and set the family in front of the fire to thaw. Nobody ever minded except one of the hired men who lost half an ear to a family of mice who nibbled it off one time my grampaw didn’t push those two-b’-fours all the way closed. Of course, in those days we had real winters. You could do that back then. These pussy winters we get nowadays it don’t hardly get cold enough.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (American Gods)
“
The engine in a rocket ship does not fire without a small spark first. We all need small sparks, small accomplishments in our lives to fuel the big ones. Think of your small accomplishments as kindling. When you want a bonfire, you don’t start by lighting a big log. You collect some witch’s hair—a small pile of hay or some dry, dead grass. You light that, and then add small sticks and bigger sticks before you feed your tree stump into the blaze. Because it’s the small sparks, which start small fires, that eventually build enough heat to burn the whole fucking forest down.
”
”
David Goggins (Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds)
“
Sunrise Sunset by Maisie Aletha Smikle
Dusk or Dawn
Morning or Evening
Night or Noon
Summer or Winter
The sun is at its best
And never takes a rest
Delivering Fahrenheit and Kilowatt
No matter what
From the beginning of time
Till the end of time
The sun shines
Astoundingly divine
It captivates your mind
Heat like a ball of fire
That neither consumes or depletes
And requires no ignition
From whence does this ball of fire come
Extending in the universe
Shining from the sky
Hotter than volcanic lava
Nested up above
Stronger than gravity
The sun stands
Untouchable...
Unanchored....
Setting not the heavens or the skies ablaze
Ever kindled and never unkindled
Its fiery furnace requires no wood
Its fiery furnace requires no fuel
It cannot be extinguish
It requires not human intervention
Nor interruption
Sunrise or Sunset
The sun never takes a rest
Nighttime or noontime
The sun withstands the test of time
Ever shining
Ever sending its warmth
To a globe that has grown cold
To melt the frigid hearts of an ice cold nation
”
”
Maisie Aletha Smikle
“
Calmer parents make for calmer kids. Our temperament and energy levels help set the tone for the house. Every time we freak out, we raise the level of tension in our homes, which is exhausting and can create painful rifts in family connections. Alternately, the calmer we are, the calmer our kids might be. I’m not saying that you’re 100 percent responsible for your children’s behavior and energy level, and your Jedi mind tricks won’t work all the time. However, to the extent that we can avoid adding fuel to their psychotic little fires, there will be a significant and noticeable difference for the entire family. Having said all of that, I kind of get the appeal of losing your shit. It’s quick, easy, and requires relatively little thought, and can we all ’fess up and admit that sometimes it feels good to stick it to the kid? What’s more, it can be effective. Sort of. For a few minutes. It’s certainly possible that if you scare the crap out of your children often enough, they’ll do whatever you want just to keep you from losing it again. But walking on eggshells around someone is not the same as respecting them, and as soon as your kids are old enough to take some control over their time and space, they’re going to react to you the same way you did the last time you worked for an explosive, unpredictable boss: AVOID. AVOID. AVOID. Once they disconnect from you in that way, parenting becomes a lot harder and less fun. While it’s always possible to rebuild a relationship, that’s a challenge you don’t need.
”
”
Carla Naumburg (How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent)
“
Essentially, amor fati is the attitude that regardless of what comes your way, every experience is to be welcomed and accepted, regardless of whether it appears to be positive or negative. When it comes to challenges, amor fati goes beyond simple acceptance. You should love whatever difficulties you face because they are what forge you into a better person. So just like fuel for a fire, those tough times are fuel for your personal growth.
”
”
Jason Hemlock (Stoicism: How to Use Stoic Philosophy to Find Inner Peace and Happiness)
“
Tell your masters that I march to meet them in open war, tell them to be ready, that they have only given fuel to this insidious fire. You can continue playing your games of politics, my lords and ladies. I have a war to fight.
”
”
Mostafa A. M. Elbehery (The Sapphire Shore (Timeless' Aria))
“
Decline love that requires a compromise of spirit. The one that will feed your soul and fuel your fire is one that offers full agency over your heart, your body, your creativity, and your life.
Remember, your love is a gift, a truth, a holy, sacred thing.
”
”
Jeanette LeBlanc
“
Bolstering your friendship is so critical in large part because it fuels the romance, passion, and great sex that we all hope marriage will provide. In fact, when a couple come to me complaining that sex has become routine, infrequent, or virtually nonexistent, I don’t start by handing them a sex manual. Instead, I guide them through the first three principles so that they can reinforce and rediscover the camaraderie that brought them together in the first place. The strength of a couple’s friendship not only stokes the fire but also foretells the relationship’s future because it is the fundamental ingredient of positive sentiment override. As we’ve seen, PSO is like an insurance policy—it dramatically increases the odds that repair attempts will regularly work and defuse tension. So whatever the current state of your marriage, it will benefit enormously if you support, reinvigorate, or, if necessary, resuscitate your friendship. The first step in this process is to take a look at how much you really (still) know about each other, the topic
”
”
John M. Gottman (The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert)
“
Playing with fire isn't a reckless gamble, it's an art. A daring dance between risk and reward that, when mastered, fuels the remarkable engine of your distinctive advantage.
”
”
Donna Karlin (A League of Your Own: Discovering Your Distinctive Advantage)
“
When people didn't believe in me, rather than that letting it get me down, I let that fuel my fire.
”
”
Kathy Palokoff (Firestarters: How Innovators, Instigators, and Initiators Can Inspire You to Ignite Your Own Life)
“
I knew how tragedy like that, no matter the circumstances, could so easily become a core piece of your being. Mine had. I just set it on fire and let it fuel me. It just as easily could have eaten me alive.
”
”
Carissa Broadbent (Daughter of No Worlds (The War of Lost Hearts, #1))
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I am building a fire, and every day I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match. —Mia Hamm, member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame
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Raoul Davis Jr. (Firestarters: How Innovators, Instigators, and Initiators Can Inspire You to Ignite Your Own Life)
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Use the toxicity as a fuel to fire your passion.
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Vinaya
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You’re my greatest competition.
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Krista Ritchie (Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters #3))
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And I know I could make this so good for us.” A soft gaze of his nose shot fire through me. “We’re like flame and fuel, you and I. If we came together, it would be explosive.
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Sophia Travers (Partner Material (Keep Your Enemy Closer, #1))
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Why Long Term Goal Setting is Largely Pointless.
Desires change, motivations change. What you wanted the most in high school is probably not what you wanted the most 10 years after that. In high school, being popular with the opposite sex and trying to look cool was probably the number one priority. After ten years, the number one priority is to probably get a good job or have a stable income. And if you have that, to find the right relationship for life. Twenty years after high school, it is probably to see your Kids do well in school and so on.
Having a dream that you desire with the same extreme intensity as you desired it when you were 16 is possible but uncommon. Most of the times, you will realize that you probably don’t desire it after twenty or if you do, you probably don’t care AS much as you used to.
How can a fire keep on raging once the fuel is burnt up? How can anything be accomplished if the burning desire to achieve it is no longer there after a long stretch of time?
And there is nothing wrong with wanting something else after twenty years. That’s human nature. You don’t have to keep slogging on for something that you don’t care about.
The point is this is why super long term individualistic goals can sometimes get vague and pointless because you may realize midway that you don’t even care about them anymore.
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Anubhav Srivastava (UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life (What They Don't Want You to Know Book 1))
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This milkshake-multitasking, which is the truth behind multitasking, creates patterns of flightiness and lack of concentration that are unfortunately often erroneously labeled ADD and ADHD and that are too often unnecessarily medicated, adding fuel to the fire.
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Caroline Leaf (Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health (Includes the '21-Day Brain Detox Plan'))
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long scar down the left side of her face, she nodded. “Bravery is a choice. However, you can’t wait until the moment you need to be brave to reach for that bravery. Because if you haven’t been purposefully tending to it, building it up, you may find that it is not there when you need it. You must stoke the fires of courage little by little, day by day, so they are burning bright long before you ever need them. And you fuel or douse those fires—fanning the flames or snuffing them out—with the words you say to yourself. And with the words you allow others to say about you in your presence.
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Stacia Stark (A Queen This Fierce and Deadly (Kingdom of Lies, #4))
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In 2018 I went back to the mountains to become a wildland firefighter again. I hadn’t been in the field for three years, and since then I’d gotten used to training in nice gyms and living in comfort. Some might call it luxury. I was in a plush hotel room in Vegas when the 416 fire sparked and I got the call. What started as a 2,000-acre grass fire in the San Juan Range of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains was growing into a record breaking, 55,000-acre monster. I hung up and caught a prop plane to Grand Junction, loaded up in a U.S. Forest Service truck, and drove three hours to the outskirts of Durango, Colorado, where I suited up in my green Nomex pants and yellow, long-sleeved button down, my hard hat, field glasses, and gloves, and grabbed my super Pulaski—a wildland fire fighter’s most trusted weapon. I can dig for hours with that thing, and that’s what we do. We don’t spray water. We specialize in containment, and that means digging lines and clearing brush so there’s no fuel in the path of an inferno. We dig and run, run and dig, until every muscle is spent. Then we do it all over again.
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David Goggins (Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds)
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see the fire in your eyes and all I wanna do is fuel it. Light me up, set my soul on fire. I’m yours.
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Becka Mack (Consider Me (Playing For Keeps, #1))
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But how?” she says, her voice breaking on the word. “How do I get them out of my head?” “Set them on fire.” Her eyes go wide. “In your mind,” I say, attempting a smile. “Let them fuel the fire that keeps you striving.” I reach out, touch my fingers to her cheek. “Idiots are highly flammable, love.
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Tahereh Mafi (Restore Me (Shatter Me, #4))
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The question of good and the nature of evil will always be on of philosophy’s most intriguing problems, up there with the problem of existence itself. I’m not quarreling with your choice of issues, only with your intellectually diminished approach. If evil means to be self-motivated, to be the center of one’s own universe, to live on one’s own terms, then every artiste every thinker, every original mind, is evil. Because we dare to look through our own eyes rather than mouth clichés lent us from the so-called Fathers. To dare to see is to steal fire from the Gods. This is mankind’s destiny, the engine which fuels us as a race.
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Janet Fitch (White Oleander)