Burning Bright Quotes

“Peace, tentative like a new shoot of grass, began working its way through the anxiety she had been carrying with her for a week. She who had never been more than one hundred miles from home in her life was now nearly ten times that distance away and preparing to go even farther. Thank you, papa, for driving me out of my tiny life into something so much vaster than I imagined. Thank you for thinking so little of me that I was forced to find a place where I was valued. Thank you.”
― Melissa McShane, Burning Bright

“I don’t like waiting,” he said. “Never have. When there’s something you want to do, and you can’t because it has to happen at the right time or everything will be ruined…and yet you’re ready, inside, to do or say whatever it is…am I making sense? Because I think I may be spouting madness.”
― Melissa McShane, Burning Bright

“and mouth and made her eyes feel roasted. She felt no fear, merely sat with her arms around her knees, her white, flannel nightgown tucked over her feet, and marveled at the fire’s power and beauty. She had never seen such color. It made every memory she had of this dismal room seem even more faded and dispirited. Then the heat battered at her again, and she realized she would die if she did nothing. So she reached out from within herself, and extinguished it. It vanished between one heartbeat and the next, leaving behind the cold ash and charred beams of a long-dead fire. Patches of wallpaper here and there lent a leprous look to the walls. She heard screaming from somewhere nearby; that, and the void left by the fire’s howl, filled her ears with a dull ringing sound. I believe”
― Melissa McShane, Burning Bright