The Flames Quotes

“It’s quite a battle the two of you have chosen to undertake. Against religion. Against society. You’ve lost the approval of upstanding people. It doesn’t bother you to forfeit order and conformity?’ The priest does not take his eyes from Vally. ‘I’m a simple man,”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“Life is only ever this breath, and this breath, and this breath.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“believe in love. For without it, we are nothing.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“I have no idea how love is supposed to feel.’ ‘It’s meant to feel warm, and safe. It’s meant to feel as if we have all the time in the world and we only want to spend it with each other.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“The cruelty of this life,’ Adele says, ‘is that we succumb to our fate and then we have to live with it, day after day after day. We’re sculpted by choices we often don’t have the liberty to make. Then we find ourselves shaped into something we never intended to be. You end up left with just the tiniest bit of yourself, something you hardly recognize.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“You don’t want to hear about all my failures and heartbreak.’ ‘What else do I have to distract me from my own?”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“each syllable. ‘You are the most poisonous person on the planet. I’d rather die than lay eyes on you again. I’m horrified to call you my sister. To think that I once looked up to you, that I loved you.’ Edith is trembling. ‘And you!’ She turns on Egon. ‘I don’t know what or who to believe any more. One of you is lying to me! My sister or my husband”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“She can’t shake the feeling that it’s a punishment for her actions, a curse.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“You’re not my puppeteer. And I’m not yours to be manipulated, Egon. Why on earth would you suggest such a thing?’ she demands, throwing the sheet back over her portrait.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“But now he finds a strange beauty in the marks and the men who bear them.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“I’m not strong enough for this.’ Egon’s words are thin and strained. ‘My talent will be entirely wasted. And for what? So I can die in some god-forsaken country, fighting a war I don’t believe in? I’ve seen them! Injured soldiers, poor young bastards from all kinds of backgrounds – Czechs, Magyars, Bosnians, Slovaks. They’ve been shipped off in their thousands,”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“But of course, her sister got there first, staking her claim, declaring him her own.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“The women he painted knew what they were doing,’ Adele replies. ‘Society had dismissed them but Schiele wanted them. Many would have been grateful – for the attention, for the money. It wouldn’t have been much, but it was a victory of sorts.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“I’ve been in your life for four years. I stood by you when you were imprisoned. I followed you around to god-forsaken places. I travelled with you to your exhibitions, slept next to you, listening to your damned snoring. I managed the business side of things, dealt with the buyers, and dare I say it, I inspired your most profound works. I’d have liked to hear it directly from you that you’re marrying another woman. I mean, imagine my surprise to find out you had proposed to someone else while”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“No erotic work of art is filth if it is artistically significant. It is only turned into filth through the eyes of the beholder.’ Egon has to raise his voice to be heard. The judge’s eyes”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“Egon relays such updates several times a day, then bids the locals farewell. Vally observes the subtle dance on their faces. Are they wondering how can it be that a once respectable family has fallen so far? A woman widowed, with an artist for a son and unmarried daughters …”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“A young woman should spread her wings, experience the world. Your mother will still be here when you return. She’ll be no better off if you make yourself miserable.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“He would only have treated her like an unpaid maid; a woman to wash for him, prepare his meals, model whenever the mood took him, and relinquish herself to him when he needed it. No, it wouldn’t do.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“She didn’t come to Vienna because she fancied a change of scenery, or to indulge any fantasies of escape, but because she and her mother had to find work. She returns the upended”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“Vally doesn’t believe him. She observes this strange, animated man and his habits. She has never known anyone like him.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“I give the men of Vienna what they desire, what they’ll pay for. It’s not my fault there’s so much hypocrisy.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“Do not become a wife to a mediocre man, a mother to thankless children, or spend your days suffering as you perform the duties of the home. There’s no dignity to my life. Take your chances wherever you see them, have courage, and don’t ever be chastened for doing what you need to do in order”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“He’s offering her up to his thirsty guest, like a pitcher of wine to be shared between them, having relished the first sip.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“I’m not a saint. But we women are expected to be perfect and pure, while you men do whatever you please with no thought for the consequences.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“Egon is silent. The man takes a step closer. ‘You listen to me,’ he sneers into her brother’s face. ‘Don’t you go approaching young girls on the street. Don’t invite them to your apartment, pretending it’s all about art, or whatever you call it. You’re a menace to society. You’ll land in serious trouble one of these days.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“We’re practically homeless as it is, thanks to his recklessness. And he’s been hell-bent on punishing me. For what, I’ll never know. But to do this? To annihilate his family? I never believed he’d be so cruel. He has taken away the single thing that could have protected us.’ She turns to her children. ‘We have nothing left.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“Mother will stop telling us her folk tales if all they do is scare you,’ Egon whispers. ‘You’re not a baby. There’s no such thing as dragons or witches or water sprites.’ ‘I know that!’ Gertrude sticks”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“Staring back at her, reflected in the window, is a wild-haired witch with a black eye and stitches holding her ripped skin together. Adele shudders at the sight.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“Stop! Stop all that screaming,’ he instructs. ‘You’re not the first woman Schiele has sent here,’ he says. ‘Many of his models find their way to this place. He’s a greedy, careless man and you should be glad to be rid of him.’ ‘No! You’re lying,”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames

“could simply be over-indulgence or something more serious. You should see a physician.’ Adele stares blankly. ‘And you should count yourself lucky, you know,’ the woman continues. ‘You’ve been spared a horrendous ordeal.”
― Sophie Haydock, The Flames