The House Is On Fire Quotes
"It’s possible I would have been no worse off barefoot."
"Be a gentleman and walk in front of us."
"I just want to know that you’re going to be all right."
"Don’t be confused. I much prefer novels that don’t relegate women to housewifery."
"I’m still your wife, even if I can’t share your bed."
"The truth, of course, is that the tickets were as much a gift to Sally as anyone else."
"Pardon us, excuse me. We’ve already got tickets, we’re just trying to get inside."
"Is that the funny building that’s shaped like an octagon?"
"You are allowed to forget any number of things."
"My Lord says to get your own damned mattress."
"Don’t be alarmed! There’s nothing to worry about!"
"All he needs is something—anything—he can use to catch those falling souls."
"Gilbert feels the ladder shift beneath him and wants to grab for the rungs, but can’t, his arms full of cotton and silk."
"You think it might be a dream? A nightmare."
"The man lies there, smoking like a ham, in the wet grass."
"I suppose they decided they’d get out of here before I asked them for something else."
"I don’t need to remind any of y’all that Maria’s the type to send a servant into a burning building for so much as a lost button."
"I’m saying if everyone thinks I’m dead, I might finally be able to be free."
"Mrs. Cowley can stitch this up. I’ll leave her some catgut if she doesn’t have any."
"You work for Elizabeth Preston? Or you work for me?"
"I can’t stay, Mama. Not with Elliott the way he is."
"I feel sure she’d want me to try to keep the leg."
"You look like a new person, dear. All cleaned up."
"Just that you’re in a different position than most of us."
"I’m not doing it for her mama. I’m doing it for Sara."
"Theaters catch fire, Jack. You can’t put all those pyrotechnics under one roof without occasionally running into problems."
"I don’t think she’ll be very happy without the use of her leg."
"We’ll get through this. And, if you make good decisions, there will be plenty of opportunities for a boy like you."
"I’ve never heard anyone do the animal voices half as well as you do."
"It’s funny. Several of the people I spoke with seem convinced the fire started backstage."
"This decision you’re making—it’s potentially the choice between life and death."
"Not one of the men in the crowd looks half as sorrowful as the woman sitting before her, which makes her wonder how a resolution written by women might have read."
"The only person who knows Cecily is here is her mother, and if it is her, Cecily feels sure she will announce herself right away."
"At first, this silence confuses Cecily, but after several long seconds pass, she begins to panic. Something isn’t right."
"Cecily?" comes a small voice. Cecily closes her eyes, thinks she might die right there where she lays. It’s her little brother.
"Jesus, Moses," says Cecily. "You’re going to get me killed."
"Gilbert figures that if Louisa was badly injured, she might have been taken to a nearby home for treatment."
"As soon as he approaches the bed and sees the extent of the girl’s injuries, he wants to look away."
"It ain’t her," he says to Mrs. Cowley, and they move out of the room quietly so as not to wake the girl sleeping in the other bed.
"Your mama here?" he asks his nephew. Moses shakes his head no.
"Your papa’s been taken in," Gilbert says finally. "And I need your mama to tell Master Price, quick as she can."
"The penalty’s stiff, so I would think so. Six dollars and sixty-six cents per hour."
"I once heard Louis Duport say he owes the man everything," says Anderson.
"I know, but wouldn’t you say that most people got out?"
"Who’s going to recognize you?" asks Della. "So long as the Prices aren’t in the coach?"
"I can still picture Placide’s grand jeté perfectly."
"What about now? You walking down here in broad daylight. You don’t think that’s going to raise anyone’s suspicions?"
"How do you think it’s going to look if I’m the only one who doesn’t go to bed tonight?"
"Are you sure it’s not too much trouble?" she asks. "I really can walk."
"We can rebuild," says Anderson. "Fireproof the whole thing from top to bottom."
"It’s a testament to my brother’s bravery. And yours."
"What our mama knows is going to be the least of it."
"It’s not like we’ve got a place to perform anyway," Anderson says, and Jack can feel the weight of his accusation.
"You wouldn’t have believed it," says Twaits. "All we had to do was say the word ‘Negro’ and they were on their horses, kicking up dirt."
"You mean to tell me that you were given free rein to search, but no pass to explain what the hell you’re doing?"
"I didn’t. I mean, I thought I did. But Mama said I was dreaming."
"I pushed and shoved, like everybody else."
"I don’t know about you, but what I could really use right now is a nap."
"You realize that, even as we speak, free and enslaved Negroes from all over the city are being rounded up, questioned, and, in many cases, detained for a revolt that no one—save your own men—actually witnessed?"
And what do I do about Nancy?" asks Jack. "I think it's safe to leave her off the list.
"At first, she put up something cheap. Just a simple wooden structure—not much bigger than a milking shed. But she could barely pay the actors’ wages with what she was making."
"It’s all lies, I tell you," says Placide.
I’m watching out for you," he says. "How you going to watch out for me up in a tree?
"My sister says she saw her that night. Out on the theater green. And that she didn’t have a scratch on her."
"We have never tried to mislead you," says Anderson.
"I got word my sister’s daughter died in the fire."
"Seems to me that, on a day like today, Moses shouldn’t be doing anything other than grieving his sister’s untimely demise."
"I didn’t think it, I know it," Elliott says confidently about Cecily being alive.
"This, this thing you’ve got with Cecily, it’s an obsession. I should have put a stop to it years ago. But it’s gone on long enough."
"Hear me, son. Cecily is dead. You are getting married in less than a week."
"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."
"You think my free papers are the only ones I ever bought?"
"You must like that name, Ruth, if you’re letting me keep it."
"You choosing to go, not being sold out from under me. And you got something better for yourself in store."
"I thought we would die, right there, in each other’s arms, except that the next thing I knew, Archie’s hand was on my head, and his foot was on my shoulder."
"The divine and I are not on speaking terms, at present."
You are not hearing me," says Ivy. "No one can see you.
"You think you’re the only person who’s lost something in this fire?"
"My name should appear in the report. All of our names should be there."
"I think I’ve sacrificed enough for today."
"May that be the last sound she ever hears him utter."
"Less a goodbye than an 'I’ll be seeing you'."