Date: 1966

"Deep in the recesses of my brain... a tiny red-hot little flame began to grow."

— Shepherd, Jean; Bob Clark, Leigh Brown

Date: 1984

"Closing his eyes, he felt for the knot of rage, the pure small coal of his anger."

— Gibson, William (b. 1948)

Date: 1988

"For nearly fifty years, in the dark, moviegoers burn imagination to heat up reality."

— Godard, Jean-Luc (b. 1930)

Date: 1996

"You would certainly feel stimulated, since one of your brain's main "brakes" would be disabled. But other brakes, such as GABA, would still be functioning and in the absence of any extra direct stimulants overall activity wouldn't kindle into the kind of neural conflagration that can occur with ...

— Braun, Stephen

Date: 2000

"Mad thoughts. Sparks from the wheel."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2000

"I glimpsed a molten core to consciousness, a protean heat where everything could be reshaped. Yes, a molten core, like the core of the earth, deeper than the deposits of civilisation, beyond the complacencies of archaeology."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2001

"I walked around this place, said Austerlitz, his left hand pointing to the tall brick façade of the hospital building towering behind the wall, in the curiously remote state of mind induced by the drugs I was being given; both desolate and weirdly contented I wandered, all through that winter, u...

— Sebald, W. G. (1944-2001)

Date: 2001

"Wind, ocean, fire: the things we like to liken our passions to don't break, can't stop."

— Richardson, James (b. 1950)

Date: 2006

"That he could enkindle in the heart of the child what was ashes in his own."

— McCarthy, Cormac (b. 1933)

Date: 2009, trans. 2012

"But with the flame of alcohol burning in my brain I took no notice of the atmosphere that otherwise would have affected me, for although I wasn't outright happy, I was elated, exhilarated, motivated by the desire to continue this, which not even a direct reminder of Dad's death could shake, it w...

— Knausgaard, Karl Ove (b. 1968)