“Where the Flame was burningBy the long grey roadthere is ash after a fire gone outand signs of departurein dust and heat.That is all.But the flame that burnedin the circle of the travellerswhirled only before the eyein unextinguished longing.They were travelling for a dreamand could give all,and must go on in their searchingsand their unease,and the bonfire burned onin every edge of sight,whilst new searchers dug in the ashesand in the ground under the ashes,and it is dreamthat is happinessfor those journeying.”

“I should get rid of those boxes, full of all that junk. Burn them all – make a bonfire in the garden and burn the bloody lot of it. All the captured bits of me, the scraps and pictures and notes and letters, burn it all, burn the lot of it – every last trace of me. Every last bit of me – up in flames and gone for good. Forgotten and gone. Rid me of these memories... Yes, that’s something to do this afternoon. Get out into the garden, and burn the past... To ashes with.”

“Sometimes a flame must level a forest to ash before new growth can begin. I believe Wonderland needed a scouring.”

“you must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame;how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?”

“You and I move through time like a flame on a string. The ashes behind are the past, consumed, unreachable. The string ahead is the future. But the only moment we inhabit, the only moment where we can act, is the present, the point where the flame burns, the point where time touches eternity.”

“Bloody flaming ashes”