Fireflies Quotes

“Fireflies in the Garden
By Robert Frost 1874–1963

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.”
― Robert Frost, The Poetry of Robert Frost

“It's time to make love, douse the glim; The fireflies twinkle and dim; The stars lean together Like birds of a feather, And the loin lies down with the limb.”
― Conrad Aiken

“I slept under the moonlight and set my soul free, caged within jars like fireflies".”
― Prajakta Mhadnak

“It was as though committing murders had purged him of lesser rudeness. Or perhaps, Starling thought, it excited him to see her marked in this particular way. She couldn't tell. The sparks in his eyes flew into his darkness like fireflies down a cave.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“Magic is seeing wonder in nature's every little thing, seeing how wonderful the fireflies are and how magical are the dragonflies.”
― Ama H.Vanniarachchy

“I am lost in the embrace of a soft summer night, surrendering to its ecstasy while the voyeuristic fireflies wink knowingly.”
― Patricia Robin Woodruff

“Fireflies are stars that could not journey to the sky.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover

“Fireflies, to me, are nighttime butterflies,
Dazzling the night with magical flashes of light.
When I see these teeny tiny sparks dart in the night,
I am overcome with a sense of comfort and calm,
Same as when a butterfly flutters
around me during the day.
I’m drawn to the dance of both astonishing critters.
They remind me of life.
They remind me of hope.”
― Melody Lee, Moon Gypsy

“When I was a young, fireflies were as magical to me as a rare southern snow, newborn puppies, and a full moon. Back then, fireflies came in masses, filling the nearby brush and woods with the golden-green glow of something elusive and mysterious.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose

“Put the two of us together and we become like moonlight and fireflies... all burning and glowing and lighting up the night.”
― Melody Lee, Moon Gypsy

“He was goin' on four and he used to eat fireflies. I don't know. I think he thought they'd make him glow.”
― Danielle Bennett, Havemercy

“Catch fireflies in flight, crinkle grass under your toes and know that you are always beloved always beautiful .... a dream within a dream.”
― spoken silence

“During my childhood, I saw at least ten thousand fireflies shimmering their amber lights in the darkness and never once longed to dissect a single one to discover the source of its magic. I’m older now, my youth behind me, and fireflies continue to fill me with the joy of childhood. I refuse to dissect their magic. We all need a miracle or two or three to cling to, and I will always cling to the miracle of fireflies on a summer’s night.”
― Brenda Sutton Rose

“The fireflies flew up into the sky, free.
I watched them until I could no longer tell them apart from the stars.”
― Paul Pen, The Light of the Fireflies

“Fireflies were like fairy tales. They appealed to the young, the old, and the imaginative. In a world of detestable insects, these bugs were the exception. They had an adorable way of flying so whimsically despite their butts being on fire.”
― Angela Panayotopulos, The Wake Up

“If there was a predominant season in heaven, Jenny Flanigan believed it would
be summer. The long days and warm nights felt endless no matter how rushed the rest of the year was. With summer came the sense that all of life slowed
to smell the deep green grass, to watch fireflies dance on an evening breeze, or to hear the gentle lap of lake water against the sandy shore.

Summer was barbecues and quiet conversation in the fading light of a nine o'clock sunset. It was cutoffs and flip-flops and afternoons on Lake Monroe.”
― Karen Kingsbury, Summer

“In the summer evenings, fireflies swarm around the tarn, making something hateful almost beautiful.”
― Bethany Griffin, The Fall

“These fireflies that you say you see are like the chick that hatched in our hands,” she explained.
“Huh?”
“I gave you a very special power the night you brought me the egg. I taught you to see things like I have to see them,” she said. She laid a wrinkly finger on my forehead. “Imagining them. And I see you’ve managed to make good use of that power.”
I let out a sigh of wonder.
“There’s no creature more amazing than one that can make its own light,” Grandma went on.”
― Paul Pen, The Light of the Fireflies

“In a few moments, pale yellow-green dots flashed all around them. The longer they waited, the more dots appeared, little stars twinkling just for them.
"Are these fireflies?"
Sanna nodded. "There are always more of them here than in any other part of the orchard. It's better than fireworks."
"We don't have fireflies in California."
Sanna looked around her and gently cupped her hands around a bug that had flown close to them.
"Look inside." She held her hands out to Bass, who peeked between her fingers at the creature who flashed in her makeshift cage.
"Can I try?"
"I insist. We can't go back until you catch your first firefly."
Sanna let hers go and it flew straight for Bass's white T-shirt. He gently cupped it and peeked inside. Watching his eyes widen in amazement, Sanna understood something she'd always missed. While kids were messy, distracting, and obviously a ton of work, they also opened a path to the past. Through Bass's wonder, she felt ten years old again- catching her first fireflies and discovering the magic of the Looms.”
― Amy E. Reichert, The Simplicity of Cider

“Moths, large and white and fluttering in a manner just a little too bat-like, came out of hiding to revel in this unexpected dismissal of day. So too did fireflies: Rapunzel squealed in delight when, like tiny candles, they twinkled in slow, unhurried loops around grass.
"Is this your mother's magic?" she shrieked, clawing at Gina's arm. " ARE THOSE FAIRIES ?"
"No, those are lightning bugs, Princess," Flynn said with a sigh. "In-sects. Whose butts glow."
"Right. I'm an idiot," Rapunzel said, trying to get one to land on her. "Because in real life, fairies aren't real but witches are."
"Touché," he said good-naturedly, with a bow.
Rapunzel felt her chest flutter.”
― Liz Braswell, What Once Was Mine

“There are fireflies winking around his head, landing in his hair. A crown. His dive is infuriatingly graceful.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“On our first afternoon on the trail, the branches bare, two fireflies appeared in the same instant. The lightning bugs twirled sparks and squiggles of pure yellow gold, sometimes taking turns and sometimes harmonizing, their air-flecking fine as precious metal—blinking close, and then diverging, as if they were gently dotting the path of a conversation. They danced in reality; we followed the movement of one spark.

I felt connected to the luminescent creatures, my mind airborne with them. Trails enabled me to better see the world, to notice fine aspects invisible from an airplane, the most basic things we miss. Seeing life at a pace at which you can actually observe nuance, the speed of stepping, the beautiful inspiring texture of “plain” reality becomes visible—God smiling in the detail.”
― Aspen Matis, Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir

“The phosphorescence was particularly good that night. By plunging your hand into the water and dragging it along you could draw a wide golden-green ribbon of cold fire across the sea, and when you dived as you hit the surface it seemed as though you had plunged into a frosty furnace of glinting light. When we were tired we waded out of the sea, the water running off our bodies so that we seemed to be on fire, and lay on the sand to eat. Then, as the wine was opened at the end of the meal, as if by arrangement, a few fireflies appeared in the olives behind us – a sort of overture to the show.

First of all there were just two or three green specks, sliding smoothly through the trees, winking regularly. But gradually more and more appeared, until parts of the olive-grove were lit with a weird green glow. Never had we seen so many fireflies congregated in one spot; they flicked through the trees in swarms, they crawled on the grass, the bushes and olive-trunks, they drifted in swarms over our heads and landed on the rocks, like green embers. Glittering streams of them flew out over the bay, swirling over the water, and then, right on cue, the porpoises appeared, swimming in line into the bay, rocking rhythmically through the water, their backs as if painted with phosphorus. In the centre of the bay they swam around, diving and rolling, occasionally leaping high in the air and falling back into a conflagration of light. With the fireflies above and illuminated porpoises below it was a fantastic sight. We could even see the luminous trails beneath the surface where the porpoises swam in fiery patterns across the sandy bottom, and when they leapt high in the air drops of emerald glowing water flicked from them, and you could not tell if it was phosphorescence or fireflies you were looking at. For an hour or so we watched this pageant, and then slowly the fireflies drifted back inland farther down the coast. Then the porpoises lined up and sped out to sea, leaving a flaming path behind them flickered and glowed, and then died slowly, like a glowing branch laid across the bay.”
― Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals: Abridged Version

“It's just the two of us. She shows me more secret passageways through the woods until the trees clear to reveal a large, moonlit meadow. We stop at the edge. Emma's looking at me expectantly, and at first I'm not sure what I'm supposed to see. I see tall, unkempt grass surrounded by trees. Then, like my eyes are playing tricks on me, fluorescent green lights flash on and off in the field, some of them rising up like bubbles in a pot of boiling water, some shooting across and lighting up the ground below them.
"Whoa."
"Pretty, right?" Emma says, turning her neck slowly from me to the meadow.
"I almost never see fireflies."
"I did some research, and they're not even supposed to exist west of Kansas. I have no idea why there's so many of them here."
We walk through the field together, and in the blinking green lights I can see Emma's hand inches from my own, I see the curves and dips of her face in profile and I wonder how it is that I can find the space between things beautiful.
Emma stops for a second and reaches into the waist-high grass, her hand disappearing in the dark. She pulls it back out to reveal a berry I have never seen before, not in the smorgasbord of rainbow-colored fruit at American grocery stores and definitely not anywhere in Mexico. It is the size of a child's fist, and the skin is prickly, like a lychee's.
"When I was a kid, if I was mad at my mom, I'd hide out here for the day, picking out berries," Emma says. "I had no way of knowing if they were poisonous, but I'd feast on them anyway." She digs her thumb into the skin to reveal a pulpy white interior. She takes a bite out of it and then hands it to me. It's sweet and tangy and would be great in a vinaigrette, as a sauce, maybe along with some roasted duck. "I don't even think anyone else knows about these, because I've never seen them anywhere else. I'm sure she'd put it on her menu if she found out about them, but I like keeping this one thing to myself."
We grab them by the handful, take them with us down the hill toward the lake. Sitting on the shore, gentle waves lapping at our ankles, we peel the berries one by one. A day or two ago, I thought of Emma as pretty. Tonight, her profile outlined by a full moon, she looks beautiful to me. I wish I could drive the thought away, but there it is anyway. The water---or something else about these nights---really does feel like it can cure hopelessness.”
― Adi Alsaid, North of Happy

“No espero nada.
Probablemente tampoco sea él.
Probablemente en un punto habrá que soltar.
Sé que todo esto dolerá
Sé que quizá todo vuelva a estar jodido
Y qué más da.
Vendrán los días buenos
Como las luciérnagas
Intermitentemente
Y eso bastará
Eso bastará.”
― Alejandro Ricaño, El amor de las luciérnagas / Más pequeños que el Guggenheim

“But now I wanted nothing more than to be the girl so free that fireflies shined as her night-lights, cicadas sang her symphonies, and the forest stood as her cathedral.”
― Meagan Church, The Last Carolina Girl

“Fireflies are like small ounces of magic”
― Haleigh Kemmerly, Winston Narwhal and the First Wish Pocket Edition

“Over the city, under the Hollywood sign
City lights are flickering, like a million fireflies
He turns up the radio and says to me
Remember this old melody?
Hot Cali sunshine, radiating late June
Driving up the coastline, top down, me and you
Seashells, sand angels, taking in the sunset
Baby I’m dreaming of when we first met”
― Marie Helen Abramyan

“The fireflies, they are beautiful… But their beauty may not last long. The beetle flashes their light for only a few weeks each summer. After they mate and lay their eggs, they die,” said Phrin.
“If their sole purpose is to procreate, then the only worthy thing is their short-lived beautiful life.” She added. “But we are human, not fireflies. Aren’t we? We… have a long life and we live more than just that…”
― Asvoria K., Teleios: Flaw, is Perfect!

“I like the flowers, and the bees, the birds, and the trees. I like wisps of steam floating upward from wiry ferns and the fireflies dancing at night. I like everything that belongs to all of us.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya