Here are 22 thought-provoking quotes from Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, exploring themes of family, identity, and choices that shape our lives.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng is a novel that stays with you long after the final page is turned.
Set in the meticulously planned community of Shaker Heights, Ohio, it unravels the lives of two families whose intertwined fates expose the complexities of privilege, identity, motherhood, and morality.
With its layered storytelling and some extremely unlikable characters, Ng’s writing is rich with lines that challenge readers to question their own assumptions and beliefs.
The 22 quotes from Little Fires Everywhere below showcase Ng’s talent for capturing raw emotion with just a few words.
Whether you’ve read the book or watched the popular TV adaptation, these quotes offer a glimpse into the heart of the original story, sparking reflection on choices, relationships, and the fires, both literal and metaphorical, that shape our lives.
These quotes will leave you inspired, moved, and perhaps even unsettled as we explore the words that make this novel so unforgettable.
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Little Fires Everywhere Quotes About Starting Over
Starting over is a recurring theme in Little Fires Everywhere, as characters face new beginnings and grapple with the challenges of change.
These quotes explore the fear, hope, and resilience tied to starting afresh, offering insights into how the past shapes us and the courage it takes to rebuild.
Most of the time, everyone deserves more than one chance. We all do things we regret now and then. You just have to carry them with you.
He felt as if he’d dived into a deep, clear lake and discovered it was a shallow, knee-deep pond. What did you do? Well, you stood up. You rinsed your mud-caked knees and pulled your feet out of the muck. And you were more cautious after that. You knew, from then on, that the world was a smaller place than you’d expected.
Sometimes, just when you think everything’s gone, you find a way.
Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too.
Little Fires Everywhere Quotes About Parenting
Parenting lies at the heart of Little Fires Everywhere, delving into the complexities of love, sacrifice, and differing approaches to raising children.
These Little Fires Everywhere book quotes capture the joys and struggles of motherhood, the weight of expectations, and the lasting impact parents have on their children’s lives, for better or for worse.
A lot of times, parents are not the best at seeing their children clearly.
She had learned that when people were bent on doing something they believed was a good deed, it was usually impossible to dissuade them.
I don’t have a plan, I’m afraid, but then, no one really does, no matter what they say.
To a parent, your child wasn’t just a person: your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all at the same time.
She smelled of home…as if home had never been a place, but had always been this little person whom she’d carried alongside her.
It came, over and over, down to this: What made someone a mother? Was it biology alone, or was it love?
Little Fires Everywhere Quotes About Social Convention and Community
Little Fires Everywhere challenges the rigid social conventions of Shaker Heights, exposing how societal expectations shape—and often stifle—individual freedom.
These quotes highlight the tension between conformity and authenticity, revealing the consequences of living by unwritten rules and the courage it takes to defy them in pursuit of a more genuine life.
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” Mia said suddenly. “I think you can’t imagine. Why anyone would choose a different life from the one you’ve got. Why anyone might want something other than a big house with a big lawn, a fancy car, a job in an office. Why anyone would choose anything different than what you’d choose.
One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules… was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time they were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure what side of the line you stood on.”
Rules existed for a reason: if you followed them, you would succeed; if you didn’t, you might burn the world to the ground.
Where do we follow the rules, and where do we justify breaking them?
All up and down the street the houses looked like any others—but inside them were people who might be happy, or taking refuge, or steeling themselves to go out into the world, searching for something better. So many lives she would never know about, unfolding behind those doors.
Little Fires Everywhere Quotes About Passion, Desire and Emotions
Mia had developed one rule, Don’t get attached to any place, to any apartment, to anything, To anyone.
She had learned that passion, like fire, was a dangerous thing.
Anger is fear’s bodyguard.
It terrifies you. That you missed out on something. That you gave up something you didn’t know you wanted.
Little Fires Everywhere Quotes About Race and Identity
Little Fires Everywhere thoughtfully examines race and privilege, revealing how they influence relationships, opportunities, and perceptions.
These quotes address implicit biases, systemic inequality, and cultural identity, shedding light on uncomfortable truths. Through its characters, the novel sparks critical conversations about race and the societal structures that perpetuate discrimination and division.
“Everyone sees race, Lex,” said Moody. “The only difference is who pretends not to.”
Maybe at birth everyone should be given to a family of a different race to be raised. Maybe that would solve racism once and for all.
The thing about portraits is, you need to show people the way they want to be seen and I prefer to show people as I see them.
Laura
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