Caroline Paul Quotations

I think as humans we do want to control our relationships, and you can't. It's probably better that you can't. That wouldn't be a real relationship, and we'd never learn and grow.

Fire taps something ancient and vital in each of us, something both snarling and reverential.

Its hard in the firehouse to avoid the dessert thing. At 3 in the morning after some emergency, I have been known to eat an ice cream sandwich.

Most people go to the office and sit at a desk. When firefighters go to the office, we might birth a baby in the morning, save a drowning surfer in the afternoon, and run into a fire at night. What could be more interesting than that?

Cats are the slipperiest of domestic animals. Thousands of years of genetic coding has taught them to melt into azaleas, lie motionless behind garden gnomes, glide along fence tops, and slink under benches.

Wasn't growing catnip in one's yard the kitty equivalent of giving candy to children?

You can never know anyone as completely as you want. But that’s okay, love is better.

In a fire, you have to be thoughtful; you have to have a certain kind of intuitive smarts that the veterans have. I'm not there yet, despite the Stanford degree.

I'm not a big eater. I'm a terrible cook, and so I don't cook for myself.

If there's a fire, I want to be there. Maybe because in being so close to death, I think I understand what it means to be truly alive.