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Daily Inspiration Quote by John Glover

"It is difficult to determine the cause of grass fires. There is usually nothing left behind when we get there, like a cigarette or a gas can, for us to determine what started it"

About this Quote

The line lands like a small shrug in the face of catastrophe, and that’s exactly why it works. John Glover isn’t offering a grand moral; he’s voicing the maddening reality that so many modern crises arrive with no neat origin story. A grass fire is fast, hungry, and self-erasing. By the time help shows up, the evidence is gone. The quote turns that procedural fact into a cultural metaphor: our appetite for clean explanations keeps colliding with events that leave no satisfying culprit.

The intent is deceptively modest - a practical observation from someone describing response work - but the subtext is about uncertainty, and the uneasy politics of blame. Notice the specificity of “a cigarette or a gas can.” Those are the props of accountability, the simple objects we can point to when we want the story to end with a lesson: careless smoker, malicious arsonist, case closed. Glover highlights how often that closure is impossible. The fire doesn’t just burn grass; it burns narrative.

As an actor, Glover’s sensibility matters here: he understands how audiences read scenes. “When we get there” frames firefighters (or responders) as arriving mid-plot, forced to improvise without backstory. It’s also a quiet indictment of our forensics-driven confidence. We like to believe everything is legible if you look hard enough. Sometimes the world leaves you with only the aftermath - and the uncomfortable knowledge that prevention and policy must be built without certainty.

Quote Details

TopicPolice & Firefighter
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Glover, John. (2026, January 15). It is difficult to determine the cause of grass fires. There is usually nothing left behind when we get there, like a cigarette or a gas can, for us to determine what started it. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-difficult-to-determine-the-cause-of-grass-143110/

Chicago Style
Glover, John. "It is difficult to determine the cause of grass fires. There is usually nothing left behind when we get there, like a cigarette or a gas can, for us to determine what started it." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-difficult-to-determine-the-cause-of-grass-143110/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It is difficult to determine the cause of grass fires. There is usually nothing left behind when we get there, like a cigarette or a gas can, for us to determine what started it." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-difficult-to-determine-the-cause-of-grass-143110/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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John Glover (born August 7, 1944) is a Actor from USA.

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