In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau gave Quiet Fire a "C", writing that Flack occasionally "sounds kind, intelligent, and very likable, but she often exhibits the gratuitous gentility you'd expect of anyone who said 'between you and I.'"[4] In a retrospective review, The Rolling Stone Album Guide (1992) gave it two out of five stars and claimed it "barely sparks at all".[5]AllMusic's Stephen Cook was more enthusiastic, giving it four-and-a-half out of five stars and calling it "one of Flack's best". He believed its "varied mix all comes off sounding seamless" while writing: "Forgoing the full-throttled delivery of, say, Aretha Franklin, Flack translates the pathos of gospel expression into measured intensity and sighing, elongated phrases."[1]