Being Near You Quotes & Sayings

I want to see the king," I said, after explaining who I was.
"Wonderful," said the ancient Nkumai who sat on a cushion near the corner pole of the house. "I'm glad for you."
That was all, and apparently he meant to say no more. "Why are you so glad?" I asked.
"Because it's good for every human being to have an unfulfilled wish. It makes all of life so poignant. — Orson Scott Card

Pandas and rain forests are never mentioned when it comes to the millions of people taking joyrides in their Range Rovers. Rather, it's the little things we're strong-armed into conserving. At a chain coffee bar in San Francisco, I saw a sign near the cream counter that read NAPKINS COME FROM TREES - CONSERVE! In case you missed the first sign, there was a second one two feet away, reading YOU WASTE NAPKINS - YOU WASTE TREES!!! The cups, of course, are also made of paper, yet there's no mention of the mighty redwood when you order your four-dollar coffee. The guilt applies only to those things that are being given away for free. — David Sedaris

The thing I truly object to," Kitty said, "and I know this sounds trivial and I don't care if it sounds a bit snobbish, but I don't care about these awful people and I do care about this. It's that the whole world now thinks about Hanmouth as being this sort of awful council estate and nothing else, and Hanmouth people like this awful Heidi and Micky people. Absolutely everything you read in the papers is about how they live in Hanmouth and, frankly, they don't. They live on the Ruskin estate where I've never been and I hope never to go anywhere near. — Philip Hensher

When you came screaming onto this planet you were truly a bundle of joy, a wide-eyed creature incapable of doing anything but being in the moment. You had no idea that you had a body, let alone that you should be ashamed of it. When you looked around, everything just was. There was nothing about your world that was scary or too expensive or so last year as far as you were concerned. If something came near your mouth, you stuck it in, if it came near your hand, you grabbed it. You were simply a human... being. — Jen Sincero

She scuttled back from his approach and held up a hand. "No!"
Eversley stilled, his eyes widening at the words. "I beg your pardon?"
He was going to smell her. "Don't come any closer!"
"Why not?"
"It's not appropriate."
"What isn't?"
"You. Being here. So near. While I am abed."
One black brow rose. "I assure you, my lady, I've no intention of debauching you."
She had no doubt of that, considering her current situation, but she couldn't well tell him the truth. "Nevertheless, I must insist on the utmost propriety."
"Who do you think nursemaided you for the last day?"
Bollocks. He was right. He'd been close. He'd had to have noticed her odor. But it didn't mean he had to any longer. She straightened her shoulders, ignoring the twinge in the left. "My reputation, you see."
He blinked. "You were shot on the Great North Road while wearing stolen livery - — Sarah MacLean

20When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. 21Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. 22For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. — Anonymous

Can you feel this" He flattened her hand on his chest. His heart thudded rapidly against her palm. "It always does this when you're near me. When you're not, I'm looking for you, feeling something missing. I'm not whole when you're not around. It took being with you again to discover how empty my life was without you in it."
- Brady Fitzpatrick — Natalie J. Damschroder

Such a nice day - out all day up in the Carter Notch direction, trout-fishing, with the long drive there and the long drive home again in time for supper. It was a lovely brook and I caught seven good trout and one small one - which eight trout-persons you should have for your breakfast if only you were near enough. It was not alone the fishing, but the delightful loneliness and being out of doors. — Sarah Orne Jewett

He resisted for a while and there were some legal boundaries, you know, keeping me from being near him or his family, but in the end, love overcame. And I got what I wanted. I always get what I want ... — Kristen Schaal

The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go. — Theodore Roethke

Where the veil broke, you could see silvery clouds on which tall angels might stand. Not cute little Christmas angels, but high, stern angels in white robes, whose faces were sad and serious from being near God all day and hearing His decisions about the world. — Cynthia Voigt

He tilts his forehead down to rest against mine and pulls me closer. His skin, his whole being radiates heat from being so near the fire, and I close my eyes, soaking in his warmth. I breathe in the smell of snow-dampened leather and smoke and apples, the smell of all those wintry days we shared before the Games. I don't try to move away. Why should I anyway? His voice drops to a whisper. "I love you." That's why. — Suzanne Collins

Steerforth, laughing, took me by the arm and led me out. We went downstairs, one behind another. Near the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on my back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation for it. A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets! There was an indistinct talk of its being wet. I considered it frosty. Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, which somebody produced from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for I hadn't had it on before. Steerforth then said, 'You are all right, Copperfield, are you not?' and I told him, 'Neverberrer. — Charles Dickens

Since I'm an asshat, I thought I'd have a choice with you, that I'd be able to walk away if you disillusioned me or turned out to be a blood-sucking creature of the night - and okay, I would have bailed if you were evil . . . Or maybe not. Knowing myself, I'd want to save you. But you're not evil. The point is, I'm realizing you're the same as everyone else in my life, only a thousand times more potent, and that has nothing to do with where you come from. I can grit my teeth about what you do, but I can't control how I react to your laugh. I would rather be near you, see you touch everything but me, than be holding any other girl. I like being with you, Love. Playing, talking, fighting, not-touching. — Natalia Jaster

It was nice just being near her. You wouldn't think a girl in bandages with a blackened eye could be beautiful, but Denna was. Lovely as the moon: not flawless, perhaps, but perfect. The — Patrick Rothfuss

I couldn't stand being near music and not be a part of it. It was like watching the woman you love bedding down with another man. No. Not really. It was like. . . — Patrick Rothfuss

I'm never really comfortable at parties. Maybe I'm just not the partying type.
... I think it's because I'm never sure what to do with myself.
I mean, there're drinks, but I don't like being drunk ... There's music, but I never really learned to dance to anything that involved an electric guitar. There are people to talk to ... but once you put all the stupid things I do aside, I'm really not that interesting. I like reading, staying home, going on walks with my dog ... Who wants to hear about that? Especially when I would have to scream it over music to which no one dances.
So I'm there but not drinking, listening to music but not dancing, and trying to have conversations with near-strangers about anything other than my own stupid life ... Leads to a lot of awkward pauses. And then I start wondering why I showed up in the first place.
Cold Days (The Dresden Files Book 14), pg. 33 — Jim Butcher

THE ALIENS
from The Last Night Of The Earth Poems

you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction of distress.
they dress well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy death, usually in their
sleep.

you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.

but i am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them.
but they
are there

and I am
here. — Charles Bukowski

From forty-nine to fifty-six this aloneness becomes your focus of being. Everything else in the world loses meaning. The only remaining meaningful thing is this aloneness. From fifty-six to sixty-three you become absolutely what you are going to become: the potential blossoms, and from sixty-three to seventy you start getting ready to drop the body. Now you know you are not the body, you know you are not the mind either. The body was known as separate from you somewhere around the time when you were thirty-five. That the mind is separate from you was known near the time when you were forty-nine. Now, everything else drops except the witnessing self. Just the pure awareness, the flame of awareness remains with you - and this is the preparation for death. — Osho

Fear helps us survive. I've spent a larger portion of my life being afraid than I have being in control. But, here I am. Forget this escape idea, son. It won't help you or your family. Play the game. Find a tall tree somewhere. A tree that's survived all the coups and massacres of history. Go to that tree and dig a hole near its roots and bury your pride there. — Colin Cotterill

A passenger isn't supposed to concern himself with the running of the ship; that is being taken care of by the crew, anonymous creatures down in the engine-room or up on deck, whom he never meets. But, in this case, I wasn't really a passenger. I was like a lazy or scared or drunken captain lying shut in his cabin when he ought to be on the bridge, giving orders. Sooner or later, I would have to come out and assume command and decide where we were going.
But not yet, I told the crew. You don't need me yet. Can't you see I'm sick? You're doing all right without me. Sure, I'll come, when we get near land. Just let me lie here a little longer. Leave me alone, can't you? Let me sleep. — Christopher Isherwood

And also celebrate the Skill of the Scythians in that Art, who sent once to Darius King of Persia an Embassador that made him a present of a Bird, a Frog, a Mouse, and five Arrows, without speaking one word; and being ask'd what those Presents meant, and if he had Commission to say any thing, answer'd that he had not; Which puzzl'd and gravell'd Darius very much; till Gobrias, one of the seven Captains that had kil'd the Magi explain'd it, saying to Darius, By these Gifts and Offerings the Scythians silently tell you, that except the Persians like Birds fly up to Heaven, like Mice hide themselves near the Centre of the Earth, or like Frogs dive to the very bottom of Ponds and Lakes, they shall be destroyed by the Power and Arrows of the Scythians. — Francois Rabelais

You do not go near them. You do not allow them to touch you. If one does touch you, I will eat his spine."
"It's good," she commented, "that we're establishing rules. For instance, being a newcomer here, I might not understand the whole 'don't touch or be devoured' guideline ... "
-Prince Maltese and Lt. Anne — MaryJanice Davidson

Being Southern isn't talking with an accent...or rocking on a porch while drinking sweet tea, or knowing how to tell a good story. It's how you're brought up -- with Southerners, family (blood kin or not) is sacred; you respect others and are polite nearly to a fault; you always know your place but are fierce about your beliefs. And food along with college football -- is darn near a religion. — Jan Norris

I shrugged uncomfortably, leaning my head against hers, almost forgetting Mr. Gardner's presence as Mo and I fell into that sort of exclusionary, near-telepathic best-friends communion. She knew that I would argue that I wasn't ashamed, but that I hadn't quite figured out how to truly mean it when I held my head up high. My entire life, people had been telling me to keep it down and stop being an embarrassment. So, I was still in that "fake it 'til you make it" stage, hoping genuine pride would come if I pretended confidence long enough. For now, I was relying on bravado and a complete lack of give-a-fuck to carry me through. — Amelia C. Gormley

If you like being cuffed, I have no problem accommodating you, baby." "Actually," she returned, drawing the word out, "I was thinking I would cuff you." She held her breath. Any minute now, he'd scoff at her request and this charade would be over. Funny, she wasn't quite as ready to walk away as she had been moments ago. In fact, the thought of Brent's big body, restrained by handcuffs, was surprisingly appealing. That fluttering in her stomach had graduated into a constant tug, confusing her further. "Done." Hayden hid her shock as Brent leaned close and spoke gruffly near her ear. "Be warned, though. If you take away the use of my hands, I'll only make up for it with my mouth. — Tessa Bailey

I'll give you some life advice," I said. "The first piece is: Listen and listen intently when you're being spoken to about something. The second: Take the high road. When presented with frustration or anger or discontentment with a situation or a person, don't reduce yourself to that level. Don't get into a conflict in that moment. You'll feel better about yourself for it." Well, to my surprise, this created a near frenzy in the room. The students were aghast. I was surprised by the reaction, so I said: "Tell me more about why that seems like bad advice to you." "I believe I should stand up for myself!" said one student. "I'm not saying you shouldn't stand up for yourself," I said. "I'm just saying, in the heat of the moment, walk away from it. — Tim Gunn

It would be good now, I thought, to be in Paris. The afternoon city heat would have gone. It would be good to sit under the trees near the marionette theatre. It would be quiet there now. There would be no one there but a student or two reading. There you could listen to the rustle of leaves unconscious of the pains of humanity in labour, of a civilisation hastening to its own destruction. There, away from this brassy sea and blood-red earth, you could contemplate the twentieth-century tragedy unmoved; unmoved except by pity for mankind fighting to save itself from the primeval ooze that welled from its own subconscious being. — Eric Ambler

The difference between being subtle and abstract is the difference between knowing and saying it in a gentler way and not knowing and saying it in a way that will let you off the hook. To be abstract with the word is all right if you use it like paint and seek the pure word, but it is difficult, in the language, to have near purity without near meaning. — Charles Bukowski

There was a beat of silence before Sin said blandly, "I have occasional nightmares about us having a threesome with that meat-head. I'm far from being easily shocked."
"What?" Boyd looked completely taken aback, his eyebrows shooting up. "That's the last thing I thought I'd ever hear from you."
"It isn't exactly a voluntary thing. It's quite horrifying. I usually wake up before he can put his dick in me though." Sin made a revolted expression, his lips twisting in a scowl of disgust.
"So I shouldn't expect to be propositioned for this threesome too in the near future?" Boyd asked jokingly.
Sin stared at Boyd and didn't bother to reply. — Santino Hassell

The Jesuits were quite balked by those Indians who, being burned at the stake, suggested new modes of tortures to their tormentors. Being superior to physical suffering, it sometimes chanced that they were superior to any consolation which the missionaries could offer; and the law to do as you would be done by fell with less persuasiveness on the ears of those who, for their part, did not care how they were done by, who loved their enemies after a new fashion, and came very near freely forgiving them all they did. — Henry David Thoreau

If you put something fragrant on to burning coals, you motivate those who approach to come back again and to stay near, but if instead you put on something with an unpleasant, oppressive smell, you repel them and drive them away. It is the same with the mind. If your attention is occupied with what is holy, you make yourself worthy of being visited by God, since this is the sweet savour which God catches scent of. On the other hand, if you nurture evil, foul and earthly thoughts within you, you remove yourself from God's supervision and unfortunately make yourself worthy of His aversion. — Gregory Palamas

You absorb 2,000 years of history just by being near the Thames. — Martin Freeman

The question is, 'how bad at sports were you as a kid?' I grew up near where they film Jersey Shore. If you weren't tan, muscular, and book-averse, you were a dork and a nerd and a geek and stuff. I remember being into Gary Larsen, Stephen Wright, Peter Sellers ... — Demetri Martin

[On middle age:] ... the very real possibility for you of growing fat as you near death and thus being seen by everyone while you are both DEAD AND FAT ... — Marilyn Suzanne Miller

A large part of being a parent is a constant near certainty that you are screwing it up, and it is comforting to be able to spread the blame around. — Cody McFadyen

It was the feeling you get when you fall face first into bed after a long day. That's what being near Beck felt like. — R.S. Grey

You've changed me, and you don't even realize it. Just being with you, near you? It makes me want to be a better person. You make me want to take a risk. — Ella Frank

Sometimes I have to act crazy to handle the crazies. Trying to be normal near the crazies makes me as crazy as them. The more I push reason and logic on them, the more they pervert it and use it against me, the angrier they make me feel. It's much easier to pretend they're ghosts talking to the wind, and ignore them as if they weren't really human. My mood improves, my self-esteem is better and I feel happier. On another hand, maybe I'm just being realistic here, because you can't really talk to the dead. That's what people without respect or empathy are; dead in the brain; just walking bodies without a soul. — Robin Sacredfire

There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand, a silent, reflex-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares. — Jim Butcher

Life's like a book: What matters is the hook.
Be it short or long, just live it strong.
Whether it's five stars, or how near or far, just soar! — Ana Claudia Antunes

Draw near to Nature. Then try like some first human being to say what you see and experience and love and lose. — Rainer Maria Rilke

You know, Qhuinn's an interesting character." Saxton reached out with an elegant hand and picked up his port. "He's one of my favorite cousins, actually. His nonconformity is admirable and he's survived things that would crush a lesser male. Don't know that being in love with him would be easy, however."
Blay didn't go near that one. "So do you come here often?"
Saxton laughed, his pale eyes glinting, "Not for discussion, huh. — J.R. Ward

She knew her duty inside and out. The prosperity of the cash drawer brought happiness to husband and wife. Not that Madame Puta was bad looking, not at all, she could even, like so many others, have been rather pretty, but she was so careful, so distrustful that she stopped short of beauty just as she stopped short of life - her hair was a little too well dressed, her smile a little too facile and sudden, and her gestures a bit too abrupt or too furtive. You racked your brains trying to figure out what was too calculated about her and why you always felt uneasy when she came near you. This instinctive revulsion that shopkeepers inspire in anyone who goes near them who knows what's what, is one of the few consolations for being as down at heel as people who don't sell anything to anybody tend to be. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

There was an old joke about being left on a deserted island with an editor. You are starving. All you have left is a glass of orange juice. Days pass. You are near death. You are about to drink the juice when the editor grabs the glass from your hand and pees into it. You look at him, stunned . "There," the editor says, handing you the glass. "It just needed a little tweaking. — Harlan Coben

My wife says that I can't kill you for being an asshole. She has a much kinder heart than I do. If you or any of your men come anywhere near us, I will take you apart. Slowly. — Thea Harrison

You get some sleep, Abigail," Townsend told her. "I'll keep watch."
"That's very gracious of you, but being that we're on an airplane ... "
Even after the plane took off, they kept debating security perimeters and protocols. I'm pretty sure they argued for forty-five minutes about where the best place for cappuccino was near the Colosseum. — Ally Carter

One reason Christians respond positively to a needs psychology is that it takes people's pain seriously. However, this perspective can actually make pain worse. It compounds pain by suggesting that not did the sins of others hurt deeply, but they also deprived you of something
a right, something you were owed
that is necessary for life. Being deeply hurt by others is hard enough, but when we believe that their sin was a near-lethal blow that damaged the core of our being, the hurt is intensified ... Therefore, one task in counseling is to begin to separate the real hurt from the pain that is amplified by our own lusts and longings. — Edward T. Welch

Being near you, Brooklyn ... it's like breathing. I don't have a choice about it; I just have to do it or I know I won't survive very long. — Julie Johnson

So we rode in silence. It was nice just being near her. You wouldn't think a girl in bandages with a blackened eye could be beautiful, but Denna was. Lovely as the moon: not flawless, perhaps, but perfect. — Patrick Rothfuss

I feel very strongly that all Japanese at that time had the idea drilled into them of 1999 being the end of the world. Aum renunciates have already accepted, inside themselves, the end of the world, because when they become a renunciate, they discard themselves totally, thereby abandoning the world. In other words, Aum is a collection of people who have accepted the end. People who continue to hold out hope for the near future still have an attachment to the world. If you have attachments, you will not discard your Self, but for Renunciates it's as if they've leaped right off the cliff. And taking a giant leap like that feels good. They lose something - but gain something in return. — Haruki Murakami

I figured I had kept her from being too depressed after fucking
it's hard for a girl with any force in her and any brains to accept the whole thing of fucking, of being fucked without trying to turn it on its end, so that she does some fucking, or some fucking up; I mean, the mere power of arousing the man so he wants to fuck isn't enough; she wants him to be willing to die in order to fuck. There's a kind of strain or intensity women are bred for, as beasts, for childbearing when childbearing might kill them, and child rearing when the child might die at any moment: it's in women to live under that danger, with that risk, that close to tragedy, with that constant taut or casual courage. They need death and nobility near. To be fucked when there's no drama inherent in it, when you're not going to rise to a level of nobility and courage forever denied the male, is to be cut off from what is inherently female, bestially speaking. — Harold Brodkey

He was beautiful. He was too beautiful. It was the kind of beautiful that can almost seem ugly; the kind of beautiful you don't want to touch, because you know it might burn. I wasn't used to talking to people who looked like him. I wasn't used to being near people who looked like him. But he had saved my life. — Danielle Paige

It's not a problem to be surrounded by other writers if that's the craft that you're doing. I suppose if you get obsessed with the notion of being a writer more than the writing itself, that would be bad. But I live near really smart, thoughtful people who take writing very seriously, and I can meet them for breakfast and talk books. — Phil Klay

This is how it is to come near you
A wave of light builds in the black pupil
of the eye. The old become young.
The opening lines of the Qur'an open still more.
Inside every human chest there is a hand,
but it has nothing to write with.
Love moves further in, where language
turns to fresh cream on the tongue.
Every accident, and the essence of every being,
is a bud, a blanket tucked into a cradle,
a closed mouth.
All these buds will blossom,
and in that moment you will know
what your grief was,
and how the seed you planted has been miraculously,
and naturally, growing.
Now silence.
Let soul speak inside spoken things. — Rumi

But Brinker came in. I think he made a point of visiting all the rooms near him the first day. "Well, Gene," his beaming face appeared around the door. Brinker looked the standard preparatory school article in his gray gabardine suit with square, hand-sewn-looking jacket pockets, a conservative necktie, and dark brown cordovan shoes. His face was all straight lines - eyebrows, mouth, nose, everything - and he carried his six feet of height straight as well. He looked but happened not to be athletic, being too busy with politics, arrangements, and offices. There was nothing idiosyncratic about Brinker unless you saw him from behind; I did as he turned to close the door after him. The flaps of his gabardine jacket parted slightly over his healthy rump, and it is that, without any sense of derision at all, that I recall as Brinker's salient characteristic, those healthy, determined, not over-exaggerated but definite and substantial buttocks. — John Knowles

The lesson here, and my advice for other developers, is to find a way that you can quantify for people what your product is worth. We were leery to do it ourselves, but being near Vetro when they did, the auction was a good technique for that. No one wants to be first, and the auction proved to people that others were buying and gave them that boost of confidence they needed. — Bob Horner

Discouraged?
As I was driving home from work one day, I stopped to watch a local Little League baseball game that was being played in a park near my home. As I sat down behind the bench on the first-baseline, I asked one of the boys what the score was.
"We're behind 14 to nothing," he answered with a smile.
"Really," I said. "I have to say you don't look very discouraged."
"Discouraged?" the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face. "Why should we be discouraged? We haven't been up to bat yet. — Jack Canfield

I waited, Rachel. I waited until you were old enough. I wasted my time looking for girls who came even remotely close to looking like you." His hand brushed through my hair as he studied it. "Long legs. Long, straight, near-black hair. Eyes the exact color of sapphires." A heavy sigh left him and his forehead creased. "But none of them were you. None of them had your temper; none of them had your fire for life. So none of them deserved to have your beauty." "Like Jenn." I realized it with dread and watched his face twist with a look of disgust. "Everything I've done up until this point has been for you and our future together. I only wish," he said against my lips, "that you would stop being so goddamn difficult. — Molly McAdams

Being near her was like balancing on a tipping world, trying to keep your footing as the ground wanted to roll you forward, hurl you into a spiral from which there was no recovery, only impact, and it was a longed-for impact, a sweet and beckoning collision. — Laini Taylor

Well, friends, learning about the "world" is not pretending you're a hooker while a guy from the part of New Jersey that's near Pennsylvania decides which Steely Dan record to put on at 4:00 A.M. The secrets of life aren't being revealed when someone laughs at you for having studied creative writing. There is no enlightenment to be gained from letting your semiboyfriend's bald friend touch your thigh too close to the place where it meets your crotch, but you let it happen because you think you might be in love. — Lena Dunham

."I shouldn't want you. I'm not good enough for you. I know it and you know it. But that doesn't stop me from wanting you. Just being near you... You bring me peace, beauty," he says in a soft unwavering tone, briefly resting his forehead against mine. — Chantal Fernando

The whole point of marriage is to stop you getting anywhere near real life. You think it's a great struggle with the mystery of being. It's more like being smothered in warm cocoa. There's sex, but it's not what you think. Marvellous, for the first fortnight. Then every Wednesday. If there isn't a good late-night concert on the Third. Meanwhile you become a biological functionary. An agent of the great female womb, spawning away, dumping its goods in your lap for succour. Daddy, daddy, we're here, and we're expensive. — Malcolm Bradbury

But, in these later days, much greater convulsions had overwhelmed her. It sufficed for Tietjens to approach her to make her feel as if her whole body was drawn towards him as, being near a terrible height, you are drawn towards it. Great waves of blood rushed across her being as if physical forces as yet undiscovered or invented attracted the very fluid itself. The moon so draws the tides. — Ford Madox Ford

Of course I could have done things differently. I could stop fucking thinking about you and obsessing over you and fucking wanting you for just long enough to do my fucking job - that's what I could do differently."
[ ... ]
"Have you any idea what every day here is like for me? I can't eat, I can't focus, I can't sleep. I spend my nights frozen in one position, afraid to move in case I accidentally do all the things I really, really want to do. I want to do them so much that just having you look at me is a kind of torture. Just being near you, just getting a hint of that maddening marzipan scent that's all over your hair - — Charlotte Stein

Those who seek the Lord should not look for Him outside themselves; on the contrary, they must seek Him within themselves through faith made manifest in action. For He is near you: 'The word is ... in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith' (Rom. 10:8) - Christ being Himself the word that is sought. — Maximus The Confessor

Thirty minutes out, people," I said. "Where the fuck does she live, Jupiter?" asked Sloane. "Close," I said. "She's in a housing development out near the edge of the wildlife preserve. I guess she likes being close to nature." "Or she's cuckoo-bats," said Sloane. "That's a horrible commute. I'd be road-raging weekly." "That's why we don't let you drive," said Andy. "Henry, you going to light it up?" "No," I said. "No lights, no sirens. We do this quiet." "Because we're so subtle," said Sloane. — Seanan McGuire

Why did you do that, Pedro? It will look ridiculous, you agreeing to marry Rosaura. What happened to the eternal love you swore to Tita? Aren't you going to keep that vow?'
'Of course I'll keep it. When you're told there's no way you can marry the woman you love, and your only hope of being near her is to marry her sister, wouldn't you do the same?'
'So you intend to marry without love?'
'No, Papa. I am going to marry with a great love for Tita that will never die. — Laura Esquivel

In the near future we will not be looking back at the early church with envy because of the great exploits of those days, but all will be saying that He certainly did save His best wine for last. The most glorious times in all of history have not come upon us. You, who have dreamed of one day being able to talk with Peter, John and Paul, are going to be surprised to find that they have all been waiting to talk to you. — Rick Joyner

I thought that you said that your name was reserved only for family." A small smile broke through his stoic expression.
"The way I see it, even if you don't come around and realize that you can't resist my striking looks and enticing charm, and that you desperately want to spend the rest of your life in my arms - "
"Which will never happen ... "
" - you'll eventually end up with my silly little brother. Who, just to warn you, despite being a great guy, is nowhere near as handsome and charming as I. — Ada Adams

When you're dying, the unicorn up in heaven gets a note from an angel telling her there's a person who's going to need a ride up soon. The unicorn finds out what the person likes. Favorite foods and books, colors and activities, pets and games. She gets a room ready for him, or her, near people who she knows they'll enjoy being with, maybe other friends and family who have died before.
When the unicorn is done, she jumps off of heaven's perch, flies through the blue sky, around the clouds, over any rainbows, and down to the person. She's invisible to everyone. She patiently waits. When the person dies, she gathers them up on her back, using her hooves and horn. All of a sudden, they sit up straight and smile, they laugh, because they're on top of a unicorn and alive again. They hold on tight to her golden reins and the unicorn takes them to their new home, where they're happy. — Cathy Lamb

Though I love you to the core of my being, so thoroughly that every cell comprising me aches to be near you, I must accept that we can never be together. For our existence parallels the sun and the moon - a temptation in constant, beautiful view, yet if the sun were ever to kiss the moon it would devour the heavenly orb whole. Oh, my darling, if only I were the moon! Then I would dare taste your lips and be happy for my last and final joy! But alas, I am the sun, and I will not venture to destroy the one I love. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Changi for me - of course it's easy to be wise after the event, and to discuss it cleverly after the event - was about as near as you can get to being dead and still be alive. — James Clavell

A customs man at JFK had asked them to open the suitcases (in case they were smuggling in Indian fruits or sweets, perhaps). 'Ulysses!' the large bespectacled disbelieving customs man had said. 'Are you a student?' Ananda had nodded, though he was in the equivalent of high school. 'I wouldn't read Ulysses unless I was a student!' said the customs man, shutting the suitcase after his glimpse into the tantalising freemasonry of studenthood. A potentially incendiary book then - on the verge of being, but not quite, contraband. And near-unreadable. Ananda — Amit Chaudhuri

There is no use in your walking five miles to fish when you can depend on being just as unsuccessful near home. — Mark Twain

No one's ever going to hurt you again, Taya. Not on my watch." There was no defense in the world that could protect her heart from him when he said things like that. Angling her head up, she cupped the back of his head and lifted up to give him a soft, lingering kiss. Just being near him made her feel safe, stronger. He reminded her of how hard she'd fought to live, how hard she'd battled to take back control over her life.
"You're making it really hard for me not to fall for you," she murmured against his lips. One side of his mouth kicked up as he lifted his head, his eyes glowing with a possessive light that thrilled her.
"Good," was all he said. — Kaylea Cross

Captain! To your left there's a Lunar guard and on your right is a doctor who's running tests on Lunars and I'm being held by one of Levana's wolf hybrids and please be careful!"
Thorne took a step back into the hallway a gun from his waistband. He spent a moment swiveling the barrel of the gun in each direction, but nobody moved to attack him.
With some surprise, Cress realized that the operative's grip had weakened.
"Er ... " Thorne furrowed his brow, aiming the gun somewhere near the window. "Could you describe all those threats again because I feel like I missed something. — Marissa Meyer

To have a man whose name is on the label showing such interest, commitment, and determination for the best is a wonderful thing. This is someone who will throw money at quality, who believes in being the best. Never knock it. Would you prefer to have a bean counter in corporate headquarters, someone who never comes near the brewery, making decisions solely on the basis of the bottom line and profit margins? — Charles W. Bamforth

It is one thing to be sick of your own infirmities and another to understand that the people you love most are sick of them also. You are very near then to being friendless in the world. — Leif Enger

As we sat, Derek pulled a handful of energy bars from his pocket, and gave me one.
"Oh, right. You must be starving." Simon reached into his pockets. "I can offer one bruised apple and one brown banana."
***
"You guys are weird," Tori said.
Simon sat on the crate beside me. "That's right. We are totally weird and completely uncool. Your popularity is plummeting just by being near us. So why don't you - "
"Chloe?" Derek interrupted. "How's your arm?"
"Her - ?" Simon swore under his breath. "Way to keep showing me up. First, food. Now her arm." He turned to me. "How is it?" — Kelley Armstrong

With wine and being lost, with less and less of both: I rode through the snow, do you read me I rode God far
I rode God near, he sang, it was our last ride over the hurdled humans. They cowered when they heard us overhead, they wrote, they lied our neighing into one of their image-ridden languages. — Paul Celan

You can't tell me anything about family life. I've had plenty to last me.' 'But it's not all like that,' I objected. 'Near enough. It's all being under somebody's thumb. — Willa Cather

They were ghosts, I suppose, the procession of the dead. They weren't pale kings and pale maidens, they were work-worn men and women - perfectly ordinary people, except for being dead. You'd never mistake them for living people. You couldn't quite see through them, but they were even more drained of colour than everything else, and they weren't quite as solid as they ought to be. One of the men I recognised. He had been sitting in Fedw Hir near Grampar making blubbing sounds with his mouth. Now he strode along easily with a spring in his step. His face was grave and composed, he was a man with dignity and purpose. He bent and picked up one of my oak leaves from the path and offered it like a ticket at the cinema as he passed between the two trees. I didn't see anyone take it. I couldn't see into the darkness at all. — Jo Walton

Being friendzoned is like standing near fire. You stand there to seek some warmth, but get burnt instead. — Toffee

I thought about Stockhausen. What had prompted him to call the attacks a work of art? For him, I thought, it was not a matter of finding death beautiful, but rather seeing that someone had taken liberties in reality that an artist could only dream of. That was both the virtue and the vice of art. In art, you can kill with impunity - destroy the world, perpetrate a holocaust, whip up the apocalypse. But it's only art. You can blow up five million people in an opera and not have anywhere near the impact of blowing up five thousand in reality. Stockhausen seemed to realize this, since the terrorism caused him to feel that being a composer was nothing. In that sense, his words were a moral statement about the limits of art, not an immoral statement about aestheticizing destruction. — Supervert

Lions should be strong but sweet beasts in a Disney cartoon. But they aren't, so when they act like lions you're angry at them for not being the fantasy animals you imagined. Russian bears don't put on top hats and ride unicycles. Or sleep in bed next to Goldilocks. People force them to do those stupid things in circuses and films and children's books. Sure, some will be more docile or more ferocious than others, but in the end they will always, always be bears. And you should never turn your back on them. You should never even get near them; it's that simple. They're not being dishonest - you are in your perception of them. — Jonathan Carroll

Not able to stop it, I felt a small smile tilt up the corners of my mouth. "Noted. Althought I must protest that you keep forcing unwanted kisses on me."
"It's the only way to get one. Unwanted indeed." He raised a knowing eyebrow at me. Arrogant Knave. I shook my head, feeling sad and happy all at the same time. "Why do you persist, Wolfe?"
His grin was slow and wicked as he stood back from me, allowing my body and mind to breathe again. "Strategy."
"Strategy?"
He cocked his eyebrow. "At first I thought imposed isolation would make you miss me-"
"Why you arro-"
"-But then I realised that it's being near me you can't resist. And there are only so many kisses you'll take before you give in to me completely, Rogan. — Samantha Young

Her heart
is given him, with all its love and truth. She would joyfully die with him, or better than that, die for him. She knows he has failings, but she thinks they have grown up through his being like one cast away, for the want of something to trust in, and care for, and think well of. And she says, that lady rich and beautiful that I can never come near, 'Only put me in that empty place, only try how little I mind myself, only prove what a world of things I will do and bear for you, and I hope that you might even come to be so much better than you are, through me who am so much worse, and hardly worth the thinking of beside you. — Charles Dickens

You know, unrequited love is very difficut? It's not just having this one-sided love of someone who's far away. Being close, talking daily, liking a guy who's constantly near me is harder than it would be under different circumstances. — Park So Hee

Having been bullied growing up, it's something that's really near and dear to my heart. You probably won't have many friends on Snapchat if you're being a jerk. — Evan Spiegel

Oh, you think it's funny being mean to Sienna on facebook?
I predict a bandaged thumb in the near future
yours. — Sienna McQuillen

She swung her legs around his waist and crossed her ankles behind his back. "I like the way your mind works," she panted before losing herself in the sensation of his hardness rubbing against her core. Lief took the few steps across the room to the bed in record time and flung her down on the covers. He leaned back to tear his clothes off. "My mind hardly works at all when you are near." She chuckled leaning back on her elbows, enjoying the view of naked flesh being revealed. She rose up on her knees and traced the ridges on his chest and abdomen. As her fingers trailed down toward his proud shaft, he captured her wrists.

"Be careful." He smiled down at her. "I'm loaded and might go off any minute."

She laughed. "You've been watching too many old Western movies with Harold. — Asa Maria Bradley

And you're too nice," he added, above the lap-lap of the water and the patter of sand on the water-lily leaves. "I was relying on you being too jealous to let that demon near the place. — Diana Wynne Jones

Did I break you?" Bathymaas
"What makes you think that?" Aricles
"Why do you leak so?" Bathymaas
"I don't know. It just does that sometimes." Aricles
"Is it the same as when I grow moist between my legs whenever you're near?" Bathymaas
"I-I suppose it is." Aricles
"Your body is so different from min. Are all men like you?" Bathymaas
"I would assume, but I don't make it a habit of being with naked men, especially when they're aroused." Aricles — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Being yourself; not acting. You therefore can function near your own level of competence. Satisfy you own expectations rather than those of others. — John Wooden

I'm sorry for screwing everything up. I hurt you again, and for that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't want to do that anymore. So ... I'm not going to stay
for the wedding. I'm just going to take off now. I won't see you again, not for a long time. Probably for the best. Being near you like this, it hurts. And
Jere" - Conrad cleared his throat and stepped backward, making space between us - "he's the one who needs you."
Hoarsely, he said, "I need you to know that no matter what happens, it was worth it to me. Being with you, loving you. It was all worth it — Jenny Han

Being near you for a day was at the top of my bucket list of the greatest life achievements, so this has by far exceeded my expectations and everyday has been magic. — Crystal Woods

There's not a day in my life I'm not proud of being gay, but I just wasn't ready for that attention to be placed on it. I remember being on Oprah. Well, not on Oprah. Near Oprah. She started saying, 'Now, Nathan, you got all those girlie moves going down in 'The Birdcage,' where's all that coming from? You're so good at all that girlie stuff!' — Nathan Lane

You are the most incredible being I have ever met. And its not just because of the things my grandfather did to you. You're strong all on your own. You care about all of them, even if you don't really know what love even means.
Eden is a wonderful place but it wouldn't be anywhere near the same without you. I know I don't fit in there, that people still don't fully trust me. But you're there so its all okay. When I'm with you, I feel something I didn't think it was still possible to feel in this world. I feel alive like there is still hope in this world. Like maybe things will still be okay someday. — Keary Taylor

I want blood! Two of Aksel's dogs cornered me near Tondara. They shot me. Those bastards actually shot a hole in my stabilizer the size of Mirala ... Aren't you going to say something? (Syn)
Were you hurt? (Nykyrian)
No. (Syn)
Then why are you having a fit? (Nykyrian)
I don't know, it just felt right. You see why I don't like being sober? I overreact like an old woman. (He opened his flask, then slammed it down on Nykyrian's desk.) Figures the damned thing would be empty. (Syn) — Sherrilyn Kenyon