Close Quotes & Sayings

It's easy to slip into guardedness and close ourselves off from the world when dealing with the messiness involved in navigating expectations, misunderstandings, and collaborative disagreements. This is especially true when we are busy or feel like we don't have the time or emotional bandwidth to deal with the complexity of relationships. — Todd Henry

Times were changing in the world of id. They had finally fired Jason, narrowing the group to Carmack, Romero, Adrian, and Tom. But something else was in the air. The Reagan-Bush era was finally coming to a close and a new spirit rising. It began in Seattle, where a sloppily dressed grunge rock trio called Nirvana ousted Michael Jackson from the top of the pop charts with their album Nevermind. Soon grunge and hip-hop were dominating the world with more brutal and honest views. Id was braced to do for games what those artists had done for music: overthrow the status quo. Games until this point had been ruled by their own equivalent of pop, in the form of Mario and Pac-Man. Unlike music, the software industry had never experienced anything as rebellious as Wolfenstein 3-D. The — David Kushner

For me, I'm lucky to have a lot of close friends - through football or through my family. — Justin Tuck

I have had many more close women friends than men, and I've always assumed that comes from the fact that in my family there was such a disproportionate female element. — Salman Rushdie

People who have extremely limited knowledge of The Bible or its implications may still choose to classify themselves as Christians on the basis that their parents do so - they may never even give it a second thought. This phenomenon of our nation's children inheriting religion is often overlooked because the perpetrator guilty of indoctrination is not a dictator or cult leader, but instead it is most often their own parents or close family members. — David G. McAfee

Few pleasures are greater than knowing you can close your door, ignore the world and create your own. — Tibor Fischer

The light irradiates white peaks of Annapurna marching down the sky, in the great rampart that spreads east and west for eighteen hundred miles, the Himalaya- the alaya (abode, or home) of hima (snow).Hibiscus, frangipani, bougainvillea: seen under snow peaks, these tropical blossoms become the flowers of heroic landscapes. Macaques scamper in green meadow, and a turquoise roller spins in a golden light. Drongos, rollers, barbets, and white Eqyptian vulture are the common birds, and all have close relatives in East Africa. — Peter Matthiessen

He held me against his body and his upper arm was close to my face, so I turned and bit him. He was so startled he actually released me and I tried to jab him with the knife, but he gripped my wrist.

"Did you bite me?" he asked as he stared at my teeth marks on his bicep.

"Not hard enough. There isn't even blood," I said. Luca's shoulders twitched once, then again. He was fighting laughter. Not the effect I'd intended when I bit him but I had to admit I loved the sound of his deep chuckle.

"I think you've done enough damage for one day," he said. — Cora Reilly

I've always enjoyed that kind of thing - thinking about the production of narrative and why it is that when we read a novel, we don't notice the fact that someone who might be very close-mouthed or tight-lipped is perfectly willing to tell us a story in 600 or 700 pages. — Matthew Tobin Anderson

Seen on her own, the woman was not so remarkable. Tall, angular, aquiline features, with the close-cropped hair which was fashionably called an Eton crop, he seemed to remember, in his mother's day, and about her person the stamp of that particular generation. She would be in her middle sixties, he supposed, the masculine shirt with collar and tie, sports jacket, grey tweed skirt coming to mid-calf. Grey stockings and laced black shoes. He had seen the type on golf courses and at dog shows - invariably showing not sporting breeds but pugs - and if you came across them at a party in somebody's house they were quicker on the draw with a cigarette lighter than he was himself, a mere male, with pocket matches. The general belief that they kept house with a more feminine, fluffy companion was not always true. Frequently they boasted, and adored, a golfing husband. ("Don't Look Now") — Daphne Du Maurier

If dislocation is a permanent state, I want to try and explore the possibility of temporary impermanence. If dislocation is a tatty dress from the thrift store, perhaps the solution is not to cast it aside. If dislocation is a tatty dress, perhaps the only solution is to mend it, scent it, and wear it until everything about it signifies newness, something close to the perpetual promise of a fresh start. — Diriye Osman

When we cannot see, we don't judge. Small wonder when we kiss, cry, laugh, make love, are in pain, pray and listen to music, we close our eyes. — Sabine Shah

I always say, you know, if I sit here and close my eyes and say, 'When did I learn the most in my life, in my career?' It'll always be when I close them and everything I think of is when I took a risk. It's when I think I learned the most. — Ginni Rometty

I was very close to my father. At the age of ten I wanted to do plays, and my father was very encouraging. When I applied to different acting schools, he was right there and very supportive. — Kim Cattrall

Did you really mean what you said?" she asked softly. "If God Himself were waiting at Gloucester, you would not relinquish me?" He did not meet her gaze, but the muscles in his arms bunched beneath her hands as he pulled her close again. "I meant it, he whispered, burying his lips in her hair. — Marsha Canham

Discovery is exciting, no matter how big or small or close or distant ... — Mike Brown

When you're coming, you just make unintelligible sounds. But when you're close, you just whisper 'please' over and over, as if I'd ever deny you. — Christina Lauren

Taiwan and China are related ethnically and close neighbors geographically. There's no reason to resent or to fight against each other. — Annette Lu

I have been definitely influenced more by Latin American writers than by any other type of writer. They are very close in terms of voice - their humor, their fatalism, their ... well, that over-used term 'magical realism.' It's a wonderful term that's just been used so much, we don't know what it means anymore. — Jessica Hagedorn

If you listen to The Browns, it's a very pretty sound. It was sibling harmony, a sound that was very pleasing. I've never heard anybody that could come close to that particular sound. It couldn't be imitated. — Jim Ed Brown

Do you - do you think I want to - do you think I give a - I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY!" Harry roared.
"You will," said Dumbledore sadly. "Because you are not nearly as mad at me as you ought to be. If you are to attack me, as I know you are close to doing, I would like to have thoroughly earned it. — J.K. Rowling

I watched you. From the moment you walked in that bar, I saw you. Amongst all the shallow and the fake, you looked like sping, and then you got close and I was right because you smelled like jasmine. When you turned around to leave I thought I was wrong because why did someone as sweet as spring think that life wasn't meant for her? There was no light in your eyes, and somehow, even though I barely knew you, it left an ache in my chest. How could I let you walk away? — Kate McCarthy

He could be anywhere by now, so that is where I look for him. Anywhere...
There are times when I don't recognize this woman who plays with such self-possession. She is something that I have faked. She is William Tyne's daughter, I supposed; his idea of her. I put her forward when I am performing so that he will approach me. I strive to make her taller than she is, more graceful, less unsure. I don't think other people have to try so hard in their lives. Or do they? Are we all living like this? So close to this mesh of nerves?
So I played for my father another concerto, though he was never one for sitting still in a chair. He would make an exception for me, though, his firstborn. He would see the progress I have made. — Claire Kilroy

Certainly it is a blessing to have three beautiful kids who are all healthy. God put them here for me to nurture and bring them up and try to keep as close to right as I can. So it's a blessing. It's a big responsibility, but at the same time it's an honor. — Faith Evans

My parents split up when I was young, and I was living with my mom for a little while, then I was kind of just on my own really young. It wasn't some kind of global tragedy, it was just never really a very close-knit family. So there was support in the sense that they didn't stand in my way. — Ani DiFranco

I suppose when the things that give you bad dreams live inside you, there's no point in trying to stop them. They're going to come out whenever they decide it is their time. Better just to close your eyes and hold on tight, the faster to get the things you fear to go back to sleep themselves. — Cameron Dokey

I can never read this book, just like I can never see a movie that I wrote a screenplay for. I can read it and see it physically, but I can't accurately judge it. I'm too close to it. If I read it ten times I'll have ten different reactions. — Richard Price

In two easy strides, I reach her, weave my arms around her waist and lift her feet off the ground. My angel is so light she practically floats. "Isaiah! You're crazy!"
"Insane," I answer.
She rests her forehead against mine and braids her hands tightly on my neck. "That was close. He almost got you in the end."
I love the sensation of her body against mine. Tonight, I'm going to kiss her again and, if she'll let me, I'll explore a little further. "Were you doubting me?"
She smiles when she notices the lightness in my voice. "Never."
That's right, angel. I'll never let you down. — Katie McGarry

When my mother died, I thought I'd drown in sorrow. But my grandmother said something very wise, and I've always held it close to my heart. She said that not even the sea is infinite, and neither is grief. — T. Frohock

Nutshells close and encapsulate, shelter and protect, reduce and simplify, while everything in deconstruction is turned toward opening, exposure, expansion, and complexification, toward releasing unheard of, undreamt of possibilities to come, toward cracking nutshells wherever they appear. — John D. Caputo

If you zoom close-if you get really close to someone, if you really get close to yourself-then you lose the other person, you lose yourself entirely. You get so close you can't see anything anymore. — David Levithan

I maintain that the period during the first half of the 1990s, the period in which rising inequality reached its peak, was a period in which we came very, very close to a demagogic immobilization of racism in this society. — William Julius Wilson

Identification of rhythm as the casual counterpart of life; wherever there is some life, only perceptible to us when the analogies are sufficiently close. — Alfred North Whitehead

And I breathe large at home. I drop my cloak,
Unclasp my girdle, loose the band that ties
My hair ... now could I but unloose my soul!
We are sepulchred alive in this close world,
And want more room. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

They wouldn't have believed me, and if they had they would have wanted me to explain.
And I had no explanation, no answers. When you're on a battleground, you don't have the
luxury of time to dwell on the various historical factors and sociopolitical influences that caused the war.
You just keep your head down and try to survive it, to shove the pages back in the book, close
the covers and pretend that nothing's broken, nothing's wrong. — Jennifer Weiner

Rather than really have, like a close relationship to anything that's coming out today, people are just, they've got it on as background music. It's kind of the same way the cabdrivers use music; it's very disposable. — David Bowie

Sometimes to touch us, God touches someone that's close to us. This is what opens our eyes to the fact there is a higher power than ourselves, whether we call it God or not. — Ron Hall

I could get through this. I would be strong because I was so close to achieving my dream of having my kids together. — Abeba Habtu

Why do you hate yourself?"
And before I know it, Gat is lying on the bed next to me. His cold fingers wrap around my hot ones, and his face is close to mine. He kisses me. "Because I want things I can't have," he whispers. — E. Lockhart

Those philosophers who believe in the absolute logic of truth have never had to discuss it on close terms with a woman. — Cesare Pavese

He was so close it was hard to breathe. It was exactly like being next to an oven baking a really spicy apple pie. — Lili St. Crow

Close your eyes, Matt, and focus on third eye, the second chakra of your being. Open third eye and you will feel energy of other river as it flows. And energy of Goddess.
He closed his eyes. He could sense the energy of the woman next to him and the power of desire. He felt warmth and a sense of belonging here. But that was all. — Joe Niemczura

I used the Internet to keep really close contact with my fans. I think that one thing I brought over the ocean with me was the connection with my fans. They went through the process with me. They're very supportive of me, but I was nervous about that. I didn't want to make it seem like I was abandoning them. — Stella Soleil

Ember pressed close, brushing my shoulder with hers, and my pulse spiked. I looked over, saw the fierce determination in her gaze and felt a defiant growl rumble in my throat as a hot, vicious rage spread through my veins. Ember was mine. The other half of me. And i would fight Talon, St. George and the entire damned world to keep her safe — Julie Kagawa

Only the nose knows
Where the nose goes
When the door close. — Muhammad Ali

It's true that I am not from the south and I have a certain reserve. I take time to get close to, and I don't immediately throw my arms round someone. But it is more a question of style. — Bernard Arnault

What your mind sees when you close your eyes marks the entrance to an endless universe: your imagination. — Stephen Helmes

Oh Ana!" he cries out loudly as he finds his release, holding me in place as he pours himself into me. He collapses, panting hard beside me, and he pulls me on top of him and buries his face in my hair, hold me close. "Oh baby," he breathes. "Welcome to my world. — E.L. James

My mother saved our home with a minimum wage job. But in the 1960s, a minimum wage job would support a family of three above the poverty line. Not today. Not even close. I understood right then that people can work hard, they can play by the rules, and they can still take a hard smack. — Elizabeth Warren

There is in fact a category of people who get unusually close to the truth about themselves and the world. Their self-perceptions are more balanced,they assign responsibility for success and failure more even-handedly, and their predictions for the future are more realistic. These people are living testimony to the dangers of self-knowledge. They are the clinically depressed. — Cordelia Fine

Anything could happen here and who would know? It was a new place to me, but timeless in its own right. Regn had never stood here. All these years since and we'd been so close to 'this' obscurity. Its hidden proximity is what disquieted. — Wheston Chancellor Grove

Every relationship has problems, because every person has problems, and the place that our problems appear most glaringly is in our close relationships. The key is whether or not we can hear from others where we are wrong, and accept their feedback without getting defensive. Time and again, the Bible says that someone who listens to feedback from others is wise, but someone who does not is a fool. — Henry Cloud

They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. — Jean Rhys

When Diogenes was asked how to live with the truth, he answered: Do as with fyre: do not go so exceadyngely close that it will burn, but do not go so farre away or the clode will reache you. — Evgenij Vodolazkin

Bringing the very heavens close enough to touch.
It was Zsadist.
His eyes closed, his head back, his mouth wide open, he sang.
The scarred one, the souless one, had the voice of an angel. — J.R. Ward

I pushed her shiny blond hair away from her face and leaned down, our faces only inches apart. She inhaled softly, our lips so close I could feel her breath and the scent of her skin, like honeysuckle in springtime. She smelled like sweet tea and old books, like she had always been here.
I pulled my fingers through her hair and held it at the back of her neck. Her skin was soft and warm, like a Mortal girl's. There was no electric current, no shocks. We could kiss for as long as we wanted. If we had a fight, there wouldn't be a flood or a hurricane, or even a storm. I wouldn't find her on the ceiling of her bedroom. No windows would shatter. No exams would catch fire.
Liv held up her face to be kissed.
She wanted me. — Kami Garcia

Be close tot he poor, the needy, to touch in their flesh the flesh of Jesus. Be close, please — Pope Francis

In the city that the wolf enters, enemies will be close by. An alien force will sack a great country. Allies will cross the mountains and the borders. — Nostradamus

I know I might look like a ball of fluff," she said, "but I'm not. Not even close. And the fact that I get up each morning and put a damn smile on my face is the same as ... Batman putting on his cape."
"I
"
"I'm not done. It's ... protection. It's my shield. It's me waving my middle finger to the world because I choose to be happy. The bottom line, Luke, is that I know what matters and what doesn't. — Jill Shalvis

To stay close and intimate with experience is to stay close to the mind; the nitty gritty mind of the way things really are. — Natalie Goldberg

What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes then in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored. — Eric Hoffer

Most people won't have opportunity to do full-time service, but those lucky enough to have monetary wealth or some spare time really can make an enormous difference. As someone who's now in the public sector, and is seeing up-close-and-personal the real impact of what we do and what we give, I can tell you: every dollar and every volunteer help, in more ways than you can count. — Michael Bloomberg

I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while my dearest friends have been knocked down or have fallen into a gutter somewhere out in the cold night. I get frightened when I think of close friends who have now been delivered into the hands of the cruelest brutes that walk the earth. And all because they are Jews! — Anne Frank

When he could wait no longer, he levered his body over hers and entered her, his heavy shaft spreading her deliciously, pushing deep. The sway of the train rocked them exquisitely, the subtle hint of motion teasing her senses. Her inner muscles began to close on him helplessly, and he followed that secret rhythm, sensitive to her every need. — Lisa Kleypas

When he touches you like you are the last person he will ever touch. When he runs you through his fingers with every bit of tenderness he can flesh out of his bones. When he says your name like tidal waves and kisses you like a midnight in July. Hold him close, project your thanks to the heavens, and find what you've been waiting for in the closeness of your skin. — Key Ballah

God, please now my future see, make it clear where I should be. Open windows, close the doors, not my will, my God, but Yours. — Karen Kingsbury

The close observer soon discovers that the teacher's task is not to implant facts but to place the subject to be learned in front of the learner and, through sympathy, emotion, imagination, and patience, to awaken in the learner the restless drive for answers and insights which enlarge the personal life and give it meaning. — Nathan M. Pusey

There's been times when I've been standing in a line at a movie and someone's hit me with something really heavy about someone really close and how our music has helped them get through it. Even in our darkest moments we try and find something beautiful. — Eddie Vedder

When He'd told his mother he wanted to go to military school so he could though up, she'd given him a strange look. (Not as strange as if he'd said he wanted to go to demon-fighting school so he could drink from the Mortal Cup, Ascend to the ranks of Shadowhunter, and just maybe get back the memories that had been stolen from him in a nearby hell dimension, but close.) — Cassandra Clare

When you start on a new film, no matter how many you've done before that, I think I've done close to 80 films, but it's always kind of a fun adventure. — Howard Shore

Then take it as it is. It's a gift. How or why is irrelevant, but if we don't enjoy it, we are ungrateful, he said and brought his face very close to mine. His eyes seemed to sparkle in the moonlight, mesmerizing me. — Rubianne Wood

It always amazes me to think that every house on every street is full of so many stories; so many triumphs and tragedies, and all we see are yards and driveways. — Glenn Close

The forty days of the soul begin on the morning after death. That first night, before its forty days begin, the soul lies still against sweated-on pillows and watches the living fold the hands and close the eyes, choke the room with smoke and silence to keep the new soul from the doors and the windows and the cracks in the floor so that it does not run out of the house like a river. The living know that, at daybreak, the soul will leave them and make its way to the places of its past ... and sometimes this journey will carry it so far for so long that it will forget to come back. — Tea Obreht

Ladies and gentlemen, attention, please!
Come in close where everyone can see!
I got a tale to tell, it isn't gonna cost a dime!
(And if you believe that,
we're gonna get along just fine.) — Stephen King

Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there. — Sarah Dessen

The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up. — Chuck Palahniuk

The ignorant mass looks upon the man who makes a violent protest against our social and economic iniquities as upon a wild beast, a cruel, heartless monster, whose joy it is to destroy life and bathe in blood; or at best, as upon an irresponsible lunatic. Yet nothing is further from the truth. As a matter of fact, those who have studied the character and personality of these men, or who have come in close contact with them, are agreed that it is their super-sensitiveness to the wrong and injustice surrounding them which compels them to pay the toll of our social crimes. The most noted writers and poets, discussing the psychology of political offenders, have paid them the highest tribute. Could anyone assume that these men had advised violence, or even approved of the acts? Certainly not. Theirs was the attitude of the social student, of the man who knows that beyond every violent act there is a vital cause. — Emma Goldman

People think that the ocean is big enough to sustain anything we throw at it - its hard to get into your head that it's actually finite. — Glenn Close

The same uneven application of values applies in the weird worlds of academia and the think tanks. Like the media, they choose to close off their minds the moment that the question of Islam comes along. Most bizarre is that you can get away with saying anything, absolutely anything, so long as it is flattering of Islam. It doesn't matter how soppy, how sentimental, how completely unacademic it is: so long as it's about Islam, different standards apply. — Douglas Murray

If you look at classic Hollywood films, they tend to shoot close-ups on quite long lenses and the background it out of focus. You know, it's just a mush. — Tom Hooper

I was very inspired by Les Blank's film 'Burden of Dreams.' I think what's unique about his film and the two I've made is that they're close examinations of filmmakers and how their own emotional experiences reflect in the material they're rendering, and vice versa - how that material sometimes colors their own lives. — George Hickenlooper

When I was a child, one of my first games was a time machine which I made for my brother - a big box covered in silver and bits of cellophane. I'd close him up in it and joggle him and say, 'We're in Victorian times now ... and now we're in Egyptian times, and I can see all these pyramids and pharaohs.' — Kate Williams

The record, said Finnerty, and he seemed satisfied with the toast. He had got what he wanted from the revolution, Paul supposed
a chance to give a savage blow to a close little society that made no comfortable place for him. — Kurt Vonnegut

A dark-windowed diesel train burst out of the building, close enough to make the bus shake. It helter-skeltered downward into the earth. "Where's it going?" Zanna said. "Crossing the Odd, to some of the other abcities," Jones said. "If you're brave enough to try, you might be able to catch a train from UnLondon to Parisn't, or No York, or Helsunki, or Lost Angeles, or Sans Francisco, or Hong Gone, or Romeless ... It's a terminus. — China Mieville

Science for me is very close to art. Scientific discovery is an irrational act. It's an intuition which turns out to be reality at the end of it-and I see no difference between a scientist developing a marvellous discovery and an artist making a painting. — Carlo Rubbia

My grandfather ran off the V-2 rocket film a dozen times and then hoped that someday our cities would open up more and let the green and the land and the wilderness in more, to remind people that we're allotted a little space on earth and that we survive in that wilderness that can take back what it has given, as easily as blowing its breath on us or sending the sea to tell us we are not so big. When we forget how close the wilderness is in the night, my grandpa said, someday it will come in and get us for we will have forgotten how terrible and real it can be. You see? — Ray Bradbury

...I'm momentarily transfixed, torn between curiosity and fear. I can pull it up the gently sloping mud bank, but then what? Already thought is lagging behind events, as the blotchy brown mass slides up wet mud toward me, its amorphous margins flowing into the craters left by retreating feet. In the center of the yard-wide disc is a raised turret where two eyes open and close, flashing black. And it's bellowing. A loud rhythmic sound that is at first inexplicable until I realize that those blinking eyes are its spiracles, now sucking in air instead of water, which it is pumping out via gill slits on its underside. And all the while it brandishes that blade, stabbing the air like a scorpion... — Jeremy Wade

Ahhhhhhhh. There is nothing natural about natural childbirth. It is as close to a freak accident as anything I can think of. Why I picked a time like this to go off drugs. — Jane Wagner

Knowing that a great bit of the technology is active and actually happening, and that the technology that we're talking about, in terms of uploading a human consciousness, is probably not all that far away, to be honest. Indeed, it will happen. It's pretty close. — Johnny Depp

I feel tired" Jace confessed "If I could sleep a few more hours ... "
"Of course .Of course you can" I sabelle's fingers pushed his hair back out of his eyes .Her tone was firm , absolute, fierce as a mother bear protecting her cub.
Jace's eyes began to close ." And you won't leave me ?"
"No " Alec said " No we won't ever leave you. You know that"
"Never" Isabelle took his hand,the one Alec wasn't holding , and pressed it fiercly "Lightwoods, all together" she whispere. — Cassandra Clare

If you close your eyes, no one can see you... — Dakota Cassidy

How is it that you're such an expert on home pregnancy kits?"
You're asking that question of an Italian stallion like myself? The women call me 'sperm of thunder'. I don't dare stand too close for fear I may impregnate them with just a whiff of my manhood. — Jill Smolinski

You don't need as much as some of the other artists but you do sing with your eyes close and it gives the illusion that you singing in your sleep and number one places around the country, you have to have your eyes open. You can close your eyes for a certain gesture or whatever but your eyes are the mirrors of your soul ... — Maxine Powell

In the last 20, 22 years I have sung here very often and I have always felt the affection and warmth of the Italians, and I feel very close to you. — Jose Carreras

I believe that if it were possible to scrap the whole of existing literature, all writers would find themselves inevitably producing something very close to SF ... No other form of fiction has the vocabulary of ideas and images to deal with the present, let alone the future. — J.G. Ballard

I like pulling on a baggy bee suit, forgetting myself and getting as close to the bees' lives as they will let me, remembering in the process that there is more to life than the merely human. — Sue Hubbell

I love scientists, they are unpredictable close reasoners. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

What then is the difference between film and theatre? Or should one not rather ask: what are the differences? Let us be content wi th the reply that the screen has two dimensions and the stage three, that the screen presents photographs and the stage living actors. All the subtler differences stem from these. The camera can show us all sorts of things
from close-ups of insects to panoramas of prairies
which the stage cannot even suggest, and it can move from one to another with much more dexterity than any conceivable stage. The stage, on the other hand, can be revealed in the unsurpassable beauty of three-dimensional shapes, and the stage actor establishes between himself and his audience a contact real as electricity. — Eric Bentley

No matter what the situation is ... close your eyes and think of all the things you could be grateful for in your life right now. — Deepak Chopra

Our friends have left us
Perhaps we never saw them, perhaps
we encountered them when sleep
still brought us very close to the breathing wave
perhaps we search for them because we search for the other life,
beyond the statues. — Giorgos Seferis