Quotes & Sayings About Nearness

Its clear friendliness seemed to ring out audibly amid this appalling hush of the harmonies of life. "I wish you might know a day's friendliness or a day's freedom, yours without question, without condition, and till death." Here was the voice of nature, of appointed protection; the sound of it aroused her early sense of native nearness to her cousin; had he been at hand she would have sought a wholesome refuge in his arms. She sat down at her writing-table, with her brow in her hands, light-headed with her passionate purpose, steadying herself to think. A day's freedom had come at last; a lifetime's freedom confronted her. For, — Henry James

To his consternation, her nearness made him slightly out of breath. — Ken Follett

He wanted to tell her that all at once he fell madly in love with everything about her, the way she kissed, the taste of her lips, her voice, her smell, her nearness ... but such a premature confession at this point could make her suspicious of his intelligence. From The Cartesian Machine — Nick Tran

In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else had been forgotten [ ... ], and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure, find and board the Hispanola under cover of night, cut every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at first intended, laden with crimes and riches. — Robert Louis Stevenson

There is lucidity inspired by the nearness of the grave:to be close to death is to see clearly — Victor Hugo

Nearness to God is common to us all,
Because we're all created and sustained by God,
But only the authentically noble
Possess and live that nearness
That's a constant upswelling passion of love. — Rumi

Only by acknowledging the full extent of slavery's full grip on U.S. Society - its intimate connections to present day wealth and power, the depth of its injury to black Americans, the shocking nearness in time of its true end - can we reconcile the paradoxes of current American life. — Douglas A. Blackmon

Tugging her arm free of his, she moved over to a stone bench flanked by some exotic-looking red flowers and took a seat. She was not amused when he took a seat right beside her, crowding her in the process. "When did you get so large?" she asked, scooting as casually as she could away from him, not allowing herself to dwell on why his nearness was bothering her. "When I began working in a steel mill." Wilhelmina — Jen Turano

And now, when Mother called to wake me up for the New Year, I first wanted to pray, but it turned into thanks, darling, for all that God had given us this year. For his wonderful ways with us, even if we don't understand it all now. For his love, that in all our disappointments and sorrow he himself helps us to bear it all, so that all this turns into a blessing because we feel his nearness and can take up our cross joyfully. And so we may know, and we do experience, that his power is made perfect in our weakness. — Diet Eman

Thus his belief was that in a service where feeling could be restrained it ought to be restrained. The power of God was more likely to be known in a solemn stillness than amid noise and excitement. Silence and an expectant seriousness, born of a realisation of the nearness of God, were striking characteristics of the services at Sandfields. — Iain H. Murray

What are you doing here?" I asked. I was breathless, not certain any longer if it was my nearly plummeting to my death or his nearness that was making it so hard to draw in air.
"Protecting you. What does it look like I'm doing? — Jocelyn Davies

St. Thomas adopts a division of the nine choirs into three groups, according to their intellectual perfection and consequent nearness in being to God - Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominations, Virtues, Powers; Principalities, Archangels, Angels. Other writers suggest different arrangements; and there is a mass of magnificent theological speculation as to the difference of function between one choir and another. But the Church has defined nothing upon this matter. — Frank Sheed

Look,Nik.I can't lose you. We can be partners.With you by my side,and with the band backing us,we could take over. I want you by my side in the High Court?"
"What does that even mean? We'd be ... together? Like, together, together?"
Cole gave a sly smile. "We'd rule hand in hand. And as far as being together, we'd be as together as you'd allow."
Annoyingly,my cheeks got all warm, and I turned away, frustrated at my reaction. I stood and went over to my desk chair to sit down.
Cole chuckled. He pushed himself off the floor and walked closer to me,and the Shade at my shoulder pulled toward him. I wanted to hit it.
"Stay over there," I said.
"Why?" He held his hands up, all innocent-like. "Does my nearness affect you? That's what happens when you spend a century with someone. — Brodi Ashton

The further from one another, the nearer one can be. — August Strindberg

Let believers on earth imitate the saints in heaven in their nearness to Christ. Let us on earth be as the elders are in heaven, sitting around the throne. May Christ be the object of our thoughts, the centre of our lives. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

What we notice in stories is the nearness of the wound to the gift. — Jeanette Winterson

Painting is concerned with the ten things you can see: these are darkness and brightness, substance and color, form and place, remoteness and nearness, movement and rest. — Leonardo Da Vinci

I breathed him in, feeling the effect of him - his nearness, his support - permeate my being. The smell of his soap was muted now, the naturally seductive scent of his skin altering the fragrance into something richer and more delicious. When I was restless, he settled me. — Sylvia Day

Is America a land of God where saints abide for ever? Where golden fields spread fair and broad, where flows the crystal river? Certainly not flush with saints, and a good thing, too, for the saints sent buzzing into man's ken now are but poor-mouthed ecclesiastical film stars and clich?-shouting publicity agents. Their little knowledge bringing them nearer to their ignorance, ignorance bringing them nearer to death, but nearness to death no nearer to God. — Sean O'Casey

For the remainder of the meal, Ruairi sat and listened while the woman laughed at Fagan's jesting, cast smiles at Fagan, and asked him questions about Ruairi's home. Clearly Ruairi couldn't answer, so his only option was to sit mute. Perhaps this wasn't one of his most brilliant ideas. Mistress Denny must think him daft. He took another drink from his tankard and tried to think of all the ways to kill the captain of his guard. Her gentle laugh tinkled through the air. Her nearness was overpowering, but it had been quite a long time since he had shared his bed with a woman. When visions suddenly appeared of the sultry temptress lying beneath him, a cynical inner voice cut through his thoughts. He hated when his cock ruled his mind.
Ruari brought his tankard to his lips and took another big gulp, quickly realizing he needed something much stronger than what was in his cup. — Victoria Roberts

Marriage is so unlike everything else. There is something even awful in the nearness it brings. Even if we loved someone else better than - than those we were married to, it would be no use. I mean, marriage drinks up all our power of giving or getting any blessedness in that sort of love. I know it may be very dear, but it murders our marriage, and then the marriage stays with us like a murder, and everything else is gone. — George Eliot

Lay claim to the nearness of God. "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (Heb. 13.5 NIV). — Max Lucado

A SIZEABLE LEGACY HE LEFT her. It was a legacy of beautiful memories, of love and passion, of desire and ecstasy, of nearness and the myriad means of communication two lovers could find. It was a legacy of experience, both private and public, personal and professional, encompassing all she'd learned from their brief liaison. It was a legacy of pain, of hurt and heartache, of humiliation and distrust, of frustration and disillusionment, of the sheer hell of a loneliness made worse by comparison with what might have been. And, finally, there was the small gold heart she wore constantly, ruby-eyed and shining, a poignant reminder of that part of her own heart which was, now and forever, lost. — Barbara Delinsky

Nothing brings home closer than going home... — Will Advise

We cannot speak loudly or angrily at such times; we are not apt to be eager about mere worldly things, for our very awe at our quickened sense of the nearness of the invisible world, makes us calm and serene about the petty trifles of today. — Elizabeth Gaskell

But "nowhere" does not mean nothing; rather, region in general lies therein, and disclosedness of the world in general for essentially spatial being-in. Therefore, what is threatening cannot come closer from a definite direction within nearness, it is already "there" - and yet nowhere. It is so near that it is oppressive and takes one's breath - and yet it is nowhere. — Martin Heidegger

It was the best place to be, thought Wilbur, this warm delicious cellar, with the garrulous geese, the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure, and the glory of everything. — E.B. White

Ten properties of an object, according to Leonardo: light and dark, color and substance, form and position, distance and nearness, movement and stillness. — Robert Bresson

He came to me then, wrapped his arms around me. I stayed stiff in his arms for a moment, and then I collapsed into his body. I clung to him. I let his strength and his nearness hold me. I let him hold me while I wept and screamed and wailed. I lost it completely, and Richard held me while I did it. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Everything has two handles; the one soft and manageable, the other such as will not endure to be touched. If then your brother do you an injury, do not take it by the hot hard handle, by representing to yourself all the aggravating circumstances of the fact; but look rather on the soft side, and extenuate it as much as is possible, by considering the nearness of the relation, and the long friendship and familiarity between you
obligations to kindness which a single provocation ought not to dissolve. And thus you will take the accident by its manageable handle. — Epictetus

Sometimes the greatest moment of your life present itself in the form if a nearness to someone you love. — Ika Natassa

The night smelled like blackberry leaves and the ocean's nearness, something sweet and deep and full. — Deb Caletti

I had an overwhelming experience of the Lord's presence. I felt so powerfully overcome by the nearness of the Holy Spirit that I had to ask the Lord to draw back lest He kill me. It was so glorious that I couldn't stand more than a small portion of it. — Mordecai Ham

The world worlds, and is more fully in being than the tangible and perceptible realm in which we believe ourselves to be at home ... By the opening up of a world, all things gain their lingering and hastening, their remoteness and nearness, their scope and limits. In a world's worlding is gathered that spaciousness out of which the protective grace of the gods is granted and withheld. Even this doom of the god remaining absent is a way in which the world worlds ... All coming to presence ... keeps itself concealed to the last. — Martin Heidegger

There's a kind of unfamiliar electricity that goes through her at the nearness of him, and she can't help wondering if he feels it, too. — Jennifer E. Smith

the nearness of climate tipping points, beyond which climate dynamics can cause rapid changes out of humanity's control. Tipping points occur because of amplifying feedbacks - as when a microphone is placed too close to a speaker, which amplifies any little sound picked up by the microphone, which then picks up the amplification, which is again picked up — James Hansen

If you knew what a sensation of the nearness of a higher power one instinctively feels when one is permitted to contribute to the good of mankind, as I have done, and still do! Believe me, it is a great gift of God's mercy! — Jenny Lind

Ibn Mas'ud said, "When 'Umar died nine-tenth of all knowledge vanished with him." The people were shocked and said, "How can this be when among us now are still many of the great companions?" Ibn Mas'ud replied,"I am not speaking of the knowledge of fiqh and the science of judgements, I'm speaking about the knowledge of Allah." This struggle of isolation, hunger, sleeplessness, weeping, fear and endless service to men was for this end. The journey is only for knowledge of Allah and the whole of it lies in detachment from everything that passes away. First from what is displeasing to Allah, then from one's self-illusion and desires, and then from all men and all otherness until there is only isolation and extreme nearness to Allah. — Khalid Muhammad Khalid

If union means anything, it means that the Christian life is to be a life that is lived with the conscious nearness of the Lord in our lives through the Spirit. God is not remote, like some distant Gnostic or deistic deity, and neither is he immanent in the world around us, for that would depersonalize him. He is transcendent, which means that he stands above us but not far above us. The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament both affirm that God is above, as Lord, but that he is accessible. He is above, for us! And he wishes us to come to him, above us, and to fellowship with him. — Terry L. Wilder

The elevator doors had barely shut before Olivia's fingers were at the buckle of the belt cinching the waist of her trench dress. Drunk on his nearness, she ignored the security camera in the ceiling. It didn't mean a damn thing. Hell, who was she kidding? She was the wild Sweet triplet, the one voted most likely to do anything, and all she wanted to do right now was Mateo. — Avery Flynn

The third duty of a teacher is that he should not withhold from his students any advice. After he finishes the outward sciences, he should teach them the inward sciences. He should tell them that the object of education is to gain nearness of God, not power or richness and that God created ambition as a means of perpetuating knowledge which is essential for these sciences. — Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

Warned by such evidences of their spiritual illness, believers profit by their humiliations. Robbed of their foolish confidence in the flesh, they take refuge in the grace of God. And when they have done so, they experience the nearness of the divine protection which is to them a strong fortress (Ps 30:6-7). — John Calvin

I can admire the solemn and stately language of worship that recognizes the greatness of God, but it will not warm my heart or express my soul until it has also blended therewith the joyful nearness of that perfect love that casts out fear and ventures to speak with our Father in heaven as a child speaks with its father on earth. My brother, no veil remains. — Charles Spurgeon

And then he was kissing her, and she was struck by his nearness, his solidity, his smell. It was of the garden and the earth and the sun. When Cassandra opened her eyes, she realized she was crying. She wasn't sad, though, these were the tears of being found, of having come home after a long time away. — Kate Morton

2-1-10:
A languid Sunday, afternoon turned into evening, evening into night, night into morning.
'I just want to enjoy your nextness and nearness,' O says.
He puts his ear to my chest and listens to my heart and counts the beats.
'Sixty-two,' he says with a satisfied smile, and I can't imagine anything more intimate. — Bill Hayes

1:4 There is no contradiction of any proportion that we can possibly face that has what it takes to exasperate us or distance us from God. Our consciousness of his inseparable nearness immediately reinforces us to extend the same tangible 1closeness to you in your difficult times, and together we snuggle up in the 1comfort of his intimate embrace! — Francois Du Toit

I always get muscle aches in my eyes after a few hours of reading," she said. "Doesn't matter what. The closeness does it. All these words in your face, one at a time and filling your periphery. I love reading, but there's a limit.
"There are times," she went on, "when I don't leave my apartment for days. I read for hours without a break and feel like all I want to do is stand in a field and look as far as I can in any direction. I want a view, but I don't want to see anything. I just want something like an eye stretch."
"Why not just shut your eyes?" I asked. "What's the difference?"
"Closing my eyes is too much like nearness, like reading. It's black and it's in your face, sort of crowding you. Gazing down a prairie road stretches me and the muscles in my eyes. I don't necessarily want to see anything. Just look out. — Ryan Knighton

A cat can make you feel well rested when you're tired or turn a rage into a calm just by sitting on your lap. His very nearness is a healing song. — Shannon Hale

True love is an intense desire for the presence of its object. God is only ours in reality when we are conscious of His nearness, and that is strange love of Him which is content to pass days without ever setting Him before itself. — Alexander MacLaren

Miles watched the evening shadows flowing up along the backbone of the Dendarii range, high and massive in the distance. How small those mountains looked from space! Little wrinkles on the skin of a globe he could cover with his hand, all their crushing mass made invisible. Which was illusory, distance or nearness? Distance, Miles decided. Distance was a damned lie. Had his father known this? Miles suspected so. — Lois McMaster Bujold

His expression is inscrutable. His eyes look strange with their pulsing pupils. "You're not like other girls. You're special."
Intoxicating warmth crawls over my cheeks. I'm glad at this confession. Glad that I'm as unique to him as he is to me. Back home, I only ever felt safe, protected, and revered. Even with Cassian, I never felt like he liked me for me, but rather for what I brought the pride.
Every moment with Will, I feel at risk, exposed. Danger hands close, as tangible as the heavy mists I've left behind. And I can't get enough of it. Of him. I crave his nearness still. Like a drug needed to survive, to get by each day. An addiction. A powerful, consuming thing.
"I've tried to deny it," he continues, "but it's there, staring me in the face every time I see you. If you were like other girls . . ." He laughs hoarsely. "If you were like other girls I wouldn't even be here. — Sophie Jordan

How did ears get their start? Any piece of skin can detect vibrations if they come in contact with vibrating objects. This is a natural outgrowth of the sense of touch. Natural selection could easily have enhanced this faculty by gradual degrees until it was sensitive enough to pick up very slight contact vibrations. At this point it would automatically have been sensitive enough to pick up airborne vibrations of sufficient loudness and/or sufficient nearness of origin — Richard Dawkins

I shall live here in the rains,
There in winter,
Elsewhere in summer, muses the fool,
Not aware of the nearness of death. — Gautama Buddha

In His infinite mercy, Allah has
sent the light of Ramadan to erase the night. He has sent the month of the Qur'an so that He might
elevate us and bring us from our isolation to His nearness. — Yasmin Mogahed

Artists are interpreters for us of richness and meaning. Artists can reinforce a healthy sense of God's grandeur and nearness. — Sandra Bowden

[T]his impulse toward spiritual intimacy is found not only in the Abrahamic faiths, but in Buddhism, Hinduism, and native religions. Far too many people who understand God in these ways probably do not know how rich the tradition is that speaks of God with us, God in the stars and sunrise, God as the face of their neighbor, God in the act of justice, or God as the wonder of love. The language of divine nearness is the very heart of vibrant faith. Yet it has often been obscured by vertical theologies and elevator institutions, which, I suspect, are far easier to both explain and control. Drawing God within the circle of the world is a messy and sometimes dangerous business. — Diana Butler Bass

They do not understand the fragility of civilization and the constant nearness of savage nature. — Camille Paglia

She acknowledged each person's nearness to the dead and helped the group in its struggle for order-who grieved most, whose pain was most real-because in life there is always hierarchy, and it is frankly not profitable to remain modest and anonymous, not even at a funeral. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

This is what we bear, I thought, the nearness of other lives. — Jesse Ball

the distance fills and nearness is a void — Donald Revell

When it seems as if God is far away, remind yourself that He is near. Nearness is not a matter of geography. God is everywhere. Nearness is likeness. The more we become like the Lord, the nearer He is to us. — Warren W. Wiersbe

What are you doing?" she asked.
I don't know. Instinct not logic currently dictated his actions. But he didn't admit this aloud.
"Do you always ask so many questions?"
"Only when I'm trying to understand what's going on."
"Isn't it obvious?"
Confusion clouded her gaze. "No."
Did she not sense the attraction between them? Of course she didn't. She
was a simple human. She couldn't know how his bear chuffed at her
nearness. How the scent of her aroused him. How he wanted to lay claim
to her body. What the (deuce) is wrong with me?
Apparently, his grandmother wondered the same thing. "Reid Alexander Carver, what are you doing manhandling our guest?"
Oops, caught harboring naughty thoughts and jolted back to sanity. What am I doing? — Eve Langlais

Nearness to God brings likeness to God. The more you see God the more of God will be seen in you. — Charles Spurgeon

Persephone was dead. Gansey couldn't believe it, not because he could not believe in the nearness of death
he could not STOP believing in the nearness of death
but because he would not have expected PERSEPHONE to do something as mortal as dying. — Maggie Stiefvater

You have taken me and quieted me.
You have been such light to me that others have been your shadows.
You come near me with the nearness of sleep.

--"Marriage", Wendell Berry — Wendell Berry

I can't see," she whispered. "You're blockin' my view."
And because he didn't want her to know how shaken he was by her nearness, by her touch, he decided to play it cool. Play it smart. Give her exactly what she'd come to expect from him. "Babe" - he turned and flashed her an exaggerated wink - "I am the view. — Julie Ann Walker

Edan Lepucki sets her debut novel, 'California,' somewhere in the 2060s. The nearness of this era helps make her vision both more discomfiting and more credible. — Amity Gaige

Every spring in the wet meadows and ditches I hear a little shrilling chorus which sounds for all the world like an endlessly reiterated "We're here, we're here, we're here." And so they are, as frogs, of course. Confident little fellows. I suspect that to some greater ear than ours, man's optimistic pronouncements about his role and destiny may make a similar little ringing sound that travels a small way out into the night. It is only its nearness that is offensive. From the heights of a mountain, or a marsh at evening, it blends, not too badly, with all the other sleepy voices that, in croaks or chirrups, are saying the same thing. — Loren Eiseley

Fishing provides time to think, and reason not to. If you have the virtue of patience, an hour or two of casting alone is plenty of time to review all you've learned about the grand themes of life. It's time enough to realize that every generalization stands opposed by a mosaic of exceptions, and that the biggest truths are few indeed. Meanwhile, you feel the wind shift and the temperature change. You might simply decide to be present, and observe a few facts about the drifting clouds ... Fishing in a place is a meditation on the rhythm of a tide, a season, the arc of a year, and the seasons of life ... I fish to scratch the surface of those mysteries, for nearness to the beautiful, and to reassure myself the world remains. I fish to wash off some of my grief for the peace we so squander. I fish to dip into that great and awesome pool of power that propels these epic migrations. I fish to feel- and steal- a little of that energy. — Carl Safina

Sing little box

Don't let sleep overtake you
The world's awake within you

In your four-sided emptiness
We turn distance into nearness
Forgetfulness into memory

Don't let your nails come loose

For the very first time
We watch sights beyond this world
Through your keyhole

Turn your key in our mouths
Swallow words and numbers
Out of your song

Don't let your lid fly open
Your bottom drop

Sing little box — Vasko Popa

Oh, my love," Erienne breathed as he pressed his lips to her brow, "I was afraid you would come, and yet I hoped you would."
Light kisses rained upon her cheek and brow as he held her close, savoring the nearness of her while he could. "I would have come sooner had I known where they had taken you. I had not expected this of your father, but he will answer. I promise you that."
Erienne shook her head and replied in the same muted tone. "He is not my real father."
Christopher held her away, looking down at her wonderingly. "What is this?"
"My mother married an Irish rebel and got with child before he was hanged. Avery married her, knowing the facts, but he never told her that it was he who had given the final orders to hang my father."
Christopher gently brushed a tumbled curl from off her cheek. "I knew you were too beautiful to be kin to him."

-Erienne & Christopher — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

I love the juxtaposition of these words. I love the incongruity, the oddity, the very strangeness of their nearness. Dizzy Gillespie. Pakistan. What does one have to with another? — Maliha Masood

The forbidden cabinet. The forbidden fruit. That fruit is - a volume, a huge blue-lilac volume with a gold inscription slantwise: Collected Works of A.S. Pushkin. I read the fat Pushkin in the cabinet with my nose in the book and on the shelf, almost in darkness and almost right up against it and even a little bit suffocated by his weight that came right into the throat, and almost blinded by the nearness of the tiny letters. I read Pushkin right into the chest and right into the brain. — Marina Tsvetaeva

Give us that calm certainty of truth, that nearness to Thee, that conviction of the reality of the life to come, which we shall need to bear us through the troubles of this. — Henry Ward Beecher

The night folded around them with a sweetness and poignancy heightened by the new pale stars that prickled silver fire in the water of the lily ponds, by the scented winds, and by the nearness of each other. — Pauline Gedge

Longing is the agony of the nearness of the distant. — Martin Heidegger

Our nearness to the king in love is nearness to those who love not the king. — William Shakespeare

hungry spirits so that cattle and crops would not be damaged. The nearness of the spirits meant that all sorts of secrets could be divined on Halloween Night. Young couples roasted nuts on a fire, for example, — Frank McNally

He could remember a time when the loneliness of death had terrified him, when the idea of it was insupportable. He used to feel that if his wife could but lie in the same coffin with him, his body would not be so insensible that the nearness of hers would not give it comfort. But now he thought of eternal solitude with gratefulness; as a release from every obligation, from every form of effort. It was the Truth. One — Willa Cather

Wide awake to the presence of God, I realized I had been so focused on asking why a good God allowed bad things to happen that I was missing out on the nearness of God all along. In becoming preoccupied with the why, I was missing the who. — Margaret Feinberg

I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God. — Meister Eckhart

My life is ending, I know that well, but every day that is left me I feel how earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, but approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Let your love see me even through the barrier of nearness. — Rabindranath Tagore

What a state of safety and privilege is this nearness to God through Jesus! Do you know it by experience? If you know it, are you living in the power of it? — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

DEAR LORD, forgive me when I demand evidence of your working and power instead of thanking you for all you do. Please open my eyes to be aware of your presence, to sense your nearness, and to see the works of your hand everywhere I look. With all my heart I welcome your presence today, however you choose to reveal yourself to me. And don't let me forget to thank you. — Cheri Fuller

When people quit talking to God, they quit talking to one another. And people who quit talking to God soon get very lonely and depressed. They are actually lonely for God, hungering for communion with Him, yearning for His close love and nearness; but instead of recognizing these needs as spiritual, they blame their lack of fulfillment on their husbands or wives. — David Wilkerson

The people come to Jesus, not because they recognized his dignity and function but because it is rumored that a miracle worker has come in their midst. Jesus had come to preach repentance and the nearness of the kingdom but the people think only of relief from pain and affliction. — William L. Lane

Vagueness is at times an indication of nearness to a perfect truth. — Charles Ives

I, with millions of other Americans, have the same dream Martin Luther King Jr. had; when I wake up I wish some of the things I dreamt would be true. I wish that little black and white boys and girls would hold hands without being shocked at their nearness to each other and say in a natural way, we have overcome. — Maya Angelou

He scooted his chair so close to hers that she fought the urge to back away. She gulped at his nearness. The lustful gleam flashing in his eyes made him like the Big Bad Wolf looming over her. "How much plainer can I make it for you? You were so damn sexy in that green dress. Your hair was down and fell in waves around your shoulders. And you kept giving me those innocent little smiles from across the room." His breath scorched against her cheek before he whispered into her ear. "I've never wanted to fuck someone so much as I wanted to you. — Katie Ashley

His nearness made my senses spin — Julie Kagawa

... anything to avoid the uncomfortable nearness of strangers — David Arnold

A door in my chest opens with an unfamiliar happiness. In my arms, there is an echo of his nearness, what it felt like to hold him. — Anna Smaill

And yet and yet - the last secret of the tree of codes is that nothing can ever reach a definite conclusion. Nowhere as much as there do we feel possibilities shaken by the nearness of realization. The atmosphere becomes possibilities and we shall wander and make a thousand mistakes. We shall wander along yet not be able to understand. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I waited for my body to respond to her nearness. Hoping that my heart would beat wildly or that wonderful tingling feeling would begin to surge from my groin. But my insides were quiet, almost ... bored. — Karen Ann Hopkins

I argue that it is not Woolf's remoteness that puts people off but her nearness that terrifies them. Her language is not a woolly blanket it is a sharp sword. The Waves, which is the most difficult of her works, is a strong-honed edge through the cloudiness most of us call life. It is uncomfortable to have the thick padded stuff ripped away. There is no warm blanket to be had out of Virginia Woolf; there is wind and sun and you naked. It is not remoteness of feeling in Woolf, it is excess; the unbearable quiver of nerves and the heart pounding. It is exposure.
And it is exactness. — Jeanette Winterson

Mary's Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest...
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by doves' voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must seen him torn. — Luci Shaw

Holding on for dear life, I was overcome with the perfect nearness of him, the ache of human solitude nearly conquered. — Jennifer DeLucy

For this reason, strangers are not really conceived as individuals, but as strangers of a particular type: the element of distance is no less general in regard to them than the element of nearness. — Georg Simmel

I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. — Pope Francis