Perilously Close Quotes & Sayings

both observing and breaking the rules involve moral choices, and both courses of action reveal something important about the individual involved. Contrary — Glenn Greenwald

Style is a deeply personal expression of who you are, and every time you dress, you are asserting a part of yourself. — Nina Garcia

I worry I am coming perilously close to violating both of those promises. But still. It is our third wedding anniversary and I am alone in our apartment, my face all mask-tight from tears because, well, because: Just this afternoon, I get a voice mail from Nick, and I already know it's going to be bad, I know — Gillian Flynn

Unbelief has put self where God should be, and is perilously close to the sin of Lucifer who said, "I will set my throne above the throne of God." Faith looks out instead of in and the whole life falls into line. — A.W. Tozer

I won't blame Nick. I don't blame Nick. I refuse - refuse! - to turn into some pert-mouthed, strident angry-girl. I made two promises to myself when I married Nick. One: no dancing-monkey demands. Two: I would never, ever say, Sure, that's fine by me (if you want to stay out later, if you want to do a boys' weekend, if you want to do something you want to do) and then punish him for doing what I said was fine by me. I worry I am coming perilously close to violating both of those promises. — Gillian Flynn

They were way more interested in learning the alphabet or whatever than they were in learning how to rip a moose in half with their bare hands. Then make a helmet out of its skull. Then to use that helmet to help kill more moose. Collect the skull helmets. Combine. Assemble. Super moose skull helmet. Infinite power. — Bratniss Everclean

Has a control system so perilously close to intelligence that a government agent must be on hand at all times, ready to destroy the machine if it slips over the threshold into consciousness. — Alastair Reynolds

And (b) Kissing someone so that you can get a free trip is perilously close to full-on hooking — John Green

The shooting of the guns, that was kind of funny, because rolling a cigarette and shooting a gun aren't like normal things for a 13-year old girl! — Hailee Steinfeld

It's probably hard for anyone looking at my landscapes today to realize that I was once regarded as a rebel, a dangerous influence; that I've been told I was on the verge of insanity, that my painting was nothing but meaningless daubs. Lawren Harris, the man most responsible for drawing the Group of Seven together, was accused of something perilously close to treason - his paintings, said his severest critics, were discouraging immigration. — A. Y. Jackson

The innocent is the person who explains nothing — Albert Camus

How much more relevant could God be than to be a provider of food for life? What good is religion if it cannot feed the hungry? Satan was perilously and painfully close to a truth. But it was a half-truth, and a half-truth gets so interwoven with a lie that it becomes deadlier by the mix. Ask yourself this question: What kind of a following would result if the sole reason for the affection toward the leader is that he provides his followers with bread? Both motives would be wrong - for the provider and the receiver. These are the terms of reward and punishment that are mercenarily tainted and have diminishing returns, at best engendering compliance, but not love. Their appeal, too, is soon lost when offered as enticements or when withheld to engender fears. Dependence without commitment will ever look for ways to break the stranglehold. The — Ravi Zacharias

I've always been quite an active person especially when I was younger. When I was in primary school, I used to play lots of sports. I was a sprinter and I did basketball and swimming and Gaelic football and things like that. So I always thought, I guess, that it would be fun to incorporate that much physical activity and work into a dramatic piece. — Saoirse Ronan

The NFL acknowledges that repetitive trauma to the head in football ... can cause a permanent, disabiling injury to the brain. — Bob Fitzsimmons

He came for a moment perilously close to believing that he could fly, but a quick-thinking error-checking protocol cut in and told him not to be so silly. It — Douglas Adams

Here's what girlfriends do for you: they provide the reality check. They are the ones who tell you when you have spinach between your teeth or when your ass looks fat in a pair of jeans or when you're being a bitch. They tell you, and there's no drama or agenda, like there would be if the message had come from your husband. They tell you the truth because you need to hear it, but it doesn't alter the bond between you. — Jodi Picoult

In 2008 we came perilously close to killing money, exposing in the process how out of date money's infrastructure has become. — Douglas Coupland

Will you stay with me? I think I'll sleep better. I swear I won't hurt you. — Chelsea M. Cameron

I find myself most drawn to: art that has arisen from a deeply personal conversation between the artist and the work at hand. It is art that walks perilously close to the Edge, that crosses the river of blood into Faerie, that flies so high it is scorched by the sun, and then returns to tell the tale to us. It is art that needed to be written, or painted, or sung, or woven, or otherwise shaped. It is art gifted by the Mystery to the maker ... and then, in turn, gifted to us. — Terri Windling

More worryingly, my baby fangs were out, which usually happened only when I was perilously close to tipping over into Mr. Hyde territory. I quickly drew them back in. It didn't help much. I still looked like Dracula's daughter. Which was completely unfair, since he'd only been an uncle. — Karen Chance

Johnny Appleseed was revered . he was ... an evangelist (of a doctrine veering perilously close to pantheism). — Michael Pollan

mandating innovation is an oxymoron, maybe not as absurd as "scheduling spontaneity," but perilously close. I — Eric Weiner

The trick to this solution is that you'd have to be 100% honest. Meaning not just sincere but almost naked. Worse than naked - more like unarmed. Defenseless. 'This thing I feel, I can't name it straight out but it seems important, do you feel it too?' - this sort of direct question is not for the squeamish. For one thing, it's perilously close to "Do you like me? Please like me," which you know quite well that 99% of all interhuman manipulation and bullshit gamesmanship that goes on goes on precisely because the idea of saying this sort of thing straight out is regarded as somehow obsene. In fact one of the very last few interperonal taboos we have is kind of obscenely naked direct interrogation of somebody else. It looks pathetic and desperate. That's how it'll look to the reader. And it will have to. There's no way around it. — David Foster Wallace

To suggest that the merciful, longsuffering, gracious and loving God of the Bible would invent a dreadful doctrine like Calvinism, which would have us believe it is an act of 'grace' to select only certain people for heaven and, by exclusion, others for hell, comes perilously close to blasphemy. — Tim LaHaye

What's the current price for a thought in these days of inflation?" Alan donwered aloud as he paused in the doorway. She'd looked so beautiful, he reflected. So distant. Then she glanced up with a smile that enchanced the first and erased the second.
"That was quick," Shelby complimented him and avoided the question with equal ease. "I'm afraid I admired your tea set a bit too strongly and made your butler nervous.He might be wondering if I'll slip the saucer into my bag." Setting down the cup, she rose. "Are you ready to go be charming and distinguished? You look as though you would be."
Alan lifted a brow. "I have a feeling distinguished comes perilously close to sedate in your book."
"No,you're lots of room yet," she told him as she breezed into the hall. "I'll give you a jab if you start teetering toward sedate. — Nora Roberts

He held up a hand. "You've come perilously close to being written up for insubordination, Lieutenant. I expect better control from you, and have rarely had the need to remind you of it."
"Yes, sir."
"Moreover, I find myself insulted both on a personal and professional level that you assumed I had or would approve an asinine schedule that pulls you off a priority."
"I apologize, Commander, and can only offer the weak excuse that any and all contact with Lee Chang results in my temporary insanity."
"Understood." Whitney turned the disc over in his hand. "It surprises me, Dallas, that you didn't shove this down his throat."
"Actually, sir, I had another orifice in mind."
His lips quirked, just slightly. Then he snapped the disc in two, just as she had.
"Thank you, Commander."
"Let's get this damn circus over with, so we can both get back to work. — J.D. Robb

Gentleness was sometimes perilously close to pity. — Julie Anne Long

We are already perilously close to killing off the top of the oceanic food chain - with catastrophic consequences that we can't begin to imagine. Let us not, in the heat of anger, reduce the already devastated population of great white sharks by one more member. — Peter Benchley

The greater a man's talents, the more marked his idiosyncracies. Yet in the provinces originality is considered perilously close to lunacy. — Honore De Balzac

the front seat with his alarm again ringing furiously. "Are you all right?" shouted Milo. "Umphh," grunted Tock. "Sorry to get carried away, but I think you get the point." As they drove along, Tock continued to explain the importance of time, quoting the old philosophers and poets and illustrating each point with gestures that brought him perilously close to tumbling headlong from the speeding automobile. — Norton Juster

Before I tell you about your father," Fireheart began, "I want you to remember that ThunderClan is proud of you. You'll both make fine warriors. What I'm going to say now won't make any difference to that. — Erin Hunter

Never mess with someone who has more spare time than you do[.] — Fredrik Backman

This is how I feel, I can't name it straight out but it seems important, do you feel it too?
this sort of direct question is not for the squeamish. For one thing, it's perilously close to 'Do you like me? Please like me,' which you know quite well that 99% of all the interhuman manipulation and bullshit gamesmanship that goes on goes on precisely because the idea of saying this sort of thing straight out is regarded as somehow obscene. — David Foster Wallace

My Gram said that I would get the role in whichever show God thought was right but it wouldn't hurt to express a preference. I told her that I would like to do 'The Brady Bunch' because I'd have five other kids on the set to play with. God was listening. — Susan Olsen

His eyebrows drew together. He was perilously close to unibrow; I guess nobody had held him down and administered a good plucking to the caterpillar climbing across his forehead. — Lilith Saintcrow

The flat top of the hill was scattered with the bodies of dead men in the uniforms of Sounis and Eddis. The outposts of both armies had met here. As I stood staring, I thought, These are my dead. All of them. The battle hadn't been unanticipated or forced on me, as the raid in the villa had been. I had chosen it. These men, Eddisian and Sounisian alike, had died for my decisions.
When the magus stepped from the bushes toward the back part of the hill, I was more than horrified. I was perilously close to distraught.
...
When he pulled away and looked into my face, I knew that he would tell me that I was Sounis and that I needed to pull myself together.
"Your uncle," he said, "in all the years I saw him rule, never had a moment of self-doubt. Never a regret for a single life lost. Do you understand?"
I understood that I didn't want to be my uncle. — Megan Whalen Turner

For a peace wrought in blood is nothing short of tyranny. — Jocelyn Murray

Playing the clown is not an easy task. Clowns, I have come to believe, are placed upon the earth solely to fill the needs of others, while running perilously close to "Empty" themselves. — Alan Bradley

After the assassination of my wife, our nation was perilously close to civil strife. If I, as the co-chairman of the Party, had asked my people to take to the streets, the very existence of the federation would have been threatened. — Asif Ali Zardari

I like the thought of playing for money instead of silverware. I never did like to polish. — Patty Sheehan

There are times in my 30 years in the theater that I have come perilously close to losing faith in the one form of action I have in this life. — Athol Fugard

We have to change our whole way, our health care system is a disaster. It's going to implode in 2017, just like you're sitting there. It doesn't work. Nothing works in our country. If I'm elected president, we will win again. — Donald Trump

Picture, if you will, Tommy, the fuse of a cannon. Now, when one touches a flame to a fuse, what happens? It's consumed bit ... '
He stepped toward her, so close that his boot toes nearly touched the toes of her slippers.
She sucked in a breath. But she stood her ground when his knees brushed hers.
' ... by bit ... '
His voice had gone perilously soft. ' ... by bit. Until ... '
His breath fluttered her hair.
His mouth was next to her ear now. 'Boom. — Julie Anne Long