So Close But Out Of Reach Quotes & Sayings

There is always movement in the waiting: walk to the kitchen, reach for his hand, close the eyes in wonder. In the waiting, there may be slowing, but there is never stopping. Not completely. Because living things move. God is always moving toward us and we always have the choice to move toward God. Even in the silence, even as we wait. Maybe especially so. — Emily P. Freeman

To be a good storyteller one must be gloriously alive. It is not possible to kindle fresh fires from burned-out embers. I have noticed that the best of the traditional storytellers whom I have heard have been those who live close to the heart of things-to the earth, the sea, wind and weather. They have been those who knew solitude, silence. They have been given unbroken time in which to feel deeply, to reach constantly for understanding. They have come to know the power of the spoken word. These storytellers have been sailors and peasants, wanderers and fisherman. — Ruth Sawyer

When a lion stalks a herd, he sneaks in close, lies down, and surveys them to choose his victim. He takes his time. The deer or buffalo have no idea he's near. He finds his prey and then he explodes from his hiding place and grabs it. Even if another, perfectly serviceable animal ends up within his reach, he isn't going to alter his course. He has chosen, and he would rather go hungry than change his mind. — Ilona Andrews

He was keeping track of time. It was nearly two hours since he had last looked at his watch, but he knew what time it was to within about twenty seconds. It was an old skill, born of many long wakeful nights on active service. When you're waiting for something to happen, you close your body down like a beach house in winter and you let your mind lock onto the steady pace of the passing seconds. It's like suspended animation. It saves energy and it lifts the responsibility for your heartbeat away from your unconscious brain and passes it on to some kind of a hidden clock. Makes a huge black space for thinking in. But it keeps you just awake enough to be reach for whatever you need to be ready for. And it means you always know what time it is. — Lee Child

The photograph, now they are detached from their original surroundings, they are involved in a close world in which they only relate to each other: all the rest of 'reality' has vanished. This allows us to see those elements from a new point of view and perhaps to reach a better understanding ... — Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

I forget myself sometimes, but then I look up, as I am looking up now, and I see in my mind's eye a sheild, strangely changed by a rich encrusting of jewel-like barnacles and cold-water coral, with an eight foot tooth sticking right out of the middle of it. I reach out and the edge of that tooth is still so bitingly sharp after all these years that just a gentle brush with the fingers might send a rain of blood down on these pages. And I bend my head, not too close, and I am sure I can hear, very faintly:
Once I set the sea alight
With a single fiery breath ...
Once I was so mighty that I thought
My name was Death ...
Sing out loud until you're eaten,
Song of melancholy blisss,
For the mighty and the middling
All shall come to THIS ...
The Supper is still singing. — Cressida Cowell

...few truly understood how disheartening it was to be cut off from worlds so strange and distant they remained to us fantasies rather than distant realities, too surreal and foreign to be touched. Their minds were fixated on what they knew to be real, unable to create the atmospheres of the nebulous realms that lay just beyond our reach, just beyond the dimming horizon, our celestial limits. — Moonshine Noire

Richard looked up at the beautiful, big pines spreading over them, illuminated in the firelight. A spark of understanding lit in his mind. He saw the branches stretched out with murderous intent in a years-long struggle to reach the sunlight and dispatch its neighbors with its shade. Success would give space for its offspring, many of which would also shrivel in the shade of the parent. Several close neighbors of the big pine were withered and weak, victims all. It was true. The design of nature was success by murder. — Terry Goodkind

Always stay close to this Heavenly Mother, because she is the sea to be crossed to reach the shores of Eternal Splendour. — Pio Of Pietrelcina

Sherman Reilly Duffy of the pre-World War I CHICAGO DAILY JOURNAL once told a cub reporter, 'Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.' Well, socially I fit in just fine between the whore and the bartender. Both are close friends. And I knew the world was round. Yet, as time went by I found myself confronted with the ugly suspicion that the world was, after all, flat and that there were things dark and terrible waiting just over the edge to reach out and snatch life from the unlucky, unwary wanderer. — Jeff Rice

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

I reach for my bag, pulling out gum, but he quickly moves to me, sliding his hands up my neck to cup my face. "Don't." He leans close, sucking on my mouth the way he seems to like so much. "You taste like me. I taste like you." He bends, licking my tongue, my lips, my teeth. "I like this so much. Let it stay, just for a bit. — Christina Lauren

Steady, steady, we move at half-speed, and when I look up, a cape petrel is just above me, flying with us. Little turns, little wings. I reach my arm up, my fingers stretch. I reach and for a second time the bird comes so close I can almost touch him. I can see his eyes, his tiny face. He looks at me, then rises up with the thermals. Up and up at full speed until I lose him in the light.

My eyes are full. — Favel Parrett

The past and the future were starlight, seemingly so close, but forever out of reach.
Eli felt that starlight, the infinity of knowing nothing but his finite existence. — Daniel J. Rice

You know what kind of person it takes to run for President? Not normal. They could start out okay, but by the time they reach that level they've sold their soul to the devil so many times and stomped the guts out of enough people that they are definitely not like you and me, not even close. — David Baldacci

You are so close, and I can't reach you. — David Levithan

Adventure, my dear, is as much a state of mind as anything else. One can travel the world and never find the excitement to be found within arm's reach.
Remain true to yourself, but understand happiness may not always be found in the plans we have laid out for ourselves, but rather in the unforeseen turns life takes us. Do not close your mind, or your heart, to the unexpected twists of life. It is those unexpected paths that could well lead to the greatest adventures of all. — Victoria Alexander

The lamp sizzled as it burned. It made everything seem close and safe, a little family circle they all knew and trusted. Outside this circle lay everything that was strange and frightening, and the darkness seemed to reach higher and higher and further and further away, right to the end of the world. — Tove Jansson

I describe in 'Chimpanzee Politics' how the alpha male needs broad support to reach the top spot. He needs some close allies and he needs many group members to be on his side. — Frans De Waal

The problem, the only problem, is my mother. And she is the one of course that I am trying to get; it is to reach her that this whole journey has been undertaken. With what purpose? To mark her off, to describe, to illumine, to celebrate, to get rid of her; and it did not work, for she looms too close, just as she always did. She is heavy as always, she weighs everything down, and yet she is indistinct, her edges melt and flow. Which means she has stuck to me as close as ever and refused to fall away, and I could go on, and on, applying what skills I have, using what tricks I know, and it would always be the same. — Alice Munro

Do you remember when I told you that I sometimes believe that you're not real? That I imagined you just to hurt myself?" Reed says softly with a bitterly self-effacing laugh that has nothing to do with humor. "I know now that you have to be real. This kind of pain cannot exist if you were imaginary," Reed's sexy voice breathes. I feel like I could reach out and touch him, he feels that close to me. "I know you exist, but you're like a sunset to me now - beautiful and so distant that no matter how fast I fly, I cannot reach you. You are always on the next horizon," Reed says sadly, and my breath catches in my throat as an unbelievable ache throbs in my chest. "Tel me where you are. I wil meet you
wherever you are in the world. I wil be there. Just you and me, I swear it. We don't have to endanger anyone else
we'l make sure Buns and Brownie and Zephyr are safe. Just you and me, I promise ... I wil meet you anywhere at anytime ... I wil ... — Amy A. Bartol

It is the prospect of being close to you that makes marriage partly attractive. I can imagine the equality which we would then enjoy, it would mean more to you than any other type of equality, and be more beautiful. I could be a son who was freer, more thankful, less guilty, and more upright; you could be a father who was less troubled, less tyrannical, more sympathetic, and more content. But to reach this point all that has happened would need to be undone; so we would need to be abolished. But we are as we are, and marriage is your domain and so it is forbidden to me. At times I imagine the map of the world laid out and you stretched across it. And all that is left for my life are the areas you don't cover or can't reach. And because I see you as a giant, my territory is miserable and small and doesn't include marriage. I — Franz Kafka

The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning; and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal. Failure I may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner. — Og Mandino

Which wishes for communion with us. This supreme intelligence longs to be known. It calls out to us. It draws us close to its mystery, and it grants us these remarkable minds, in order that we try to reach for it. It wants us to find it. It wants union with us, more than anything." "I know that is what you think," said Alma, patting his hand again, "and I believe it is quite an inventive notion, Mr. Wallace." "Do you think I'm correct? — Elizabeth Gilbert

People in danger typically try to put as much distance as possible between them and their attacker. They believe that space equals safety. But they are wrong, and often get hurt as a result. You see, when your enemies are close, when their bodies are pressed flush against yours, at that range they can do very little damage. They need distance to swing a punch, to extend their hands and choke your neck. Distance to reach down and unzip a zipper. The lesson is simple: Dictate your space. Keep your enemies as close as possible until you are ready to give them space. And when you give them that space, use it to destroy them. — Alessandra Torre

I sat at my bedroom window after I changed; the cashew tree was so close I could reach out and pluck a leaf if it were not for the silver-colour crisscross of mosquito netting. The bell-shaped yellow fruits hung lazily, drawing buzzing bees that bumped against my window's netting. I heard Papa walk upstairs to his room for his afternoon siesta. I closed my eyes, sat still, waiting to hear him call Jaja, to hear Jaja go into his room. But after long, silent minutes, I opened my eyes and pressed my forehead against the window louvers to look outside.9 — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We're so close we could touch. All it would take is for me to reach out my hand. But neither of us makes a move. — Beth Revis

Politics can be likened to driving at night over unfamiliar hills and mountains. Close attention must be paid to what the beam can reach and the next bend. — David Trimble

His efforts to break out of his essential seclusion were, in fact, a failure, and he knew it. He made no close friend. He copulated with a number of girls, but copulation was not the joy it ought to be. It was a mere relief of need, and he felt ashamed of it afterward because it involved another person as object. Masturbation was preferable, the suitable course for a man like himself. Solitude was his fate; he was trapped by his heredity. She [his mother] had said it: "The work comes first." Rulag had said it calmly, stating fact, powerless to change it, to break out of her cold cell. So it was with him. His heart yearned towards them, the kindly young souls who called him brother, but he could not reach them, nor they him. He was born to be alone, a damned cold intellectual, an egoist.
The work came first, but it went nowhere. Like sex, it ought to have been a pleasure, and it wasn't. — Ursula K. Le Guin

So ... " he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back onto his heels. "You come here often?"
Picking up on his mood with the lightning quickness that had won them a space in the finals, Jules flirted right back."Pretty often. But you must be new. I'm sure I'd remember if I'd seen you here before, hot stuff."
That made him grin and saunter closer, close enough to reach out and smooth a lock of dark gold hair behind her ear. "What do you say we low this joint? ... — Louisa Edwards

No matter how close people get, they never reach each other. Including us now. Even now, there's a place where each of us is alone. — Peter Hoeg

As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool - not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. — C.S. Lewis

You never think about anything being the last one--the last time you separate her clothes from yours in neat little piles on the bed after doing the laundry, the last time you reach for those cookies she likes on the grocery store shelf. It was all she could think about the days, the weeks, the months after Jules's death--all of those last times that she hadn't paid close enough to attention to. — Venus Reising

Hands. Do not resent your place in the story. Do not imagine yourself elsewhere. Do not close your eyes and picture a world without thorns, without shadows, without hawks. Change this world. Use your body like a tool meant to be used up, discarded, and replaced. Better every life you touch. We will reach the final chapter. — N.D. Wilson

I felt the bark of the trees on either side of me as I walked. It was very soothing. Here in the LBA Woods, the trees grew very close together and when I did not walk on the path, I would reach out with my fingertips and touch their bark as I passed. The skin of the trees was warm in the sunlight, and rough, and I imagined that each tree contained a soul. Like an Ent. I knew this idea was not a true thing, but still I felt good that the trees were here. — Ned Hayes

You're a smart girl. You're going to replay everything we've done, and you're going to reach the same conclusion I have." He moved in close, leaning down to kiss my jawline and lower.
"And wh- what conclusion is that?" When had he discovered how sensitive my neck was? With one spot in particular ...
He pressed his lips directly to my pulse point, making my knees weak. "Eto ne izbezhno dlya nas." You and I are inevitable. — Kresley Cole

For a moment nothing happens. The figure stands still and I stand cold and alive and-
He starts to run. I make my way down the rocks, slipping, sliding, trying to get to the plain. I wish, I think, my feet clumsy, moving too fast, not fast enough, I wish i could run, I wish I'd written a whole poem, I wish I kept the compass-
And then I reach the plain and wish for nothing but what I have. Ky. Running toward me. I have never seen him run like this, fast, free, strong, wild. He looks so beautiful, his body moves so right. He stops just close enough for me to see the blue of his eyes and forget the red on my hands and the green I wish I wore. "You're here," he says, breathing hard and hungry. sweat and dirt cover his face, and he looks at me as though I'm the only thing he ever needed to see. I open my mouth to say yes. But I only have time to breathe in before he closes the last of the distance. All I know is the kiss. — Ally Condie

She knew the minute HE arrived. Felt the warm blanket of comfort reach out to her frozen soul ... He made his way down the isle and sat next to her ... he didn't reach out, didn't touch her ... a single tear slid out from her closed lids and she blindly reached for his hand. He took her hand in more, gathering her close, arms coming around her warm and strong as her head sank down unto his shoulder and the tears finally came soaking the lapel of his wool suit. He offered her a perfectly white handkerchief ... she stared at it and wondered who carries that type of thing anymore? He looked back at her and explained, I'm old fashioned. — D.B. Reynolds

One of his hands balanced on his cane. The other rested at his side next to her. She'd need only move the smallest amount and they would be touching. He was that close. He was that far from reach. — Leigh Bardugo

I can't always reach the image in my mind ... almost never, in fact ... so that the abstract image I create is not quite there, but it gets to the point where I can leave it. — Chuck Close

I will tell you why we have these extraordinary minds and souls, Miss Whittaker," he continued, as though he had not heard her. "We have them because there is a supreme intelligence in the universe, which wishes for communion with us. This supreme intelligence longs to be known. It calls out to us. It draws us close to its mystery, and grants us these remarkable minds, in order that we try to reach for it. It wants us to find it. It wants union with us, more than anything. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Do not resent your place in the story. Do not imagine yourself elsewhere. Do not close your eyes and picture a world without thorns, without shadows, without hawks. Change this world. Use your body like a tool meant to be used up, discarded, and replaced. Better every life you touch. We will reach the final chapter. When we have eyes that can stare into the sun, eyes that only squint for the Shenikah, then we will see laughing children pulling cobras by their tails, and hawks and rabbits playing tag. — N.D. Wilson

It is possible I never learned the names of birds in order to discover the bird of peace, the bird of paradise, the bird of the soul, the bird of desire. It is possible I avoided learning the names of composers and their music the better to close my eyes and listen to the mystery of all music as an ocean. It may be I have not learned dates in history in order to reach the essence of timelessness. It may be I never learned geography the better to map my own routes and discover my own lands. The unknown was my compass. The unknown was my encyclopedia. The unnamed was my science and progress. — Anais Nin

Many of us spend our lives searching for success when it is usually so close that we can reach out and touch it. — Russell Conwell

The conversations rests uneasily; one doesn't expect good-byes to be burdened by such trivialities. This is not how it is in the books, he thinks, or in the theater, and he feels the need to speak of mission, of duty, of love. They reach home and close the door and he doesn't drop her hand. Where speech fails, touch compensates. — Daniel Mason

I believe in the power of song. Under the spell of the right song, passion is within reach, love is close by, and you are not alone! — Dave Sitek

We can really be together," he says to me, undeterred by my silence. He pulls me close, too close. I'm frozen in five hundred layers of fear. Stunned in grief, in disbelief.
His hands reach for my face, his lips for mine. My brain is on fire, ready to explode from the impossibility of this moment. I feel like I'm watching it happen, detached from my own body, incapable of intervening. More than anything else, I'm shocked by his gentle hands, his earnest eyes.
"I want you to choose me," he says. "I want you to choose to be with me. I want you to want this. — Tahereh Mafi

I read somewhere that radio waves just keep traveling outward, flying into the universe with eternal vibrations. Sometime before I die I think I'll find a microphone and climb to the top of a radio tower. I'll take a deep breath and close my eye because it will start to rain right when I reach the top. Hello, I'll say to outer space, this is my card. — Marina Keegan

Generations can follow this destiny, can stay close to it or depart from it, having thus the capability of giving to their nation a maximum of life and honor or a maximum of dishonor and shame. Sometimes only isolated individuals, abandoned by their generation, can reach this destiny. In that moment, they are the people, they speak in its name. All the millions of dead and of the martyrs of the past are with them, as well as the nation's life of tomorrow. — Corneliu Codreanu

For one instant, I saw the stars close enough to touch. Closer than that, part of me. Are they really so far or just that we never reach for them? — Parke Godwin