Touching Things Quotes & Sayings

Like the princess, Philip didn't believe in public displays of affection, which made it easy to mask his feelings. But he revealed them privately in a touching letter to Queen Elizabeth in which he wondered if he deserved "all the good things which have happened to me," especially "to have fallen in love completely and unreservedly. — Sally Bedell Smith

How did you know what I was thinking?" Her body jolted at the touch of his hand, wanting more than his hand touching her.
"I know these things. I can read your mind."
"Oh." A heat singed her skin.
"I know about your husband, Richard. He's not good. — Nancy Glynn

Simple and plain things can touch your heart very easily! If you can be simple and plain, you can touch every heart! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

It is only the sacred things that are worth touching — Oscar Wilde

I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love. — James Herriot

Cell phones have a way of disliking the bayou and the river. It must be water thing."
"But what about when you weren't i the bayou? Surely Calhoun gave you a cell phone to keep in touch when you were in town."
"I melted two of them. he decided it wasn't worth it."
He looked down at her to see if she was teasing him. Her gaze was all too serious. "You melted them?"
She nodded. "I melt things. Accidentally."
Nicholas wasn't touching that. Considering all that melting going on inside of him any time he was close to her he could believe she'd melted a couple of phones. After all, they were much smaller than he was. His breath chuffed out and he took her hand, deciding to try to diffuse the situation. "Try not to melt any body parts. — Christine Feehan

This is the answer!
The answer is not in getting and keeping, but in getting and giving.
The answer is not in saving and preserving, but in growing and changing.
The answer is not in making things stop, but in making things go.
The answer is not in covering and hiding, but in touching and sharing.
The answer is not in thinking, but in feeling.
The answer is not in death, but love.
Not death, but life.
Not death! — Theodore Sturgeon

If it wasn't for the mist we could see your home across the bay," said Gatsby. "You always have a green light that burns at the end of your dock."
Daisy put her arm through his abruptly but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to him, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted things had diminished by one. — F Scott Fitzgerald

It's so stupid how someone touching you - just their skin on your skin - can make you feel all sorts of things you don't want to feel. — Sarra Manning

When you think about it, we actors are kind of prostitutes. We get paid to feign attraction and love. Other people are paying to watch us kissing someone, touching someone, doing things people in a normal monogamous relationship would never do with anyone who's not their partner. It's really kind of gross. — Megan Fox

I pause in garages, sheds and roofless barns touching things, identifying objects once secretly coveted. — Tom Gillaspy

This is my formula for the fall of things:
we come to a river we always knew we'd have to cross.
It ferries the twilight down through fieldworks
of corn and half-blown sunflowers.
The only sounds, one lost cicada calling to itself
and the piping of a bird that will never have a name.
Now tell me there is a pause
where we know there should be an end;
then tell me you too imagined it this way
with our shadows never quite touching the river
and the river never quite reaching the sea. — John Glenday

Considering some of the things I've done, touching another man's dick is not exactly going to send me into a moral meltdown. — Santino Hassell

The two evening stars were now shining side by side. The smaller one had moved over to the big one. They were very close now, almost touching, and then they went together and become one very large star.
I don't know if things like that are fair or not. — Richard Brautigan

People don't know that they do that to people when they do the things they shouldn't. Hurtful things are roots,they spread ,branch out, creep under the surface touching other parts of the lives of those they hurt. It's never one mistake, it's never one moment, it becomes a series of moments, each moment growing roots and spurting in different directions. And over time, they become muddled like an old twisted tree, strangling itself and tying itself up in knots. — Cecelia Ahern

I used to wish I had an easier life," he mused. "Some families sail through years with nothing touching them. They have no tragedies. They go on about how lucky they are. Yet sometimes it seems to me they're half alive. When something goes wrong for them, and it does for everyone sooner or later, their trauma is much worse. They've had nothing bad happen to them before. In the meantime, they think little problems, like losing a wallet, are big deals. They think it's ruined their day. They have no idea what a hard day's like. It's going to be incredibly tough for them when they find out."
He'd also developed his own version of making the most of every minute. "Through Sam I found out how quickly things can change. Because of him I've learned to appreciate each moment and try not to hold on to things. Life's more exciting and intense that way. It's like the yogurt that goes off after three days. It tastes so much better than the stuff that lasts three weeks. — Helen Brown

It was dangerous stuff. We were running on top of moving trains. We got to do amazing things. I like doing stuff like that. I enjoy it. But believe me, there were things that were so dangerous that I wasn't touching them. — James Badge Dale

What we mean by sentimentalism is that state in which a man speaks deep and true sentiments not because he feels them strongly, but because he perceives that they are beautiful, and that it is touching and fine to say them,-things which he fain would feel, and fancies that he does feel. — Frederick William Robertson

To cut and slash are two different things. Cutting, whatever form of cutting it is, is decisive, with a resolute spirit. Slashing is nothing more than touching the enemy. — Miyamoto Musashi

I know that when you talk about something that may hurt someone, reactions are normal, and you are touching some nerves ... But I don't do things because people always like what I do. — Pierfrancesco Favino

Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people; and behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him. — Pontius Pilate

There is great beauty in the notion of desire. Each of us is a child of the desire of our parents for each other. We are creatures of desire because we are creations of desire. The human heart discovers its most touching music when desire and love inform each other. When we love, we leave our separate solitudes and come toward union, where we complement each other. It is this ancient desire in every heart to discover and come home to its lost other half that awakens and activates its capacity for love and belonging. There are certain things that can happen to us only in solitude, and every life needs a rhythm of solitude in order to experience this. However, the experience of self-discovery, psychological integration, and spiritual growth can happen to us only when our desire draws us out of our shells and toward the precarious and life-giving sanctuary of another heart. — John O'Donohue

He'd always enjoyed the slow, sexy build of foreplay, loved women's bodies and all the mysterious, amazing things they could do, but with Lacey, he couldn't detach. Kissing meant he had to touch. Touching meant he wanted to crush her under him. Getting her under him meant he had to be inside her, — Anne Calhoun

It's not that I don't like children; I just don't comprehend them. What's their purpose? Why can't they just say what they want? Why are they always touching things and knocking things over and whining?"

She dumped a basket of socks on the floor and began to sort and match. "Here's the thing: Given your profession, you should have that skill of observing people and getting inside them and understanding them, blah blah blah. Why can't you just do that with children? I mean, you were a child once."

"I hatched from an egg at age twenty-three."

"I almost believe you." She squinted at him. "What were you like younger?"

"Same but smaller, with slightly less facial hair. — Shannon Hale

Now that I've started touching her, I can't seem to stop. Like somehow the language of my hands will tell her all the things I don't know how to say out loud. — Holly Black

I hadn't found out yet that mankind consists of two very different races, the rich and the poor. It took me ... and plenty of other people ... twenty years and the war to learn to stick to my class and ask the price of things before touching them, let alone setting my heart on them. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I love Billy Wilder, and I love the way that his films can be very touching and very moving and very romantic, and at the same time there's always a little cynical undertone, there's always something that undercuts things. — David Nicholls

Some people fall in love with their co-stars and feel things that they never thought they would feel for them because they are touching. — Catherine Deneuve

Otherwise, he would be far away in the jungle; tasting, touching, seeing, and feeling new things. — Rudyard Kipling

Anytime in my life when I see an accumulation of items, a title of ownership in my name, I feel my insides swell. What am I going to do with all of this? Where am I going to put it? So I get rid of it. And I feel calm again. I am a library patron, a renter without an option to buy, a Salvation Arm donator, a spring cleaner of the highest order.
Why then, why in the world, do I work here, surrounded by all of this? It's easy enough. This is art, and it is not mine. I am only looking after it while the real owners are away. Most of all, I suppose, although I may not want things, I don't mind touching them for a while. — Kevin Wilson

It's hard to see. There are only the shadows of things. She feels along the fridge to the wall and the phone, touching first her uncle's keys, then her dead aunt's, a woman Devon can feel judging her from the grave even though she's only borrowing something, not stealing it. She has never stolen anything in her life, and she never will. She steps into the cool, still air of the closed garage and she sees Sick's face. The way he looked at her as she let him in, the only one. His hair hung down and his lips were parted and as he moved inside her his eyes seemed to shine with a sweet sadness, the kind that only comes when you know something good can never, ever last. But you keep going anyway. All you can do is keep going and never quit. — Andre Dubus III

When you're writing, you're only a brain and some fingers, but drumming, you're involving all four limbs, and you're hearing stuff and you're converting your ideas into physical motions, getting physical feedback from things you are touching - it's pretty cool. It's a really a nice contrast to writing. — Michael Azerrad

Then you came along," he muttered, touching my wet cheeks, "and suddenly ... I don't know. It was like I was seeing things for the first time again. When I saw you with Puck, the day you came to the Nevernever ... "
-Ash — Julie Kagawa

Ideas are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man in the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach you destiny. Perhaps you could get a clearer idea of our destiny if we took time out to examine our ideas, and upgraded them if necessary. What things are most important to you? If you could do anything you wanted to be, what would you be? If you could achieve a single objective in life, what would it be? — Carl Schurz

It's almost like it's my alter ego when I get on stage ... I turn into this different person, seriously. Bipolar disorder. I'm tired of everybody touching me and things being plugged into my head. — Britney Spears

Each time I stop somewhere and look out, there are more people sitting there than there were the time I came before. I think that's just a reflection of the fact that what God's doing is really touching the hearts of people and making a difference in their lives. That's kind of the best things you can do to promote anything, I think, is to really just have God present. — Louie Giglio

Maybe it was the result of gardening, that quiet sense of pleasure in touching growing things, the satisfaction of helping them thrive. — Diana Gabaldon

He had his one life. In June 1942 he went to Lazarevo holding it in his hands. By the shores of the Kama, he found her gorgeous and restored, and not just restored to her original shining brilliance but enlarged and clarified. Light reflected off her, no matter which way she turned. They ran down to the almighty river. She never even looked back. She would never know what it meant to him, an unremitting sinner, after all the unsacred things he had seen and done, to have her innocence. He held her to him. He had dreamed of it too long, touching her. Dreamed of seeing her naked too long, beautiful, bare, ready for him. He was afraid to hurt her. He had never been with an untouched girl before; he wasn't sure if he was supposed to do something first. In the end, he did nothing first, but she baptized him with her body. There was no Alexander anymore; the man he knew had died and was reborn inside a perfect heart, given to him straight from God, to him and for him. — Paullina Simons

Whenever we touch nature we get clean. People who have got dirty through too much civilization take a walk in the woods, or a bath in the sea. Entering the unconscious, entering yourself through dreams, is touching nature from the inside and this is the same thing, things are put right again. — Carl Jung

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever ... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything. — Aaron Siskind

A future priest, I faced her as before an altar: one of her cheeks was the Epistle and the other the Gospel. Her mouth might have been the chalice, her lips the paten. All I needed to do was to say a new mass, according to a Latin that no one learns at school, and is the catholic language of mankind. Don't think me sacrilegious, devout lady reader; the purity of the intention cleanses anything unorthodox in the style. We stood there with heaven within us. Our hands, their nerve ends touching, made two creatures one: a single, seraphic being. Our eyes went on saying infinite things, and the words did not even try to pass our lips: they went back to the heart as silently as they had come ... — Machado De Assis

One of the most touching things my mother said to me was that if I ever wanted to come back to live in India, she would build me a home and go out and work hard so that I could be happy. — Saroo Brierley

Tommy was tall and wide-hipped, but Mills couldn't tell what kind of body lay underneath the black T-shirt and jeans, what kind of person, what kind of smell or ability to reach over in the dark. There were certain things a person could only learn by touching someone else. — Christopher Bollen

Think about the word destroy. Do you know what it is? De-story. Destroy. Destory. You see. And restore. That's re-story. Do you know that only two things have been proven to help survivors of the Holocaust? Massage is one. Telling their story is another. Being touched and touching. Telling your story is touching. It sets you free. — Francesca Lia Block

Psychoanalysis provides truth in an infantile, that is, a schoolboy fashion: we learn from it, roughly and hurriedly, things that scandalize us and thereby command our attention. It sometimes happens, and such is the case here, that a simplification touching upon the truth, but cheaply, is of no more value than a lie. Once again we are shown the demon and the angel, the beast and the god locked in Manichean embrace, and once again man has been pronounced, by himself, not culpable. — Stanislaw Lem

Once again I'm left wondering how he does things to my body without even touching it. Heaven help me if he actually does. — Mila Ferrera

Do you think Bubbles wants Chinese food
because it's made out of cats?" Genevieve questioned, shoveling a big bite into her mouth.
"Genevieve, that's just gross and wrong. Don't say things like that. Bubbles is a dog, and their stomachs are bottomless pits. They'll eat anything and
everything in sight."
Genevieve quickly swallowed. "Well, Bobby said in China they eat cats."
"Gen, I assure you, we.are.not eating cats," I responded slowly trying to make sure another food wasn't crossed off her 'will eat' list. It was ever growing shorter.
"All lies!" Genevieve proclaimed, sticking her fork high in the air with a piece of chicken, only to have it fall, never touching the floor. "See? Cat! — Ottilie Weber

Touch is a freaky thing when you're not used to it. It makes you feel all kinds of things. — Neal Shusterman

The kindest and most meaningful thing anyone ever said to me is: Your mother would be proud of you ... The strange and painful truth is that I'm a better person because I lost my mom young. When you say you excperienced my writing as sacred, what you are touching is the divine place within me that is my mother. Sugar is the temple I build in my obliterated place. I'd give it all back in a snap, but the fact is, my grief taught me things ... It required me to suffer. It compelled me to reach. — Cheryl Strayed

I noticed that when my daughter was born, my son really, really liked her. But then as she started getting older, and as she started crawling around our house and touching different things that were his, sibling rivalry issues started appearing. — Gene Luen Yang

I wanted to say something to cheer her up. I had a feeling that cheering her up might be a lot of work. I was thinking of how sometimes, trying to say the right thing to people, it's like some kind of brain surgery, and you have to tweak exactly the right part of the lobe. Except with talking, it's more like brain surgery with old, rusted skewers and things, maybe like those things you use to eat lobster, but brown. And you have to get exactly the right place, and you're touching around in the brain but the patient, she keeps jumping and saying, Ow. — M T Anderson

I was happy over little things: mango sorbet, and running, and the way my feet felt touching the ground when I ran. — Oprah Winfrey

The restaurant was waning, indifferently relaxing its illusion: for the late-comers a private illusion took its place. Their table seemed to stand on their own carpet; they had a sensation of custom, sedateness, of being inside small walls, as though dining at home again after her journey. She told him about her Mount Morris solitary suppers, in the middle of the library, the rim of the tray just not touching the base of the lamp ... the fire behind her back softly falling in on its own ash-no it had not been possible to feel lonely among those feeling things. — Elizabeth Bowen

You would think that would have helped. That a gift and clasped hands would make things right between us. But the silence was back now, stronger than before. Thick enough that you could spread it on your bread and eat it. There are some silences that even words cannot drive away. And while Denna was touching my hand, she wasn't holding it. There is a world of difference. — Patrick Rothfuss

People can write jokes five minutes after a major world event happens, and have hundreds of thousands of people read them within 10 minutes. Whereas before you write a joke, you don't know if anybody is really touching on it or not, and you tell it onstage the next night. For joke writing it has changed things. — Nick Thune

Amazing things happen when we put our minds to it. There is a saying that seeing is believing. But believing is seeing, as well. And touching. And hearing. Connecting. — Ridley Pearson

I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to make mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important, as in printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness of the whole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe. For this is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires full as much bolstering as error. So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory. — Herman Melville

When service is unto people, the bones can grow weary, the frustration deep. Because, agrees Dorothy Sayers, "whenever man is made the center of things, he becomes the storm-center of trouble. The moment you think of serving people, you begin to have a notion that other people owe you something for your pains ... You will begin to bargain for reward, to angle for applause ... When the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hands on always washing the feet of Jesus alone - the bones, they sing joy and the work returns to it's purest state: eucharisteo. The work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness. "The work we do is only our love for Jesus in action" writes Mother Theresa. "If we pray the work ... if we do it to Jesus, if we do it for Jesus, if we do it with Jesus ... that's what makes us content." Deep joy is always in the touching of Christ - in whatever skin He comes to us in. Page 194 — Ann Voskamp

Truly,' I answered him, 'all things are good and fair, because all is truth. Look,' said I, 'at the horse, that great beast that is so near to man; or the lowly, pensive ox, which feeds him and works for him; look at their faces, what meekness, what devotion to man, who often beats them mercilessly. What gentleness, what confidence and what beauty! It's touching to know that there's no sin in them, for all, all except man, is sinless, and Christ has been with them before us. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Despair is not solid. Neither is joy. They alternate, and contain each other. There is no joy that is not also touched by sorrow, no grief that is not rendered sharper by the memory of bliss. If things move forward in one direction and not another, they do so by rolling there, passing through the same tight orbit, touching here an ecstasy, there another shattering loss. — Ben Ehrenreich

I didn't know a living person could hurt you so badly.
When the pain originates with someone who is gone, it's your own memory that hurts you. Walking through the house, touching things they've touched, hearing sounds they heard, wondering what they would've thought of one thing or another. This is pain that I know, pain that I can handle, pain that is so much a part of me that if it were removed I would not be whole.
But when it's someone who's alive who hurts you, the pain can't be escaped. The things they've touched are still warm because they were just there, the sounds they hear reach your ears too - sometimes their own voice, and it's excruciating to bear. I know what he thinks about this, that, or the other because I can hear him saying so. But not to me. He doesn't talk to me anymore. — Mindy McGinnis

About my first memory, sitting on the shoulders of a giant who I know can only be my father. Of touching the sky. Of lying between two people who read me stories of wild things and journeys with dragons, the soft hum of their voices speaking of love and serenity. See, I remember love. — Melina Marchetta

About tidying up a toy box, you should let your kids experience the selection process by touching all of their toys. It's also important how they throw away their toys. They can earn a stronger sense of valuing things when they throw things away with respect and appreciation. — Marie Kondo

The weather is fine,' she said after a moment.
'Have we already run out of things to say?'
His voice was light and teasing, and when she turned to steal a glance at his face, he was looking straight ahead, a small, secret smile touching his lips.
'The weather is very fine,' she amended.
His smile deepened. So did hers. — Julia Quinn

She tried to kill you, Viola. She tried to blow you up ... You don't owe her nothing,' he says.
But I feel his arms on me and I'm realizing things don't seem so impossible anymore. I feel Todd touching me and there's anger rising in my gut but it's not at him and I grunt and I pull myself up again, leaning on him to keep me there as I stand. 'I do owe her,' I say. 'I owe her the look on her face when she sees me alive. — Patrick Ness

In Tantrism, the first thing is having the experience of touch, of profound contact with things, with the universe, without mental commotion. Everything begins there: touching the universe deeply. When you touch deeply, you no longer need to let go. That occurs naturally. — Daniel Odier

Liking something and wanting to take it for a ride are two very different things', Joslyn sais, climbing out of the truck to stand on the ground. Hutch's eyes sparkled as he came around to face her. 'I'm not touching that one with a ten-foot pole,' he told her. — Linda Lael Miller

As an actor, I relish and delight in doing things that I'm not necessarily the demographic for. This is a demographic that is touching the psyche of a certain age group, facing the real internal questions of people who are going through rites of passage into adulthood. It's earth-shaking stuff. — Ray Stevenson

What am I sorry for? Taking off her shirt? Kissing her until I thought I was going to lose my mind? Touching her? Feeling her? Of all the things I may be sorry for in my life, I'm honestly not sorry for any of that. — Katie McGarry

I loved her, Eric. So much. And she died. I only get the general sense of things and they pass so quickly, like childhood smells touching you and then being gone on the breeze. But. But but but. It feels strange to be writing this down - I think I believed I could change what happened, undo it, prevent it, save her life somehow after she was already gone. Of course I couldn't. Dead is dead is dead. — Steven Hall

They're like little boys, men. Sometimes of course they're rather naughty and you have to pretend to be angry with them. They attach so much importance to such entirely unimportant things that it's really touching. And they're so helpless. Have you never nursed a man when he's ill? It wrings your heart. It's just like a dog or a horse. They haven't got the sense to come in out of the rain, poor darlings. They have all the charming qualities that accompany general incompetence. They're sweet and good and silly, and tiresome and selfish. You can't help liking them, they're so ingenuous, and so simple. They have no complexity or finesse. I think they're sweet, but it's absurd to take them seriously. — W. Somerset Maugham

And then, for an hour, he became aware of the strange life he was leading, of him doing lots of things which were only a game, of, though being happy and feeling joy at times, real life still passing him by and not touching him — Hermann Hesse

I found my personal style in black humor and mixing funny things with very touching ones - like trying to force people to cry and smile almost at the same moment. — Malgorzata Szumowska

I'm sorry," he says.
"What? Why?"
"You're fixing everything I set down." He nods at my hands, which are readjusting the elephant. "It wasn't polite of me to come in and start touching your things."
"Oh, it's okay," I say quickly, letting go of the figurine. "You can touch anything of mine you want."
He freezes. A funny look runs across his face before I realize what I've said. I didn't mean it like that.
Not that that would be so bad. — Stephanie Perkins

Everything is always my fault. I touch things and they crumple into shit, like the opposite of King Midas and his gold finger. If I was in a fairy tale, I would be called "PooFinger", and everyone would shun me and make me go live in some naff shack under a bridge, telling scary stories to all the children in the kingdom about the wench who turns everything to shit, just by touching it. — Holly Bourne

It is said that years ago a skilled mage, perhaps the most gifted our world has known, chose the dark arts. His outlook became twisted, and the things and people touching his life became twisted as well. He knew that a mage and Source, linked by partnership, could wield much greater power than he could by himself. He also knew that if he linked with a Source, he might not be able to fully control that partnership. He thought it best, therefore, to eliminate any possible competition - by annihilating the Sources. — Cate Rowan

When you are spending time in front of the television, you are not doing other things. The young child of three or four years old is in the stage of the greatest emotional development that human beings undergo. And we only develop when we experience things, real-life things: a conversation with Mother, touching Father, going places, doing things, relating to others. This kind of experience is critical to a young child, and when the child spends thirty-five hours per week in front of the TV set, it is impossible to have the full range of real-life experience that a young child must have. — Jerry Mander

There are so many more productive things to do than sit around feeling shame and guilt. Beyond touching on shame and guilt in a perfunctory manner, I wouldn't bother with that at all. — Antony Hegarty

Because after the haze of not being kissed cleared I was forced to face the facts that:
1. Jack was a very bad guy.
2. Jack had threatened Fred.
3. Just thinking that he was going to kiss me made me tingly everywhere
4. In a way no other guy had
5. And that was without our mouths even touching
6. Which meant that
7. If they did
8. Wooohoo baby!
9. Except that it did not matter
10. At all
11. Because he was plotting against fred
12. And I was complicit in whatever he planned if I didn't tell Mr. Curtis
13. And I was trapped in a boat with a woman singing showtunes. — Michele Jaffe

When authors write from personal experiences,straight from the heart,it touches the readers. Their work speaks out to all who read it,and most of the time,people can relate to what was written. I have always believed that books can change people's lives. Especially ones where the author is sincere,and writes deep,thoughtful,touching things from their hearts.-Nina Jean Slack — Nina Jean Slack

There's no question that the '70s themselves were really wide open. There was just so much being done at that time. Every year, the major studios were commissioning things that they would never touch today or even thought of touching in the 1950s. — Frank Pierson

She wished he'd stop touching her. Not because she didn't like it but because she liked it far too much. It made her hunger for things that could never be hers. And if someone went hungry for too long, they started to starve. Started to hurt. — Nalini Singh

It comes from a deep-rooted conviction that if there is anything worthwhile doing for the sake of culture, then it is touching on subject matters and situations which link people, and not those that divide people. There are too many things in the world which divide people, such as religion, politics, history, and nationalism. If culture is capable of anything, then it is finding that which unites us all. And there are so many things which unite people. It doesn't matter who you are or who I am, if your tooth aches or mine, it's still the same pain. Feelings are what link people together, because the word 'love' has the same meaning for everybody. Or 'fear', or 'suffering'. We all fear the same way and the same things. And we all love in the same way. That's why I tell about these things, because in all other things I immediately find division. — Krzysztof Kieslowski

One day I saw something very strange, people walking around who looked like they had come directly from the grave, their skin was so pale. Mzungus. They carried a black machine that flashed bright when they pointed it at me. I screamed. I thought the machine was going to harm me, and so I fled. Later I learned it was a camera. Its flash and their voices terrified me. We didn't see them often, less than once in a year. But whenever I saw them, I ran and hid.
I had many ideas about them; first, I did not expect them to be smart, because they loved to take pictures of silly things like chickens on the street, shanties, and other things that were not interesting. Second, since I had seen a kid touching their skin and shouting, "How are you?," for many years I believed the name for all white people was "How are you?" I touched their skin as well and found it soft, but I was surprised and a bit disappointed because I thought touching it would leave a mark on my skin too. — Kennedy Odede

The best way to get kids to read a book is to say: 'This book is not appropriate for your age, and it has all sorts of horrible things in it like sex and death and some really big and complicated ideas, and you're better off not touching it until you're all grown up. I'm going to put it on this shelf and leave the room for a while. Don't open it. — Philip Pullman

I'm always in a hotel room, and I spend a good portion of my day setting it up so it's comfortable for me. Whether that means making paths out of towels so I don't touch the carpet or removing the comforters or just not touching things. Even sitting on a plane with a bunch of other people - it's really hard for me. — Howie Mandel

I didn't sleep at all last night, my heart and mind plagued and conflicted and I cant feel my limbs, I cant taste the food I'm not eating and I cant see straight, I cant focus on the things I'm supposed to be hearing. All I can think about are all the casualties and Warner's lips on my neck, his hands on my body, the pain and passion in his eyes and the many possible ways I could die today. I can only think about Warner touching me, kissing me, torturing me with his heart and Adam sitting beside me, not knowing what I've done. — Tahereh Mafi

The humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of all the bonds that hold the Cosmos together. Their top-heavy dignity is more touching than any humility; their solemnity gives us more hope for all things than a thousand carnivals of optimism; their large and lustrous eyes seem to hold all the stars in their astonishment; their fascinating absence of nose seems to give to us the most perfect hint of the humour that awaits us in the kingdom of heaven. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Only in a house where one has learnt to be lonely does one have this solicitude for things. One's relation to them, the daily seeing or touching, begins to become love, and to lay one open to pain. — Elizabeth Bowen

I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to. — J.K. Rowling

We are social animals. We like to feel a part of something of beauty and power that transcends our insignificance. It can be a religion, a political party, a ball club. Why not also Nature? I feel a strong identity with the world of living things. I was born into it; we all were. But we may not feel the ties unless we gain intimacy by seeing, feeling, smelling, touching and studying the natural world. Trying to live in harmony with the dictates of nature is probably as inspirational as living in harmony with the Koran or the Bible. Perhaps it is also a timely undertaking. — Bernd Heinrich

I've been trying not to think about the things I wanted but couldn't have.
I figured life must be about what you can't have.
Some part of me has given up wanting anything.
Why? I'm human, aren't I?
Even though I knew that this was pointless.
Why did I fall in love? — Kou Yoneda

Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. In other words, the natural mystic does know that there is something there, something behind the clouds or within the trees; but he believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it up. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

There are so many of us now that we threaten to devour the world with our touching, starting with the things we adore most. At the same time, we obviously yearn for contact, and I fear what would happen if we were cut off from a distinctive, on-the-ground relationship with the past. — Craig Childs

Sometimes you stand under the hot gush for so long, looking at your body, counting every bruise. Touching every tender place. Watching the swirl at your feet, the glitter spinning. Like a mermaid shedding her scales.
You're really just trying to get your heart to slow down.
You think, This is my body, and I can make it do things. I can make it spin, flip, fly.
After, you stand in front of the steaming mirror, the fuchsia streaks gone, the lashes unsparkled. And it's just you there, and you look like no one you've ever seen before. You don't look like anybody at all. — Megan Abbott

"I like you," I whisper and immediately stare at my shoes. Of all the things I could have said, that shouldn't have been it. I. Am. An. Idiot.
A gentle tug on my hair sends goose bumps raining down my arms. I close my eyes and relish the sweet brush of his knuckles against my neck as he flips my hair over my shoulder. "Rachel?"
"Yes?" I say so softly he may not have heard me.
His hand caresses the sensitive spot right below my chin, and with a gentle pressure, Isaiah raises my head until I look into those warm silver eyes. "I like you, too."
The right side of my mouth quirks and a spring of hope bubbles up inside me. He likes me. A really hot, really awesome guy likes me. — Katie McGarry

These are things you should learn. Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you; your future is a skeleton walking one step in front of you. Maybe you don't wear a watch, but your skeletons do, and they always know what time it is. Now, these skeletons are made of memories, dreams, and voices. And they can trap you in the in-between, between touching and becoming. But they're not necessarily evil, unless you let them be. — Sherman Alexie

War and courage have done more great things than charity. Not your sympathy, but your bravery hath hitherto saved the victims. "What is good?" ye ask. To be brave is good. Let the little girls say: "To be good is what is pretty, and at the same time touching. — Friedrich Nietzsche

When I heard about the Microsoft Kinect, though, I felt an urgency rising in me. A game you played without touching any machinery? A chance to wave your hands around, Minority-Report style, and move things around on a screen? This sounded like almost too much fun, with gadget-y pizzazz that sounded astonishing. — Susan Orlean

I have scars on my hand from touching certain people. Once, in the park, when Frannie was still in the carriage, I put my hand on the downy pate of her head and left it there too long. Another time, at Loew's Seventy-second Street, with Zooey during a spooky movie. He was about six or seven, and he went under the seat to avoid watching a scary scene. I put my hand on his head. Certain heads, certain colors and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on me. Other things, too. Charlotte once ran away from me, outside the studio, and I grabbed her dress to stop her, to keep her near me. A yellow cotton dress I loved because it was too long for her. I still have a lemon-yellow mark on the palm of my right hand. — J.D. Salinger