Quotes about closing
page 2

“As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that death's image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling, and I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity…of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness. I never lie down at night without reflecting that —- young as I am — I may not live to see another day. Yet no one of all my acquaintances could say that in company I am morose or disgruntled.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (4 April 1787), from The Mozart-Da Ponte Operas by Andrew Steptoe [Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-198-16221-9], p. 84.

Death, God, Lie, Learning

“As Linda drifted in and out of consciousness, her fellow comedian Mark Steel noticed Joan Collins on the television. “I was on a chat show with Joan Collins,” he told fellow comedian Andy Hamilton. “How old is she?” Hamilton asked. “I think she must be close to 75,” replied Steel. From beneath the pile of bedclothes a little voice piped up: “How much is that in human years?””

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Sunday Times, 11 November 2007

Thinking

“I eagerly await tomorrow's mail to have news of Russia and Poland. For now, I have to content myself with a few vague rumors which float around. I have heard about new, bloody skirmishes in Poland between the people and troops; I was told that, even in Russia, there was a conspiracy against the czar and the whole royal family.
I am equally passionate about the struggle between the North and the Southern American states. Of course, my heart goes out to the North. But alas! It is the South who acted with the most force, wisdom, and solidarity, which makes them worthy of the triumph they have received in every encounter so far. It is true that the South has been preparing for war for three years now, while the North has been forced to improvise. The surprising success of the ventures of the American people, for the most part happy; the banality of the material well being, where the heart is absent; and the national vanity, altogether infantile and sustained with very little cost; all seem to have helped deprave these people, and perhaps this stubborn struggle will be beneficial to them in so much as it helps the nation regain its lost soul. This is my first impression; but it could very well be that I will change my mind upon seeing things up close. The only thing is, I will not have enough time to examine really closely.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Letter http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/letters/toherzenandogareff.html to Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen and Ogareff from San Francisco (3 October 1861); published in Correspondance de Michel Bakounine (1896) edited by Michel Dragmanov

Wisdom, War, People, Family

“When the door closes you have two choices. Give up, or keep going. Let them shut you down or prove them wrong. We all start somewhere. It's where you end up that counts. Grammy 2013”

Rihanna (1988) Barbadian singer, songwriter, and actress

“"Film star," "movie star" — whatever they want to try to call you is limiting, in the sense that I think an actor has to be able to play characters. To separate these things — you know: "leading man," "action hero," "character actor," stuff like that — I guess if I want to be close to anything, it would be a character actor, which is what I think an actor should be. So any of that "movie star" stuff, I just don't buy it. It just doesn't make sense to me.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Quoted in "'Johnny Depp - From Hell' special," http://www.johnnydeppfan.com/interviews/From%20Hell%20Special.htm ITV (January 2002)

Star, Thinking, Sense

“A sensitive man is not happy as President. It is fight, fight, fight all the time. I looked forward to the close of my term as a happy release from care. But I am not sure I wasn't more unhappy out of office than in. A term in the presidency accustoms a man to great duties. He gets used to handling tremendous enterprises, to organizing forces that may affect at once and directly the welfare of the world. After the long exercise of power, the ordinary affairs of life seem petty and commonplace.”

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) 22nd and 24th president of the United States

As quoted in American Magazine (September 1908)
Context: A sensitive man is not happy as President. It is fight, fight, fight all the time. I looked forward to the close of my term as a happy release from care. But I am not sure I wasn't more unhappy out of office than in. A term in the presidency accustoms a man to great duties. He gets used to handling tremendous enterprises, to organizing forces that may affect at once and directly the welfare of the world. After the long exercise of power, the ordinary affairs of life seem petty and commonplace. An ex-President practicing law or going into business is like a locomotive hauling a delivery wagon. He has lost his sense of proportion. The concerns of other people and even his own affairs seem too small to be worth bothering about.

Life, World, Exercises, Time

“Of these the first is "melting," which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen, are closely bound together, so as to be hard to pierce. But it belongs to love that the appetite is fitted to receive the good which is loved, inasmuch as the object loved is in the lover…Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love: while melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

I-II, q. 28, art. 5
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)
Context: it is to be observed that four proximate effects may be ascribed to love: viz. melting, enjoyment, languor, and fervor. Of these the first is "melting," which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen, are closely bound together, so as to be hard to pierce. But it belongs to love that the appetite is fitted to receive the good which is loved, inasmuch as the object loved is in the lover... Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love: while melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved.

Love, Lovers, Heart

“And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.”
Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.

Alcuin (735–804) English scholar and abbot

Variant translation: We should not listen to those who like to affirm that the voice of the people is the voice of God, for the tumult of the masses is truly close to madness.
Works, Epistle 127 (to Charlemagne, AD 800)

God, People, Madness

“Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print", it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.
Variant translation, as quoted in TIME (25 February 1974).
Nobel lecture (1970)
Context: Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print", it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another

Literature, Freedom, Memory, Heart

“To have ego means to believe in your own strength. And to also be open to other people's views. It is to be open, not closed.”

Barbra Streisand (1942) American singer, actress, writer, film producer, and director

Playboy interview (1977), as quoted in No Glass Slipper : Surviving and Conquering Painful Life Experiences (2006), p. 32
Context: To have ego means to believe in your own strength. And to also be open to other people's views. It is to be open, not closed. So, yes, my ego is big, but it's also very small in some areas. My ego is responsible for my doing what I do — bad or good.

People

“Many experiments with the Technology of Light are being undertaken in Russia. This is because the Space Brothers set up a community in that country 15 years ago. Russia was chosen because it was such a closed society, where commercial pressures did not affect scientific research. Today, says Maitreya, the Russians are well ahead of the rest of the world in this field. That is why Russia leads the way in calling for arms reductions.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Share International Magazine

Country, Light, Communication, Way

“I arrived at the house one day, my mother being at work, and heard the sounds of Samuel plunging his penis into my sister’s vagina through her closed room door, along with my sister’s moans. I stood there and listened to it all. So my sister, who was four years younger than me, managed to lose her virginity before I did. It reminded me of how pathetic I was, that at the age of twenty-two, I was still a virgin.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Pastimes

Sister, Housing, Age

“England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control — that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.”

George Orwell book England Your England

Part I : England Your England, § III
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)

Family, Silence, Memory, Relation ships

“He was a close friend of Zakir Husain, the third President of India. It was a coincidence and a tribute to their friendship that both occupied the highest position of the land, died in harness of heart failure and collapsed in the same bathroom of the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.”

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (1905–1977) the fifth President of India and a politician

Source: Presidents of India, 1950-2003, P.108

Failure, Friendship, Heart

“Do grant, O my Lord Jesus, that when my lips approach Thine to kiss Thee, I may taste the gall that was given Thee. And when my shoulders lean against Thine, make me feel Thy scourgings. And when my flesh is united with Thine in the Holy Eucharist, make me feel Thy Passion. And when my head comes near to Thine, make me feel Thy thorns. And when my heart is close to Thine, make me feel Thine embrace.”

Gemma Galgani (1878–1903) ITALIANA

Quoted in The Life of St. Gemma Galgani by her spiritual director Ven. Germanus, trans. A. M. O'Sullivan, 1999, p. 258.

Kiss, Heart, Passion, Making love

“Sometimes defining friendship can be simple. If your heart still aches after someone has passed, then you were a true and close friend. They may have physically left this world, but they still walk among us in our hearts.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2018

World, Friendship, Heart

“When one door opens, another closes.
this is the eternity's circle,
mistakes belongs to us, but not all,
the fate mapped out for us to follow,
but does not define our choices,
beings of necessity and randomness,
we're rattling over the abyss
in the vicinity of dying stars”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: An ocean of souls

“One who possesses arrogance as a dominant personality trait, rarely has close friends.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1989

Personality

“If you play close attention, you will see that the most masculine man has a feminine soul, and the most feminine woman has a masculine soul.”

C.G. Jung book Libro rojo

Source: The Red Book: Liber Novus, s. 263

“Genuine sincerity opens people's hearts, while manipulation causes them to close.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

People, Heart, Sincerity

“Those who love so much should focus their thoughts on beauty, and then learn to close the other eye when seeing the ugliness of the subject presented.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Beauty, Learning, Love

“The darkness isn't afraid of coming close to me, my fear of loneliness draws him towards me. Darkness surrounds me and despair takes hold of me. I start to torment my loneliness, and my silence begins to take my life. When I call my happiness darkness always turns happiness way. Darkness is not afraid of me coming close to me, my fear pulls it to me.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Drawing, Silence, Happiness, Loneliness

“Keep your enemies close, but your friends closer. That way your friends are between you and your enemies.”

Jim C. Hines (1974) American writer

Source: The Goblin Quest Series, Goblin Hero (2007), Chapter 7 (p. 117)

Way

“You look at me, you look at me closely, each time closer and then we play cyclops, we look at each other closer each time and our eyes grow, they grow closer, they overlap and the cyclops look at each other, breathing confusion, their mouths find each other and fight warmly, biting with their lips, resting their tongues lightly on their teeth, playing in their caverns where the heavy air comes and goes with the scent of an old perfume and silence. Then my hands want to hide in your hair, slowly stroke the depth of your hair while we kiss with mouths full of flowers or fish, of living movements, of dark fragrance. And if we bite each other, the pain is sweet, and if we drown in a short and terrible surge of breath, that instant death is beauty. And there is a single saliva and a single flavour of ripe fruit, and I can feel you shiver against me like a moon on the water.”

Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) Argentinian writer

Death, Pain, Beauty, Feeling

“When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Variant: Open your eyes, the Frenchman on the radio used to say, and see what you can with them before they close forever.
Source: All the Light We Cannot See

“In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”

Hunter S. Thompson book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Stupidity, World

“Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away…forever."
The Joker”

Alan Moore book Batman: The Killing Joke

Source: Batman: The Killing Joke

Madness

“There are black zones of shadow close to our daily paths, and now and then some evil soul breaks a passage through. When this happens the man who knows must strike before reckoning the consequences.”

H.P. Lovecraft book The Thing on the Doorstep

Fiction
Source: "The Thing on the Doorstep" (1937), first published in Weird Tales

Soul, Evil

“Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.”

Mario Puzo (1920–1999) American Novelist

Christmas

“I'd like to say "thank you" on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition.
Closing line of the Beatles' rooftop concert on (30 January 1969), this was also the last line of the Let It Be film and the album version of "Get Back"”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Hope

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall with our English dead.”

William Shakespeare Henry V

Source: Henry V

Dead

“Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge book The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Source: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Fear

“I just found this world a hard place to be good in,’ says Bunny, then he closes his eyes and, with an expiration of breath, goes still.”

Nick Cave book The Death of Bunny Munro

Source: The Death of Bunny Munro

World

“Don’t waste a minute not being happy. If one window closes, run to the next window—or break down a door.”

Brooke Shields (1965) US actress

Inspirational, Happiness

“Me and polite have never been on close terms.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

“Love is blind. Friendship closes its eyes.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Friendship, For Friend, For Bestfriend, Love

“But how,” said Charles, who was close to tears, “how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder?’
Henry lit a cigarette. “I prefer to think of it,” he had said, “as redistribution of matter.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

Thinking, Tear

“True kindness isn't something we're born with. It's something we have to work at. Not everyone has it. But I think everyone has the potential. Sometimes you just have to look really close before you can tell it's there."-Kyoko”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Thinking

“I thought it was keep your friends close so you have someone to drive the car when you sneak over to your enemy's house at night and throw up in his mailbox,"
-Jace”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Cars, Housing, Night

“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.”

Stephen Chbosky (1970) American writer

Books, Silence

“We lose a great deal, I think, when we lose this sense and feeling for the sun. When all has been said, the adventure of the sun is the great natural drama by which we live, and not to have joy in it and awe of it, not to share in it, is to close a dull door on natures's sustaining and poetic spirit.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

Feeling, Nature, Thinking, Sense

“God put us here on this carnival ride, we close our eyes never knowing where it will take us next.”

Carrie Underwood (1983) American country music singer

From the booklet of Carnival Ride.

God

“The main thing to do is pay attention. Pay close attention to everything, notice what no one else notices. Then you'll know what no one else knows, and that's always useful.”

Jeanne DuPrau The City of Ember

Source: The City of Ember

“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Nature

“When words cease to cling close to things, kingdoms fall, empires wane and diminish.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

“This is [her] soul group.’
What do you mean?’
It’s a group of souls with whom she resonates closely.”

James Redfield book The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

Source: The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

Soul

“Romancin’ is verra important, ye ken. Basically it’s a way the boy can get close to the girl wi’oot her attackin’ him and scratchin’ his eyes oot.”

Terry Pratchett book Wintersmith

Source: Wintersmith

Way, Girl, Boy

“If you've a story, make sure it's a whole one, with details close to hand. It's the difference between a good lie and getting caught.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Source: Trickster's Choice

Lie

“Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.”

Molière (1622–1673) French playwright and actor

Love, Money

“I don't just pray for God to open doors, I also pray for God to close doors.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

God

“It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to Infidelity.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Claimed by atheist Franklin Steiner, on p. 144 of one of his books to have appeared in Manford's Magazine but he never gives a year of publication.
Misattributed

Religion

“I can hurt myself more than anyone else can," she told her sister. "I can do it with my eyes closed.”

Alice Hoffman The Story Sisters

Source: The Story Sisters

Sister, Hurt

“So she sat on with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Reality, Change

“This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Love

“Here you discover that so long as books are kept open, then minds can never be closed.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Books

“Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the center which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death.”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

Death, People, Feeling, Communication

“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Remarks at a business conference in Los Angeles (2 March 1977)
1970s

“Anything with the power to make you laugh over thirty years later isn’t a waste of time. I think something like that is very close to immortality.”

Stephen King book Hearts in Atlantis

Source: Hearts in Atlantis

Thinking, Time

“He does not always remain bent over the
pages; he often leans back and closes
his eyes over a line he has been reading
again, and its meaning spreads through
his blood.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Reading

“Patience and boredom are closely related. Boredom, a certain kind of boredom, is really impatience. You don't like the way things are, they aren't interesting enough for you, so you deccide- and boredom is a decision-that you are bored.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Way, Decision, Patience

“Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss.”

Paul Celan (1920–1970) Romanian poet and translator

Loss

“But, I nearly forgot, you must close your eyes otherwise you won't see anything”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity; it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Love, Life, Death, Beauty

“A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”

Walter Benjamin book Theses on the Philosophy of History

Source: Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), IX

Angels, History, Past, Future

“A visiting pastor at our church in Plains once told a story about a priest from New Orleans. Father Flanagan’s parish lay in the central part of the city, close to many taverns. One night he was walking down the street and saw a drunk thrown out of a pub. The man landed in the gutter, and Father Flanagan quickly recognized him as one of his parishioners, a fellow named Mike. Father Flanagan shook the dazed man and said, “Mike!” Mike opened his eyes and Father Flanagan said, “You’re in trouble. If there is anything I can do for you, please tell me what it is.ℍ “Well, Father,” Mike replied, “I hope you’ll pray for me.” “Yes,” the priest answered, “I’ll pray for you right now.” He knelt down in the gutter and prayed, “Father, please have mercy on this drunken man.ℍ At this, a startled Mike woke up fully and said, “Father, please don’t tell God I’m drunk.ℍ Sometimes we don’t feel much of a personal relationship between God and ourselves, as though we have a secret life full of failures and sins that God knows nothing about. We want to involve God only when we plan to give thanks or when we’re in trouble and need help. But the rest of our lives, we’d rather keep to ourselves.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President

Life, God, Secret, Hope

“When you're too close to people, when you spend too much time with them and love them too dearly, sometimes you can't see them”

Tana French book The Likeness

Source: The Likeness

Love, People, Time

“Choosing not to read is like closing an open door to paradise”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Reading

“Running toward danger is foolhardy…. But so is closing your eyes to it. Many perils become less dangerous once you understand their potential hazards.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Rise of the Evening Star

Understanding

“Not only are love and hate such closely related emotions, but it's a lot easier to hate someone you've cared about than someone you never have.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Source: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

Love, Hate

“At the same time, you have to find the right distance between people. Too close, and they overwhelm you, too far and they abandon you. How to hold them in the right relation?”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Intimacy: das Buch zum Film von Patrice Chéreau

People, Time

“Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Nature, Freedom

“But the close withdrew: the hand softened. It was over-- the moment.”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

“We are close to waking when we dream that we are dreaming.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Variants:
Novalis (1829)
Variant: We are near awakening when we dream that we dream.
Source: Novalis: Philosophical Writings

Dreams

“But when we sit together, close,’ said Bernard, ‘we melt into each other with phrases. We are edged with mist. We make an unsubstantial territory.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

“Close beside my knowledge lies my black ignorance.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Knowledge

“Love isn’t soft, like those poets say. Love has teeth which bite and the wounds never close.”

Stephen King book The Body

Source: The Body

Love

“Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Leadership, Motivation

“… For a lifetime was but a moment in that place, and each man dreams his own heaven.

And in the darkness David closed his eyes, as all that was lost was found again.”

John Connolly The Book of Lost Things

Source: The Book of Lost Things

Dreams

“I sank back in the gray, plush seat and closed my eyes. The air of the bell jar wadded round me and I couldn't stir.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

“When someone leaves you once, you expect it to happen again. Eventually you stop getting close enough to people to let them become important to you, because then you don't notice when they drop out of your world.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Leaving Time

People, World

“Hide your intentions not by closing up (with the risk of appearing secretive, and making people suspicious) but by talking endlessly about your desires and goals-just not the real ones.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

People, Secret, Appearance

“The world is the closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through.

Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but it is also their means of communication. … Every separation is a link.”

Simone Weil book Gravity and Grace

Source: Gravity and Grace

World, Way, Communication, Time

“Now that I've won a slam, I know something very few people on earth are permitted to know. A win doesn't feel as good as a loss feels bad, and the good feeling doesn't last long as the bad. Not even close.”

Andre Agassi book Open. An Autobiography

Source: Open

People, Feeling, Loss

“The hardest thing is to do something which is close to nothing because it is demanding all of you.”

Marina Abramović (1946) Yugoslav-American artist

“The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer

Secret

“People are islands,' she said. 'They don't really touch. However close they are, they're really quite separate. Even if they've been married for fifty years.”

Ian Fleming book Casino Royale

Source: Casino Royale

People

“I fear you close by; I love you far away.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Love, Fear

“Look closely. The beautiful may be small.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Beauty

“Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?”

Thomas Hardy book The Return of the Native

Source: The Return of the Native

“If you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic.”

Diane Arbus (1923–1971) American photographer and author

Way, Reality

“I closed my eyes, bowed my head and thought, AH, HELL…”

P. C. Cast book Destined

Source: Destined

Hell

“He closed his eyes and sank into the warm dusk that separates consciosness and sleep, where reality bends and sways to the wind of thought, and where creativity blossoms in its freedom from boundaries and all things are possible.”

Christopher Paolini (1983) American author

Reality, Sleep, Freedom

“Dale: "No, no--curse it, Beka, you're the prickliest woman I've ever met!"
Goodwin: "No, I am. But she comes very close, I have to say."
— Dale Rowan and Clara Goodwin when Beka didn't want to accept money for being Dale's "luck”

Tamora Pierce book Bloodhound

Source: Bloodhound

Money

“Art too is just a way of living, and however one lives, one can, without knowing, prepare for it; in everything real one is closer to it, more its neighbor, than in the unreal half-artistic professions, which, while they pretend to be close to art, in practice deny and attack the existence of all art - as, for example, all of journalism does and almost all criticism and three quarters of what is called (and wants to be called) literature.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Ten (26 December 1908)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)

Art, Way, Literature

“At the end of your life you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child or a parent.”

Barbara Bush (1925–2018) former First Lady of the United States

Source: Reflections: Life After the White House

Family, Life, Parent, Time

“She leaned into me, and when I closed my eyes, I knew I wanted nothing more than to hold her this way forever.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Way

“He who opens a school, closes a prison”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Also cited as Opening a school is closing a prison This quotation has been attributed to Victor Hugo since the nineteenth century, but the earliest citations attribute the saying instead to French education minister Victor Duruy: Déjà M. Duruy avait posé en fait, quouvrir une école, c'est fermer une prison (1865) English translation: M. Duruy had already suggested that opening a school is closing a prison Disputed Source: Journal des Economistes, March 1865, p. 489 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433022399574?urlappend=%3Bseq=495

Deep, Teachers' Day, School

“The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Interview with Ken Campbell on Reality on the Rocks: Beyond Our Ken (1995) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3aadgf0GH8

Star, Universe

Quotes about closing page 2

Quotes about closing
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