Quotes about closing
page 6

“And the last thought he had that morning as he closed his eyes was: I hope the tornado hit the moose.”

Source: Hatchet

“Now she and I sit together in her room and eat chocolate, and I tell her that in a very long time when we both to go heaven, we should try to get chairs next to each other, close to the dessert table.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Time

“Lover," she whispers, and closes her eyes.
It falls upon her.
Love is like dying.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Love, Lovers

“Friends share secrets. That's what keeps us close.”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Secret

“There are no limits when you are surrounded by people who believe in you, or by people whose expectations are not set by the short-sighted attitudes of society, or by people who help to open doors of opportunity, not close them.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson book The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

Source: The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

People, Help

“i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Understanding

“At the same time, we both pulled back briefly still oh so close. Everything in the word rested on that moment.
"We can't…" He told me.
"I know," I agreed.
Then his mouth was on mine again, and this time I knew there would be no turning back.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Time

“Let people be, boss; don't open their eyes. And supposing you did, what'd they see? Their misery! Leave their eyes closed, boss, and let them go on dreaming!”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek

People, Dreams

“When mouths close, it’s because there’s something important to be said.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

“Being tired isn't the same as being rich, but most times it's close enough.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Time

“I wish I was close to Jace Herondale," Julie sighted. "He is so gorgeous."
"He is foxier than a fox fur in a fox hole on fox hunting day," Beatriz agreed dreamily.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy

“When we're all alone, it might be to frightening to bear… but we're all right beside each other. We've got our friends close by! Now, there's nothing to fear! Because we're not alone!!!”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

Fear

“Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Thinking, Heart, Dead

“The gym is always open, except when it's closed.”

Trenton Lee Stewart (1970) Novelist

“If it is true that love is the pursuit in another of qualities we lack in ourselves, then in our love of someone from another culture, one ambition may be to weld ourselves more closely to values missing from our own culture.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Art of Travel

Love

“The difference between a dreamer and a visionary is that a dreamer has his eyes closed and a visionary has his eyes open”

Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have a Dream

Source: I Have a Dream

“I thank God for Closed Doors”

Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter

God

“You can never be sure of anyone until you're close enough to see them clearly.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

“[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

Reading

“Need some help?' he asked.
'Yes!' I yelled at him 'Help us!'
'What's the magic word?'
'Now!'
'Close enough.”

Michelle Rowen (1971) Canadian writer

Source: Dark Kiss

Help

“I've always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed.”

David Benioff book City of Thieves

Source: City of Thieves

People, Sleep, Envy

“No, it’s not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.”

Stephen King book Different Seasons

Variant: No, it's not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.
Source: Different Seasons

Business

“Afraid of the darkness of the unknown, the spaces in which we see only dimly, we often choose the darkness of closed eyes, of obliviousness.”

Rebecca Solnit book Men Explain Things To Me

Source: Men Explain Things to Me

“There is an odd synchronicity in the way parallel lives veer to touch one another, change direction, and then come close again and again until they connect and hold for whatever it was that fate intended to happen.”

Ann Rule (1931–2015) True crime writer

Fate, Way, Change

“How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness

and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom:

as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious”

Lisel Mueller (1924) German poet

Source: Alive Together

Light

“I close my eyes, thinking that there is nothing like an embrace after an absence, nothing like fitting my face into the curve of his shoulder and filling my lungs with the scent of him.”

Jodi Picoult book Keeping Faith

Variant: simply-quotes Follow

I close my eyes, thinking that there is nothing like an embrace after an absence, nothing like fitting my face into the curve of his shoulder and filling my lungs with the scent of him.
Source: Keeping Faith

Thinking

“Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

“The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3

Forgetting

“Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Love

“It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale.”

Annie Dillard book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Source: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Books, Night, Happiness

“Life and death were so unpredictable. So close to each other. We existed moment to moment, never knowing who would be the next to leave this world.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Life, Death, World

“How we live our lives does not, unfortunately depend on us alone. Circumstances, good or bad, constantly intervene. A person close to us die. A person not so close to us carries on living. All these things affect how we live.”

Tariq Ali (1943) British Pakistani writer, journalist, and historian

Source: The Stone Woman

Dependency, Personality

“the very fact of the death of someone close to them aroused in all who heard about it, as always, a feeling of delight that he had died and they hadn't.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The Death of Ivan Ilych

Death, Feeling

“I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Variant: I will take the sun in my mouth and leap into the ripe air.
Source: Poems, 1923-1954

Sun

“Bless you, daugher of man," Carter said, his eyes luminous and almost silver now. He leaned down and kissed my forehead. I closed my eyes and caught my breath. His lips were both burning hot and icy cold.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Revealed

Kiss

“It made me start to wonder if there were other people so lonely so close. I thought about “Eleanor Rigby.” It’s true, where do they all come from? And where do they all belong?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

People

“somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence.
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you always open petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously)her first rose or if it be your wish to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly
as the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries
rendering death and forever with each breathing”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

W [ViVa] (1931) LVII

Life, Death, World, Travel

“Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

"Tentative (First Model)" Definitions of Poetry" in Complete Poems (1950)

“That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain.”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club

Pain, Way, Hurt

“The window was still open,” Mr Lisbon said. “I don’t think we’d ever remembered to shut it. It was all clear to me. I knew I had to close that window or else she’d go on jumping out of it forever.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Thinking

“Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe
Put your ray gun to my head
Press your space face close to mine, love
Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Love

“Nearly unable to bear the thought of how much he needed her quiet strength, he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the cold glass.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“Percy pushed on his side furiously and the crack closed. His eyes blazed with anger. She hoped he wasn’t mad at her, but if he was she couldn’t blame him.
If it keeps him going, she thought, then let him be angry.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Hope, Madness, Anger

“When I leaned a little too close to the doorway, my inner voice piped up, telling me not to be stupid. The guy with the bionic senses was better equipped for this.”

Kelley Armstrong The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Stupidity, Guy, Sense

“Their closeness wouldn't break, but it would bend and stretch into a new shape.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“When God closes one door, He slams another in your face”

Marian Keyes (1963) Irish writer

Source: The Other Side of the Story

God

“I spent most of my youth hauling sides of beef and pork to my father's shop. Carrying you is far more enjoyable."

"How sweet," Annabelle mumbled sickly, her eyes closed. "Every woman dreams of being told that she's preferable to a dead cow.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Secrets of a Summer Night

Youth, Dreams, Dead

“I can't imagine a sweeter agony, having him so close.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Again the Magic

Imagination

“Obedience unites us so closely to God that it in a way transforms us into Him, so that we have no other will but His.
If obedience is lacking, even prayer cannot be pleasing to God.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

God, Way

“Lena knew she had spent too much of her life in a state of passive dread, just waiting for something bad to happen. In a life like that, relief was as close as you got to happiness.”

Ann Brashares The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

Life, Waiting, Happiness

“She answered by standing and kissing him first and held his cheeks and closed her eyes and felt sure as bones and deep as blood that she had found her place.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

Kiss

“Each of us carries a room within ourselves, waiting to be furnished and peopled, and if you listen closely, you may need to silence everything in your own room, you can hear the sounds of that other room inside your head.”

Susan Sontag book In America

Source: In America

People, Silence, Waiting

“If there's one thing I've learned in the last few months, it's that sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Learning

“When things get unbearable, I wrap myself into a tight ball and shut my eyes. Every muscle in my body is tense. I open my eyes and I'm still where I was when I closed them to escape. Nothing's changed.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American author and journalist

Change

“Sometimes I think I live more closely to the past than the present.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: Dragon Bones

Thinking, Past

“Despair dragged at me like an anchor, pulling me down. I closed my eyes and retreated to some dim place within, where there was nothing but an aching grey blankness…”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Despair

“Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Life, Dreams, Hope

“Another thing is no matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Variant: No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.
Source: Invisible Monsters

Love, Thinking

“But no. It didn't suit him. She should have known. He was not a one for fastening. For holding closed. Neither was he dark. Oh no. He was emberant. Incarnadine. He was bright with better bright beneath, like copper-gilded gold.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Source: The Slow Regard of Silent Things

“Happy as a clam, is what my mother says for happy. I am happy as a clam: hard-shelled, firmly closed.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

Happiness

“Get closer," I told Blackjack. "I need to talk to the statue."he muttered, but he flew as close as he could, dodging the flying statue.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Flying

“I fell in love once, if love be that cruelty which takes us straight to the gates of Paradise only to remind us they are closed for ever.”

Jeanette Winterson book Sexing the Cherry

Source: Sexing the Cherry

Love

“I understood that as much as I had resisted the outside, as much as I had constricted my life, as much as I had closed and narrowed the channels into me, there were still many takers for the quiet heart.”

Steve Martin book The Pleasure of My Company

Source: The Pleasure of My Company

Life, Heart

“I really can't believe what a state the Pyramids are in. I thought they had flat rendered sides, but when you get up close, you see how they are just giant boulders balanced on top of each other, like a massive game of Jenga that has got out of hand.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Source: An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington

Game

“They have gone. And the tunnel is about to close. So, boys, I am looking for someone to blame.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Time Paradox

Boy

“All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Life, Truth

“Close cycles. Not because of pride or arrogance, but because that no longer fits your life”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Variant: close some doors today. not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere

Life

“The second was some rather bad poetry, but it was short, and I forced my way through by gritting my teeth and occasionally closing one eye so as not to damage the entirety of my brain.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Way

“I want to know if you've touched the center of your own sorrow, if you've been opened by life's betrayals, or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer (1954) Canadian author

Life, Pain, Fear, Betrayal

“Happy the eyes that can close”

Alan Paton (1903–1988) South African writer and activist

Source: Cry, The Beloved Country

Happiness

“I closed the box and put it in a closet.
There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.”

Joan Didion Where I Was From

Source: Where I Was From

Way, Box

“His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Variant: He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.
Source: The Great Gatsby

Dreams

“He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

“She closed the book and put her cheek against it. There was still an odor of a library on it, of dust, leather, binding glue, and old paper, one book carrying the smell of hundreds.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

Books

“Why is it that some secrets can drown you while some pull you close to others in a way you never want to lose?”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Secret, Way

“If you've lived through it, you already know there are no words that will ever come close to describing it, and if you didn't - you will never understand.”

Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller

Source: The Storyteller

Understanding

“You are so close, and I can’t reach you.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

“Especially with four insanely angry, sword-carrying pirates bearing down on you, followed closely by an alien with a genetic malfunction that posed like Elvis Presley and looked slightly like a cross between a koala and a cuddly dog.”

Ridley Pearson (1953) American writer

Source: Disney in Shadow

Dogs

“Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society — nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

"Einstein's Reply to Criticisms" (1949), The World As I See It (1949)
Context: A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows. We call him good or bad according to how he stands in this matter. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depended entirely on his social qualities.
And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It is clear that all the valuable things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society can be traced back through countless generations to certain creative individuals. The use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam engine — each was discovered by one man.
Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society — nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.

Life, Health, Communication, Thinking

“My boyfriend is named Percocet," I say. "We're very close. I even went to Europe with him last summer.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Summer

“No one wants to read poetry. You have to make it impossible for them to put the poem down--impossible for them to stop reading it, word after word. You have to keep them from closing the book.”

Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) poet and political activist

Books, Reading

“Yesterday was a closed book, tomorrow, however, was another story.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: The Book of Tomorrow

Books

“I don’t think many people appreciate silence or realize that it is as close to music as you can get.”

Toni Morrison book God Help the Child

Source: God Help the Child

People, Music, Thinking, Silence

“It's just me throwing myself at you,
romance as usual, us times us,

not lust but moxibustion,
a substance burning close

to the body as possible
without risk of immolation.”

Alice Fulton (1952) American poet

Time

“Because I don't have everything I want. Not even close.”

Alyson Nöel book Dark Flame

Source: Dark Flame

“Then she was pressing her little proud broken self against his face, as close as she could get, and then they died.”

Philip Pullman book The Subtle Knife

Source: The Subtle Knife

“it'll be this kind of deep blue”she said. “The kind of color that somehow sucks your eyes and your ears and all your words —the color of a completely closed-in night”

Banana Yoshimoto book Asleep

Source: Asleep

Color, Night

“Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Sleep, Heart, Perfection

“I had forgotten to fear him, from too much time spent too close.”

Naomi Novik book Uprooted

Source: Uprooted

Fear, Time

“Why was it that pride and foolishness were so often close companions?”

Linda Sue Park A Single Shard

Source: A Single Shard

“A man's truest self realizations might require him, above all, to learn to close his eyes: to let himself be taken unawares, to follow his dark angel, to risk his illegal instincts.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Angels, Learning

“she slammed the door and
was gone.

I looked at the closed door
and at the doorknob
and strangely
I didn't feel
alone.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Feeling

“You do not think much of me, do you, Cogburn?
I don't think about you at all when your mouth is closed.”

Charles Portis book True Grit

Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 6, p. 151 : exchange between 'LaBoeuf' and 'Rooster Cogburn'

Thinking

“It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed.”

Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) Japanese-born British author

Speed

“If you look closely you'll find all my lovers inscribed on my skin.”

Jill Ciment (1955) Canadian writer

Source: The Tattoo Artist

Lovers

“Dustfinger closed his eyes and listened.
He was home again.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkspell

Home

“Part of me aches at the thought of her being so close yet so untouchable.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Heartbreaking, Parting, Sad

“Never miss an opportunity to show your love, especially to those close to you, because we are always at our most cautious with them for fear of being hurt.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Love, Fear, Hurt

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

" Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=92" (1952) <br class="br">Source: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Age, Light, Rage, Night

“Violence up close has a smell. Like copper blood and charcoal burning.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Quotes about closing page 6

Quotes about closing
page 6