Close Quotes

Well, I guess that answers my question." The deep velvet voice startles me.
I jump, grab my pillow like I'm going to use it as a weapon.
Will stands in the doorway, sipping from a metallic travel mug. His gray T-shirt stretches across his shoulders and chest in a way that makes my throat close up.
"What question?" I ask, breathless.
"Whether you're as beautiful in the morning as you are during the rest of the day."
"Oh," I say dumbly, pushing the tangle of hair back off my shoulders, certain I don't look good right now, just rolling out of bed. Not that I take pains with my appearance on the average day, but still...who looks their best fresh out of bed? "You're here again," I murmur.
"Apparently."
"Can't stay away?"
"Apparently not."
I'm okay with that. Great, in fact.
"I made you breakfast," he adds.
"You can cook?" I'm impressed.
He grins. "I live in a bachelor household, remember? My mom died when I was a kid. I hardly remember her. I kind of had to learn to cook."
"Oh," I murmur, then sit up straighter. "Wait a minute. How'd you get in here?"
"Opened the front door." He takes another sip from his mug and looks at me like I'm in trouble. "Your mom really should lock the door when she leaves."
I arch a brow. "Would that have kept you out?"
He smiles a little. "You know me well. ~ Sophie Jordan

Sharpe had no thought of deserting now, for now he was about to fight. If there was any one good reason to join the army, it was to fight. Not to hurry up and do nothing, but to fight the King's enemies, and this enemy had been shocked by the awful violence of the close-range volley and now they stared in horror as the redcoats screamed and ran towards them. The 33rd, released from the tight discipline of the ranks, charged eagerly. There was loot ahead. Loot and food and stunned men to slaughter and there were few men in the 33rd who did not like a good fight. Not many had joined the ranks out of patriotism; instead, like Sharpe, they had taken the King's shilling because hunger or desperation had forced them into uniform, but they were still good soldiers. They came from the gutters of Britain where a man survived by savagery rather than by cleverness. They were brawlers and bastards, alley-fighters with nothing to lose but tuppence a day. ~ Bernard Cornwell

And God created every living creature
that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak.
God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke.
Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.
"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.
"Certainly," said man.
"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God. And He
went away. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

[D]umb evolutionary processes have dramatically amplified the intelligence in the human lineage even compared with our close relatives the great apes and our own humanoid ancestors; and there is no reason to suppose Homo sapiens to have reached the apex of cognitive effectiveness attainable in a biological system. ~ Nick Bostrom

Gregori's arm moved from around her waist to circle her neck, a male gesture of ownership. Savannah laughed to herself. Carpathian men were not far from the cave.
I caught that, mon amour. Gregori's soft voice brushed at her mind, a low caress that curled warmth in her stomach. He sounded close to teasing, but she noticed he didn't drop his arm from around her neck. ~ Christine Feehan

Too much reality can be a dazzle, a surfeit;Too close immediacy an exhaustion ~ Theodore Roethke

I do not like that I allowed my past to close me off. I do not like that I let circumstances rob me of the ability to have a normal relationship with a man, to have friends, to be happy. I do not like it, but I had felt myself powerless against it. ~ Megan Hart

I won't close down a business of subnormal profitability merely to add a fraction of a point to our corporate returns. I also feel it inappropriate for even an exceptionally profitable company to fund an operation once it appears to have unending losses in prospect. Adam Smith would disagree with my first proposition and Karl Marx would disagree with my second; the middle ground is the only position that leaves me comfortable. ~ Warren Buffett

So," I demanded, trying to sound confident, "where can we find this trod to New Orleans?"
"The frost giant ruins," Ash replied, looking thoughtful. "Very close to Mab's court." At Puck's glare, he shrugged and offered a tiny, rueful smirk. "She goes to Mardi Gras every year."
I pictured the Queen of the Unseelie Court flashing a couple of drunken partygoers, and giggled uncontrollably. All three shot me a strange look. "Sorry," I gasped, biting my lip. "Still kind of giddy, I guess. ~ Julie Kagawa

I started to book good television jobs in 2010. I started to get really close to exceptional jobs in 2011, and then I got 'Arrow' in 2012. I know how lucky I am because just getting the lead in a pilot doesn't guarantee that that pilot is going to turn into something great. ~ Stephen Amell

I'll never understand how time can make a moment feel as close as yesterday and as far as years. ~ Adam Silvera

I named this place Listening Point because only when one comes to listen, only when one is aware and still, can things be seen and heard. Everyone has a listening point somewhere. It does not have to be in the north or close to the wilderness, but someplace of quiet where the universe can be contemplated with awe. ~ Sigurd F. Olson

The only other person attending who was close to her age was Father St. Laurent, a devastatingly good-looking Roman Catholic priest who made the RC's vows of celibacy seem like a crime against the human gene pool. ~ Julia Spencer-Fleming

Perhaps we all harbor a perverse need to get close to things that might destroy us. ~ Jojo Moyes

Only the middle distance and what may be called the remoter foreground are strictly human. When we look very near or very far, man either vanishes altogether or loses his primacy. The astronomer looks even further afield than the Sung painter and sees even less of human life. At the other end of the scale the physicist, the chemist, the physiologist pursue the close-up – the cellular close-up, the molecular, the atomic and subatomic. Of that which, at twenty feet, even at arm's length, looked and sounded like a human being no trace remains.
Something analogous happens to the myopic artist and the happy lover. In the nuptial embrace personality is melted down; the individual (it is the recurrent theme of Lawrence's poems and novels) ceases to be himself and becomes a part of the vast impersonal universe.
And so it is with the artist who chooses to use his eyes at the near point. In his work humanity loses its importance, even disappears completely. Instead of men and women playing their fantastic tricks before high heaven, we are asked to consider the lilies, to meditate on the unearthly beauty of 'mere things,' when isolated from their utilitarian context and rendered as they are, in and for themselves. Alternatively (or, at an earlier stage of artistic development, exclusively), the nonhuman world of the near-point is rendered in patterns. These patterns are abstracted for the most part from leaves and flowers – the rose, the lotus, the acanthus, palm, papyrus – an ~ Aldous Huxley

When I give my time, when I can make someone smile after they were feeling sad, it's as close to healthy as I ever feel.
Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overwhelmed with what comes back. ~ Mitch Albom

This truth may be handled either sinfully or profitably; sinfully as when it is treated on only to satisfy curiosity, and to keep up a mere barren speculative dispute ... This point of election ... is not to be agitated in a verbal and contentious way, but in a saving way, to make us tremble and to set us upon a more diligent and close striving with God in prayer, and all other duties. ~ Anthony Burgess

Oh, oh. My heart starts that quivering, fluttering thing it does whenever he hints at his desire for me. Lacing his fingers through mine, he moves to close the gap between us. I know he's only holding my hand, but it's the manner in which his fingers curl around mine, and the way his eyes bore into me that makes it seem much more intimate. ~ Siobhan Davis

Outsong in the Jungle

[Baloo:] For the sake of him who showed
One wise Frog the Jungle-Road,
Keep the Law the Man-Pack make
For thy blind old Baloo's sake!
Clean or tainted, hot or stale,
Hold it as it were the Trail,
Through the day and through the night,
Questing neither left nor right.
For the sake of him who loves
Thee beyond all else that moves,
When thy Pack would make thee pain,
Say: "Tabaqui sings again."
When thy Pack would work thee ill,
Say: "Shere Khan is yet to kill."
When the knife is drawn to slay,
Keep the Law and go thy way.
(Root and honey, palm and spathe,
Guard a cub from harm and scathe!)

Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,
Jungle-Favour go with thee!

[Kaa:] Anger is the egg of Fear--
Only lidless eyes see clear.
Cobra-poison none may leech--
Even so with Cobra-speech.
Open talk shall call to thee
Strength, whose mate is Courtesy.
Send no lunge beyond thy length.
Lend no rotten bough thy strength.
Gauge thy gape with buck or goat,
Lest thine eye should choke thy throat.
After gorging, wouldst thou sleep ?
Look thy den be hid and deep,
Lest a wrong, by thee forgot,
Draw thy killer to the spot.
East and West and North and South,
Wash thy hide and close thy mouth.
(Pit and rift and blue pool-brim,
Middle-Jungle follow him!)

Wood and Water, W ~ Rudyard Kipling

I'm sure those rumors are spread, but it's just ah - we're really good friend. We've been since day one in Hollywood. In class, we've been together in school. We've gotten really close, but I don't know about the more than friends stuff. ~ Scotty McCreery

He took her hand in his, caressed her palm with his finger."Duin an doras," he whispered hoarsely, feverishly."Fuirichidh mise."
Close the door. I'll stay.
Ellie flushed dark, her lashes fluttered shut. "I ... I don't know what you say," she murmured.
Liam dropped her hand, gently laid his at the base of her bare neck. Her skin was soft and warm against his callused palm, and he whispered in her ear,"I know." He moved his head; his lips whisked across hers, shimmering like a whisper of silk.
He breathed her in once more, made himself remove his hand from her heated flesh. ~ Julia London

Good evening," he whispered, just a touch too close to her ear to be proper.
She turned toward him with a blush and he finally had the pleasure of seeing the color of her eyes. Jade green. Magnificent. Even if this woman proved to be an unattainable challenge, he'd certainly chosen well.
"G-Good evening," she stammered as she straightened up to smooth the front of the gown that matched those jade eyes perfectly. ~ Jenna Petersen

I just close my eyes and act like I'm a 3-year-old. I try to get as close to a childlike level as possible because we were all artists back then. So you just close your eyes and think back to when you were as young as you can remember and had the least barriers to your creativity. ~ Kanye West

What was unique about me being in City Hall during the Giuliani Administration, I was the only one who wasn't an attorney. I may have been the only one who didn't work in a prosecutor's office. So I took a completely different point of view on how the city should be run. Very close to a business, very close on metrics and numbers. ~ Joe Lhota

What I feel for you...it can be neither quantified nor defined. It is so profound, so revolutionary, that no methods to date are equipped to even measure it. A new word should be imagined just to express the depth and scope of it, because 'love' does not even come close. ~ Joanna Shupe

But the thing was, I didn't want it. Maybe I never really had. I'd finally come to understand what it had been: a yearning for a way out, when actually what I had wanted to find was a way in. I was there now. Or close. ~ Cheryl Strayed

Every husband knows that nuclear energy is not the most powerful force on earth. It's not even a close second. The most powerful and awesome force on earth is a woman's emotions. Nothing can match it in sheer intensity and shocking impact. I truly believe that one twenty-minute outburst from a woman could power a small town for three days. ~ David E. Clarke

Through the radical undoing and debilitation of repeated pain we are reacquainted with the essentialities of place and time and existence itself; in deep pain we have energy only for what we can do wholeheartedly and then, only within a narrow range of motion, metaphorically or physically, from tying our shoelace to holding the essential core conversations that are reciprocal and reinforcing within the close-in circle of those we love. Pain teaches us a fine economy, in movement, in the heart's affections, in what we ask of ourselves and eventually in what we ask in others. ~ David Whyte

So if you hear something in this book that sounds like advocacy of a particular political point of view, please reject the notion. My interest in issues is merely to point out how badly we're doing, not to suggest a way we might do better.
Don't confuse me with those who cling to hope. I enjoy describing how things are, I have no interest in how they ought to be. And I certainly have no interest in fixing them. I sincerely believe that if you think there's a solution, you're part of the problem.
My motto: Fuck Hope.
P.S. In case you're wondering, personally I'm a joyful individual, I had a long happy marriage and a close and loving family, my career has turned out better than I ever dreamed, and it continues to expand. I'm a personal optimist, but a skeptic about all else. What may sound to some like anger, is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt. I view my species with a combination of wonder and pity, and I root for its destruction. And please don't confuse my point of view with cynicism–the real cynics are the ones who tell you everything's gonna be all right.
And P.P.S., by the way, if by some chance you folks do manage to straighten things out and make everything better, I still don't wish to be included. ~ George Carlin

Whatever it is that can help to bring God close is something to be revered. ~ Susan Vreeland

As human beings, why does it take somebody to feel like they're close to us for us to see their humanity? Why can't we see the humanity in people that are distant from us? ~ Michael B. Jordan

I love you,' I told him.
It was not the first time, but I didn't want it to be the last.
Austin gathered me close and breathed into my hair, his big hands hot and restless on my back. 'I love you, too. ~ Megan Hart

Out of all the actors I have worked with, I love working with Larry Hagman the most. We were very close and it was just a wonderful time. ~ Barbara Eden

Alone, Empty, Fraud, Shame, Fear,
Close your eyes.There is nothing to see out here. ~ Penelope Douglas

Somebody at one of these places asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You "don't try". That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like it's looks, you make a pet out of it. ~ Charles Bukowski

How vainly men themselves amaze To win the palm, the oak, or bays; And their uncessant labours see Crown'd from some single herb or tree. Whose short and narrow verged shade Does prudently their toils upbraid; While all flow'rs and all trees do close To weave the garlands of repose. ~ Andrew Marvell

I can be a woodsman if need be. I grew up very close to some forest, and I spent a lot of my formative years up and down trees, fooling around in the woods. I'm no stranger to that sort of landscape. ~ Alex Turner

People think that the ocean is big enough to sustain anything we throw at it - its hard to get into your head that it's actually finite. ~ Glenn Close

To listen fully means to pay close attention to what is being said beneath the words. You listen not only to the 'music,' but to the essence of the person speaking. You listen not only for what someone knows, but for what he or she is. Ears operate at the speed of sound, which is far slower than the speed of light the eyes take in. Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silences in yourself, so you can slow our mind's hearing to your ears' natural speed, and hear beneath the words to their meaning. ~ Peter Senge

'Damages' was cool. It brought me back to New York for a little while, so that was a lot of fun, and I was obviously very excited about the opportunity to work with Rose Byrne and Glenn Close. I'd been a fan of that show before I started working on it. ~ Bailey Chase

The funeral was held on a rainy Tuesday at the church where the Brendan family were members. The high school was excused for the day so the teachers and students could attend if they wished, and many did. Avivah's parents mourned their only child from the front pew, tears falling as steadily as the droplets outside, smattering faces as well as painted window panes.

After the eulogy, a song about heaven began to play over head, and as the song played, the Brendans lit a candle by the photo of their daughter, then returned to their seats. More than a few people in attendance were found dabbing at their eyes as the song came to a close. The group of mourners made their way slowly to the cemetery and laid the girl to rest, black umbrellas dotting the vivid green of the grass, grey sky bright, despite the rainfall. ~ Rebecca Harris

Still I considered the M16 my bestest of besties. Always by my side, even at night, burrowed into my sleeping bag with me, faithful and true. In the 4th Wave, you can't trust that people are still people. But you can trust that your gun is still your gun.
Shhh, Cassie. It's close.
Close ~ Rick Yancey

He stepped aside, allowing me back into the hallway. As we headed to another elevator, he was glued to my hip. As close as you're riding me, man, I feel like I need to take you out to dinner or something. At least I should get your name. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

So a little pain on our quest was good. But I had to promise to not let you get killed." "I didn't think Lucifer cared." "He doesn't." Of course not. "My dad," Adexios stated with assurance. Blonde hair went whipping from side to side. "Try again. You're close." "You listened to my mom?" His exclamation emerged a tad high-pitched. "Why the hell would you do that? ~ Eve Langlais

I can only encourage everyone to take a close look at their practices. Prevention is always better than cure. ~ Neelie Kroes

In general the parallel between the popular uses of music and of pictures is close enough. Both consist of 'using' rather than 'receiving'. Both rush hastily forward to do things with the work of art instead of waiting for it to do something to them. ~ C.S. Lewis

Do not be afraid to get close to your opponent. The closer you are, the more you will learn. ~ Manuel Dos Reis Machado

I write to you to tell you that you don't stop being present, close by, that you accompany me everywhere I go, that this world is you, you alone, and that because of that it is larger, that it has found, thanks to you, a new dimension, a new coordinate, the one I could no longer bring myself to grant it, that it is no longer that implacable solitude that forced me at each moment to sack what rose in front of me, to hound myself - that everything changes, changes, changes under your gaze -

from a letter to Gisele Celan-Lestrange ~ Paul Celan

something glorious a minute later. How could anyone not have an orgasm? While she didn't ask for his cock, her mouth opened as she gulped in air. Perhaps it was when she dropped her head back that he understood she was ever so close, because he shut off the vibrator and pulled it out. ~ Vella Day

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case. ~ Chuck Close

One thing I do believe is I'm a believer in the presence of God. I believe that God is close. Whether it's in joy, pain or personal failure, I believe that God is close. That much I feel in my life. ~ David Gregory

It wasn't like a Maths test where I have to strain to get it right. I feel very close to Luna so acting her was just natural. And if I had got too nervous I'd have done terribly. ~ Evanna Lynch

Back when I was dating, the dreaded C word was Commitment. As soon as most men found out I had a child, they ran. If I ever got close enough to say the words, 'I love you,' they ran faster. ~ Regina Brett

You're looking for a book that reminds you why you read in the first place. One written well and that will feel like it was written just for you - one that will make you think about things in a new way, or feel things you didn't expect a book to make you feel, or see things in a new light. A book you won't want to put down, whose characters you don't want to tell good-bye. A book you will close feeling satisfied and grateful, thinking, Now, that was a good one. ~ Anne Bogel

And if I die sometime – I'm going to die very soon – I know I'll die as I am,
without accepting this world, perceiving it close up and far away, inside and out,
perceiving but not accepting it. I'll die and He will ask me: "Was it good there for
you? Was it bad there for you?" I will be silent, with lowered eyes. I'll be silent
that muteness familiar to everyone who knows the outcome of days of hard
boozing. For isn't the life of man a momentary boozing of the soul? And an eclipse
of the soul as well? We are all as if drunk, only everybody in his own way: one
person has drunk more, the next less. And it works differently on each: the one
laughs in the face of this world, while the next cries on its bosom. One has already
thrown up and feels better, while the next is only starting of feel like throwing up.
But me, what am I? I've partaken of much, but nothing works on me. I haven't
really laughed properly, even once, and I've never thrown up, even once. I, who
have partaken of so much in this world that I've lost count and the sequence of it
all, I am soberer than anyone else in this world; ~ Venedikt Erofeev

We both grew so used to each other, so comfortable with the naturalness and ease of our friendship, that we became sloppy about keeping our relationship a secret. It was not that we were physically demonstrative or obviously in love, more that it had become impossible for us to hide our close involvement. We had gradually acquired the unmistakable air of old-love: finishing each other's sentences and speaking to each other with an offhand, presuming intimacy that was eventually noticed. ~ Kate Kerrigan

There was mystery at the heart of any of marriage, secrets even people close to it would never know. ~ Stewart O'Nan

IMO, the only zombie antho that comes close to BOOK OF THE DEAD would be THE UNDEAD 2: SKIN & BONES. ~ Jan Berenstain

Each person bears a fear which is special to him. One man fears a close space and another man fears drowning; each laughs at the other and calls him stupid. Thus fear is only a preference, to be counted the same as the preference for one woman or another, or mutton for pig, or cabbage for onion. ~ Michael Crichton

I had intended to make another film, called Pocket Money, which was to be about children at a school.I was very much intrigued by the story [of Close Up] - it came into my dreams and I was very much influenced by it. So I called my producer and asked that we put aside Pocket Money and start something else, and he agreed. ~ Abbas Kiarostami

My baby." His eyes close. "She doesn't bare her teeth in vain," he whispers, running his tongue along the wound. "She bites. ~ Meagan Brandy

The shades of respectability begin to close about the greying head. ~ Mason Cooley

My friend once told me
she liked this guy because of his hands
And I found it absurd that anyone
would develop feelings over one feature,
and not care about the rest

It wasn't until you used your hands
to cup the back of my neck the first time we kissed
and I could feel your firm grasp pull me closer,
and my insides exploded
and my head buzzed with bliss.

And the first night you slept over,
you fell asleep with your hand
laid over my stomach
and your fingers felt like a fire
that I didn't mind burning my skin.

The first time we got drunk,
was the first time you played with my hair,
and my god I was hooked,
I'd drink forever if it meant you'd never stop.

And in public you'd hold my hand,
and rub your thumb in little circles
that left me wanting you more,
no matter what you would never let me go,
I was glued to you,
and I honestly didn't mind

When we talked about breaking up,
you saw my lips quiver with fear,
and you brushed over my lips with your fingers
before pulling me into your lap
and you kissed me like never before.
With your hands on my hips
pulling me so close to you,
leaving no space in between us.
It was then I realized I never wanted you to go

Its now that,
I finally understand why hands
were the only feature that mattered. ~ Carol Shlyakhova

Sit". I gesture to the chairs.
"I need to tell you something".
"You adore me and are having trouble keeping your hands to yourself?" he suggests.
"No". But my seriousness is lost on him.
He sits and pulls me close. "I'm having trouble keeping my hands to myself ~ Bethany Griffin

Marcelina loved that miniscule, precise moment when the needle entered her face. It was silver; it was pure. It was the violence that healed, the violation that brought perfection. There was no pain, never any pain, only a sense of the most delicate of penetrations, like a mosquito exquisitely sipping blood, a precision piece of human technology slipping between the gross tissues and cells of her flesh. She could see the needle out of the corner of her eye; in the foreshortened reality of the ultra-close-up it was like the stem of a steel flower. The latex-gloved hand that held the syringe was as vast as the creating hand of God: Marcelina had watched it swim across her field of vision, seeking its spot, so close, so thrillingly, dangerously close to her naked eyeball. And then the gentle stab. Always she closed her eyes as the fingers applied pressure to the plunger. She wanted to feel the poison entering her flesh, imagine it whipping the bloated, slack, lazy cells into panic, the washes of immune response chemicals as they realized they were under toxic attack; the blessed inflammation, the swelling of the wrinkled, lined skin into smoothness, tightness, beauty, youth.

Marcelina Hoffman was well on her way to becoming a Botox junkie.

Such a simple treat; the beauty salon was on the same block as Canal Quatro. Marcelina had pioneered the lunch-hour face lift to such an extent that Lisandra had appropriated it as the premise for an entire series. Whore. ~ Ian McDonald

Spending the next nine hours with a crying woman wal real close to the top of his "Avoid at All Costs" list right under untimely death and a desk job. ~ Tara Janzen

If we have any role at all, I think it's the role of optimism, not blind or stupid optimism, but the kind which is meaningful, one that is rather close to that notion of the world which is not perfect, but which can be improved. In other words, we don't just sit and hope that things will work out; we have a role to play to make that come about. ~ Chinua Achebe

Divorce is contagious. That's right - when you have a close couple friend split up, it increases your chances of getting a divorce by 75 percent. ~ Jenna McCarthy

I sometimes look at the careers of other ... I guess I could call them contemporaries or maybe close artists; you know, the 4 or 5 guys who go to New York City and get a loft and work together and use each other as models and that sort of thing and wait for years and years to get married. Maybe I just wasn't that definite. ~ Mike Royer

I went to West Texas and started writing a cycle of Americana poems after the space conjured images that, as a child, I only saw on television-John Wayne, cowboys, borderlines. But suddenly, I felt close to these once-foreign imageries and wondered how I'd changed. Each evening brought the darkest skies in the country, and I understood the expansiveness of our inner selves. Ultimately nothing divides us except the worlds and words we allow. ~ Nathalie Handal

There was a moment in my life when I really wanted to kill myself. And there was one other moment when I was close to that ... But even in my most jaded times, I had some hope. ~ Gerard Way

The gist of it was the caste (privileged) hindus wanted the power to close the door on untouchables, but on no account could untouchables be given the power to close the door on themselves. The Masters knew that Choice was Power. ~ Arundhati Roy

Last semester was intense," I said to Dad.

"Intense?" he echoed, picking up my file. "Let's see. On your first day at Hecate, you were attacked by a werewolf. You insulted a teacher, which resulted in semester-long cellar duty with one Archer Cross. According to the notes, the two of you became 'close.' Apparently close enough for you to see the mark of L'Occhio di Dio on his chest.

I flushed at that, and felt Mom's arm tighten around me. Over the past six months, I'd filled her in on a lot of the story with Archer, but not all of it.

Specifically, the whole me-making-out-in-the-cellar-with-a-murderous-warlock-working-with-the-Eye-part. ~ Rachel Hawkins

My mom kind of led me toward acting. She wanted to be an actress when she was younger. That made me interested in it when I was a kid, because she and I are very close. ~ Stephen Colbert

Cripple crow say something for our grieving, where do we go once we start leaving. Well close that wound or else keep on bleeding and change your tune, it's got no meaning. ~ Devendra Banhart

Hades will be here in twenty minutes," Apollo announced from somewhere way too close to the bed. "Either speed this up or pick it up later, kids."
"Oh my gods," I whispered, horrified.
"Oh, and I hope you two are being responsible," Apollo added.
And then he was gone. There was a muffled, hoarse shout from a room nearby.
"Damn him," Aiden muttered, dropping his head onto my shoulder. He shuddered. "Damn him to the Underworld and back again."
My cheeks burned. "A bell - the first chance we get, we are buying him a bell. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee ... I hold inside it the clues and solutions and the power for what I must do now. ~ Margaret Atwood

I never want to listen to the songs in front of people close to me. There's an emotional honesty in that place where it's not earnest but it's vulnerable. ~ Yannis Philippakis

Instinct tells me to close my eyes and I plunge myself back into the darkness, back to my world of being seen but not heard. ~ Alice Feeney

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

Nor is it merely that we can discern in Christ that close union of personality with perfection which forms the real distinction between the classical and romantic movement in life, but the very basis of his nature was the same as that of the nature of the artist - an intense and flamelike imagination. He realised in the entire sphere of human relations that imaginative sympathy which in the sphere of Art is the sole secret of creation. He understood the leprosy of the leper, the darkness of the blind, the fierce misery of those who live for pleasure, the strange poverty of the rich. Someone wrote to me in trouble, 'When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting.' How remote was the writer from what Matthew Arnold calls 'the Secret of Jesus.' Either would have taught him that whatever happens to another happens to oneself, and if you want an inscription to read at dawn and at night-time, and for pleasure or for pain, write up on the walls of your house in letters for the sun to gild and the moon to silver, 'Whatever happens to oneself happens to another. ~ Oscar Wilde

He had always seen his self-sufficiency as an admirable quality, a way of not imposing upon other people, but he could see now that it was an insult to those close to you. ~ Mark Haddon

So much of comics are dictated by characters talking to one another - or in focused spaces where 'the camera' has to stay in pretty close on what's going on. ~ Jim Lee

My point here is to insist that the rich should pay their way, and that they can easily afford to do so. All of the angst of canceling vital government programs to close the deficit is a charade put on by the rich for the rich. With a fair tax structure and a just contribution of the rich to the rest of society, we can afford a truly civilized America. Let ~ Jeffrey D. Sachs

Some people will never know how close they really were to success because they threw in the towel right before their big break. ~ Dawn Gluskin

An Internet rumor claims that John Kerry had an affair with a young woman. When asked if this was similar to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, a spokesman said 'Close, but no cigar.' ~ Jimmy Fallon

Some people have a view of self and of the universe that obliges them to struggle for happiness, to yearn for happiness-"some time in the future"-perhaps next year or the year after that. But not now. Not at this moment. Not here. Here and now is too terrifyingly close, too terrifyingly immediate. They suffer from happiness anxiety. ~ Nathaniel Branden

I'm drawn outside to the empty yard of the afternoon. The wind tosses thin snow that crackles against my neck. With open hunger the angel leads me to the garbage pile behind the mess hall. I stumble after him, trailing a little way behind, dangling from the roof of my mouth. Step after step, I follow my feet, assuming they aren't his. Hunger is my direction, assuming it isn't his. The angel lets me pass. He isn't turning shy, he just doesn't want to be seen with me. Then I bend my back, assuming it isn't his. My craving is raw, my hands are wild. They are definitely my hands: the angel does not touch garbage. I shove the potato peelings into my mouth and close both eyes, that way I can taste them better, the frozen peels are sweet and glassy. ~ Herta Muller

I saw this sign posted once, it said, "Blasting Zone Ahead." Wow. Shouldn't that read: "Road Closed?" What do you mean there's a blasting zone? What am I supposed to do? "Hey-uh, you might wanna buckle up. Blasting zone coming up. Yeah. Just saw the sign. Put the helmets on back there! Yeah I think we're- (Pow!)- Oh! We're getting close! (Pow!)- Oh! This is gonna be a bad blasting zone! Remember that last one-we lost Billy?" ~ Brian Regan

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

In the road ships must ride in 30, 40, or 50 fathom water, not above half a mile from the shore at farthest: and if there are many ships they must ride close one by another. ~ William Dampier

Deeply vulnerable and hurting within as you act tough outside. You do need people; you need them so much so that it scares you to death. You drive them away so they don't get too close; yet you regret it every time you do. ~ Rachel Reiland

Our minds had met and crossed and understood from the first moment when Victor introduced us in my club, and that queer, inexplicable bond of the heart, breaking through every barrier, every restraint, had kept us close to one another always, in spite of silence, absence, and long years of separation. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

Young Shia who have been brought up with nothing, who are pretty anarchic, pretty dangerous. In 2004 when they came close to killing me, and of course they have killed very large numbers of other Iraqis. That's a major source of strength for Muqtada. ~ Patrick Cockburn

If only you would kiss me.
Press your lips to mine like a searing iron. Wrap me in your arms as if you were a monarch claiming a kingdom. Hold me close until I warm through to the core. Do this, and I promise to melt into you, no longer a cold and frozen figure in your narrowed sight. How devoted I would be if only your lips burned for mine!
If only you would kiss me. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I knew the term Stepford Wife, and I knew what that meant. I never read the book, and I think before I started filming I watched the movie. I thought it was very dated. ~ Glenn Close

Thus Milton refines the question down to a matter of faith," said Coleridge, bringing the lecture to a close, "and a kind of faith more independent, autonomous - more truly strong, as a matter of fact - than the Puritans really sought. Faith, he tells us, is not an exotic bloom to be laboriously maintained by the exclusion of most aspects of the day to day world, nor a useful delusion to be supported by sophistries and half-truths like a child's belief in Father Christmas - not, in short, a prudently unregarded adherence to a constructed creed; but rather must be, if anything, a clear-eyed recognition of the patterns and tendencies, to be found in every piece of the world's fabric, which are the lineaments of God. This is why religion can only be advice and clarification, and cannot carry any spurs of enforcement - for only belief and behavior that is independently arrived at, and then chosen, can be praised or blamed. This being the case, it can be seen as a criminal abridgement of a person's rights willfully to keep him in ignorance of any facts - no piece can be judged inadmissible, for the more stones, both bright and dark, that are added to the mosaic, the clearer is our picture of God. ~ Tim Powers

When they tested Fatal Attraction, the audiences were so upset by her behavior, they literally demanded her blood. ~ Glenn Close

These people are beyond all limits of incompetence,' said Lakshman, as he steered his horse close to his brother. ~ Amish Tripathi

It seems as though we Christians have developed a nasty habit of leading people into a radical encounter with God's unconditional love, forgiveness, acceptance, and union only to spend the ensuing years teaching them how to become close to God to earn his approval. ~ Ted Dekker