Out Of Reach Quotes

I verily believe all that is desirable on earth
wealth, reputation, love
will for ever to you be the ripe grapes on the high trellis: you'll look up at them; they will tantalize in you the lust of the eye; but they are out of reach: you have not the address to fetch a ladder, and you'll go away calling them sour. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Nobody thinks of using improvements in technology and productivity to allow people to work less and require fewer assets to achieve the same standard of living. Instead, while everybody is richer, at least in terms of stuff, no one is any wealthier. Their wealth is "safely" out of reach. If it weren't, how many would still show up for work the next day? ~ Jacob Lund Fisker

stoodAloof from streets, encompass'd with a wood.Dryden.2. Applied to persons, it often insinuates caution and circumspection. Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel,And make the cowards stand aloof at bay.Shak.Henry VI. Going northwards, aloof, as long as they had any doubt of being pursued, at last when they were out of reach, they turned and crossed the ocean to Spain.Bacon. The king would not, by any means, enter the city, until he had aloof seen the cross set up upon the greater tower of Granada, whereby it became Christian ground.Bacon'sHen. VII. Two pots stood by a river, one of brass, the other of clay. The water carried them away; the earthen vessel kept aloof from t'other.L'Estrange'sFables. The strong may fight aloof; Ancaeus try'dHis force too ~ Samuel Johnson

In the end, maybe love just meant longing for something impossibly bright and forever out of reach. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Sometimes you need to stay in touch but be out of reach. ~ Jim Rohn

He fell away into the column before Isolfr could blink the thought of thanking him into his bleary mind, and Isolfr looked up at Frithulf in supplication. "What was that about?"
"Stay pretty," Frithulf advised, through a mouthful of meat.
Isolfr would have kicked him if he hadn't been out of reach on the horse. ~ Sarah Monette

There are many kinds of loss embedded in a loss - the loss of the person, and the loss of the self you got to be with that person. And the seeming loss of the past, which now feels forever out of reach. ~ Meghan O'Rourke

Education is the gateway to the American Dream. But today our immigration laws make higher education - a virtual requirement for financial security - out of reach for more than one million undocumented students. ~ Wendy Kopp

Blame is such a self-defeating choice. It renders one helpless, putting any solution well out of reach, for we rarely can change others. Consider this, a solution well within your reach, someone you can surely change: Yourself. ~ Russell Kyle

But for the first time, I wanted to believe in the things that outlasted us: the stories that came to life in a child's head, the fear of the dark, the hunger to live. Those were the footsteps that not even Time could discover and erase, because they lived far out of reach, in the song of blood coursing through veins and in the quiet threads that made up dreams. I wanted to hold the hope of those tales within me and follow it like a lure all the way back to myself. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Nineteen years since that day. Nineteen whole years! And I'm still looking for you. I will never stop looking for you.

Often you appear when I expect it least. Earlier today I was trapped in some pointless dark thought or other, my body clenched like a metal fist. Then suddenly you were there: a bright autumn leaf cartwheeling over a dull pewter lawn. I uncurled and smelled life, felt dew on my feet, saw shades of green. I tried to grab hold of you, that vivid leaf, cavorting and wriggling and giggling. I tried to take your hand, look straight at you, but like an optical black spot you slid silently sideways, just out of reach.

I will never stop looking for you. ~ Rosie Walsh

But here's the thing about self-comparison: In addition to making you vacate your own experience, your own soul, your own life, in its extreme it breeds resignation. If we constantly feel that there is something more to be had - something that's available to those with a certain advantage in life, but which remains out of reach for us - we come to feel helpless. And the most toxic byproduct of this helpless resignation is cynicism - that terrible habit of mind and orientation of spirit in which, out of hopelessness for our own situation, we grow embittered about how things are and about what's possible in the world. Cynicism is a poverty of curiosity and imagination and ambition. ~ Maria Popova

I am only saying that I will find you mad wolves to hunt," Ian told his wife, "and that I will never break your heart." If part of that heart was always out of reach, that seemed entirely fair to Ian. You did not get a whole heart when you pinned yours to a splendid, battered, high-flying hawk like a Night Witch. Nina's soul would always in some deep place yearn to be soaring under a bomber's moon with her dark-eyed Moscow rose, and that was fine. Ian thought there was a chance, despite her prickles, that a bit of that remaining heart might thaw enough for him. ~ Kate Quinn

It's not that motherhood is out of reach, it's that it's just out of reach. It's not that motherhood didn't happen, it's that it almost did and, in fact, still could. The difference between the grief of infertility and other reasons for mourning - the loss of a spouse, for example - is in that promise of 'just,' in 'almost,' in 'still could. ~ Alexandra Kimball

On the road leading from his ranch to Samantha's, Wyat t drove his surrey up a small hill and caught his breath as the beauty of the large crescent moon dangling just out of reach over the crest A full moon would have been plump with luminescence, yet the pearly surface of the sickle still cast enough light to shadow his surroundings and seemed close enough that once he drove to the top of the hill, he'd be able to touch the bottom horn or at least toss a rope around it. He slackened the reins, slowing the horse, knowing that the higher he climbed, the sooner the illusion of closeness would disappear and he wanted to preserve for a moment the fantasy that the moon was within his grasp.
The stars, by contrast, were distant pricks of diamond light farther out than a man could dream. He sighed. Life as a rancher or as a rancher's wife was not moon and stars easy or romantic. What would put stars in Samantha's eyes? ~ Debra Holland

A comprehensive utopia may be out of reach, but the effort to realise it shapes the world for the better all the same. The belief may not be true, but it is useful. Belief makes the world. ~ Rebecca Solnit

And here we are, in the middle, surrounded by a sea of stars.
A million suns.
Any of them could hold a planet. Any of them could hold a home.
But all of them are out of reach. [p.218] ~ Beth Revis

Africa will become an out-of-reach commodity instead of the expendable refuse heap we've treated her as. ~ Lidia Yuknavitch

A story had no owner ship. A story could break its bones, grow wings, soar out of reach and dive out of sight in the time it took just to draw breath. It meant we weren't walking a cut path. We carved it into existence with
every step. ~ Roshani Chokshi

People are happiest when they're trying to achieve goals that are difficult but not out of reach. ~ Daniel Gilbert

The funny thing about a lie is that once it has been said and believed, it lives and becomes. It can't be taken back. It sucks all the air from you until you give up and it takes over and you forget how to breathe on your own. It is like those parasitic relationships, but not like the shark and the little remora that politely cleans the shark's skin and sometimes attaches itself to its underbelly. No, it is more like a tapeworm eating someone from the inside out. ~ Carrie Arcos

If you worry about falling down, and never 'up,' the sky will remain forever out of reach. ~ Ellen Hopkins

Bea felt a pang in her gut: Yes, she wanted to scream, I want this more than you could possibly imagine. But the idea of saying that out loud [...] felt terrifying. Like giving voice to this secret piece of herself would allow everyone in the world to tell her just how foolish she was for wanting something so laughably out of reach. ~ Kate Stayman-London

No misery compares to staring at a clear night's sky with arms stretched toward a coveted star, wishing on what is forever out of reach. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Creatures...infinity...our minds have ceilings, Malorie...these things...they are beyond it...higher than it...out of reach...out of - ~ Josh Malerman

We are all farsighted, we give importance to those things that are far from us, while neglecting the things that are close to us ... only to realize their value later when they are out-of-reach again ... ~ Ai Yazawa

A misfit like me getting anywhere in Hollywood as I somehow have, seemed, certainly at the time of 'Spanking The Monkey,' kind of out of reach, or not a very realistic take. ~ Jeremy Davies

There is a pirate in the basement.
(The pirate is a metaphor but also still a person.)
(The basement could rightly be considered a dungeon.)
The pirate was placed here for numerous acts of a piratey nature considered criminal enough for punishment by those non-pirates who decide such things.
Someone said to throw away the key, but the key rests on a tarnished ring on a book that hands on the wall nearby.
(Close enough to see from behind the bars. Freedom kept in sight but out of reach, left as a reminder to the prisoner. No one remembers that now on the key side of the bars. The careful psychological design forgotten, distilled into habit and convenience.)
(The pirate realizes this but withholds comment.) ~ Erin Morgenstern

That's why I've kept you out of reach. It's like putting something you love away from everything so its beauty won't be tarnished. I want to be with you more, and them less. I want my life to change. ~ Lucy De Barbin

And what is boredom? Perhaps the inability to find meaning, to complete a perception, to arrive at an understanding: partly grasped, but forever just out of reach. It is not lack of interest, but interest frustrated, cut off, imperfectly held. So says the Chronicle today. But for me it is the fear of emptiness. ~ Kate Millett

A secret's only a secret as long as you keep it. Once you tell someone it loses all its power -- for good or ill -- like that, it's just another piece of information. But a real mystery can't be solved, not completely. It's always just out of reach, like a light around the corner; you might catch a glimpse of what it reveals, feel its warmth, but you can't know the heart of it, not really. That's what gives it value: It can't be cracked, it's bigger than you and me, bigger than everything we know. ~ Mark Frost

Seek out some retired and old-world spot, far from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes - some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world - some quaint-perched eyrie on the cliffs of Time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth century would sound far-off and faint. ~ Jerome K. Jerome

The Home Office culture was one of being just above the problem, of hovering just out of reach of knowing what was going on on the ground, whether it was crime or immigration. ~ David Blunkett

Our status as a land of equal opportunity has made us a rich and powerful nation, but it has also transformed lives. It has given people like me the chance to grow up knowing that no dream was too big and no goal out of reach. ~ Marco Rubio

Suffering is the nature of this world. It is the golden standard by which all things are measured. It is not happiness that sets the bar, but agony. Even happiness cannot be fully recognized without the right measure of misery to contrast its borders. Suffering magnifies hunger-exhaustion-prods you to move when prosperity is just a dream out of reach. It is the mortal twin of eternal hope. How you respond to its touch molds you, shapes your future as it rains down oppression like fire over your shoulders.
Deception. It laid over my world like a bruise. Covered it so completely I bought the lie that the shadow offered and found comfort nestled in its thorny arms. I walked the trail it dusted with breadcrumb, walked in the slip noose it had skillfully wove and dove off the cliff without realizing- willingly, with vigor.
Heartbreak. There is no bigger void, no darker shade of soot- no ache more unstoppable than that of a broken heart.
A heart in pieces can very much kill you-without love's healing touch, you will surely die.
They say time heals all wounds.
They lied. ~ Addison Moore

Sometimes it is the destinations out of reach that create the circumstances God uses to remind that we are never out of his reach. ~ Andy Stanley

I haven't been able to stop thinking of you. One way or another you were always out of reach ... I think I'm in love with you ... Actually no, that's not true. I know I am. ~ Jill Mansell

Thinking about her, knowing that she was so close and completely out of reach just killed me. ~ J. Lynn

The nude gains its enduring value from the fact that it reconciles several contrary states. It takes the most sensual and immediately interesting object, the human body, and puts it out of reach of time and desire; it takes the most purely rational concept of which mankind is capable, mathematical order, and makes it a delight to the senses; and it takes the vague fears of the unknown and sweetens them by showing that the gods are like men and may be worshiped for their life-giving beauty rather than their death-dealing powers. ~ Kenneth Clark

It is in the nature of 9 men out of 10 that what may be theirs for the picking up, they are much inclined to despise, and what seems to be out of reach, they instantly and fervently desire. ~ Georgette Heyer

The place had filled him with a sense of wisdom hovering just out of reach, of unspeakable grace prepared and waiting just around the corner, but he'd walked himself weak down its endless blue streets and all the people who knew how to live had kept their tantalizing secret to themselves. ~ Richard Yates

When you think something's out of reach, you back off and say you didn't want it anyway. ~ D.J. MacHale

Perfection may be an island out of reach, but setting your sails toward it makes for a magnificent voyage. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind glances shine out of the past
oh so bright and clear!
oh so longed after!
because they are out of reach; as holiday music from within a prison wall
or sunshine seen through the bars; more prized because unattainable
more bright because of the contrast of present darkness and solitude, whence there is no escape. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

She hadn't thought that much about sex after she and Samuel had settled into their marriage. There had been moments of passion, certainly in those early days - finally they could be together in that way - but she relegated her needs to a shelf just out of reach, as she thought she should, as women did. ~ Rae Meadows

Then he dreamed that he was in the open door of a plane several thousand feet above the earth and he had to jump holding a baby in his arms. It was his baby. He jumped, pulled the rip cord on the parachute, and it didn't open. The emergency release didn't work. He was falling fast. The wind tore at him fiercely. He was gripping the baby as tightly as he could but the wind pried under his arms, strained at his muscles, and suddenly the baby was loose, falling beside him, just out of reach. He flailed and groped in the air, trying to reach it. The baby was falling just a little bit faster than he was. It was below him, falling away from him as he fell after it. The earth screamed up at him. He knew that the baby was going to hit first and he would see it, would know it for a whole fraction of a second before he was smashed into a pulp himself. The terrible millisecond of that grief burst in him and he woke shrieking. He couldn't get the dream out of his head. He prayed that he would have the dream again but that this time he would fall faster and be allowed to die first. ~ Katherine Dunn

I like to think of myself as the people's pop star a little bit. I respect Lady Gaga so much, and I love what she does, but she has this kind of mysterious, out-of-reach thing. I'm just not that - as much as I'd love to have that sort of mystique, I think I'm kind of an open book. ~ Bonnie McKee

The best stories are the ones that are still to come... Close enough to hear, smell, and admire. Yet out of reach. ~ Shubhangi Swarup

His voice in my mind is soft, just out of reach like a spent echo. I wonder if these memories are worth holding on to. Are worth the burden. I wonder what purpose they serve. ~ Carrie Ryan

I thought you were the docile one," he murmured.
"Yes, my lord," she said meekly. "Compared to my sister, my lord."
"And you're the smart one as well? Even though you were going to put horse dung on an infect wound?"
"Yes, my lord." She straightened her shoulders. "And the plain one."
His eyes were like a sly weapon, all soft, lingering caresses while he stood just out of reach. "I think you're a fraud, Lady Alys. You've yet to convince me of any of those three things. ~ Anne Stuart

Guess the question is, how paranoid do you want to be? How many guns does it take to make you feel safe? And how do you simultaneously keep them loaded and close at hand, but still out of reach of your inquisitive children or grandchildren? Are you sure you wouldn't do better with a really good burglar alarm? It's true you have to remember to set the darn thing before you go to bed, but think of this - if you happened to mistake your wife or live-in partner for a crazed drug addict, you couldn't shoot her with a burglar alarm. ~ Stephen King

Nothing is out of reach for Jesus. ~ Stasi Eldredge

If only feelings and ideas and stories and history really could be contained in a block of marble - if only there could be a gathering up of permanence - how reassuring it would be, how comforting to think that something you loved could be held in place, moored and everlasting, rather than bobbing along on the slippery sea of reminiscence, where it could always drift out of reach. ~ Susan Orlean

At night in this waterless air the stars come down just out of reach of your fingers. ~ John Steinbeck

Like God, art seemed to hover over us, perhaps benevolent, and often sublime, but constantly, maddeningly out of reach. ~ Matthew Gallaway

She stepped out of reach. "Go put on a shirt and get your mind out of bed."
"Impossible with you around."
"Pretend I'm holding a rifle. In fact, pretend I have you in the crosshairs."
Janvier sighed, rubbing at a jaw shadowed by morning stubble. "I love it when you talk dirty. ~ Nalini Singh

Most people hold their fantasies out of reach, as if their desires are a mountain they could never summit. They settle for living at the base of the mountain instead. There aren't as many obstacles, or avalanches, or unexpected delays. But they'll never be able to see the view from the top. ~ Katie Kacvinsky

Black-and-white thinking is the addict's mentality, which can be a bar to recovery when one is still active. But an addict who finds the willingness can then rely on the same trait to stay clean: "Just don't drink," they say in AA.
How's that going to work for an addicted eater? Food addicts have to take the tiger out of the cage three times a day. I've read that some drinkers have tried "controlled drinking," and it hasn't been very successful. Eaters don't just have to try it; they must practice it to survive.
Having a food plan is an attempt to address that, and having clear boundaries is a key to its working. But the comfort of all or nothing is just out of reach.
...
I'm saying that food addicts, unlike alcoholics and may others, have both to try for perfection and to accept that perfection is unattainable, and that the only tool left is a wholesome discipline.
The problem is, if we had any clue about wholesome discipline, we wouldn't be addicts. ~ Michael Prager

Writing is an act of faith. One must believe and see people who are invisible to others and be faithful to tell half formed stories. It's like being on the trail of an apparition who's repeatedly just out of reach.
K. Youngblood ~ Katherine Imogene Youngblood

Like all religious thinkers, he carries with his scholar's equipment a pair of metaphysical wings, wherewith at any moment he may soar into the empyrean, out of reach of vulgar materialists, like you and me. ~ Upton Sinclair

You are embarrassed." She leaned over to kiss him, and while he was distracted, snatched
the disc. "That's cute. Really cute."
"Shut up. Give me that."
"I don't think so." Delighted, she danced back a step and held the disc out of reach. "I bet
this is very hot. Aren't you curious?"
"No." He made a grab, but she was very quick. "Eve, give me the damn thing."
"This is fascinating." She edged back toward the open patio doors. "The sophisticated,seen-it-all Roarke is blushing. ~ J.D. Robb

Our memories, too, blend the immediate past with the anticipation of the soon to be, and a living amalgam of these - not some infinitesimal pointlike instant forever fleeing out of reach - is our now. ~ James Gleick

Maybe God is the ultimate bully who teases us with life, then pulls it out of reach. Maybe there's nothing I can do but let life curl up and disappear like an old photograph.
Or maybe I can get it back. Maybe imagination gets it back. Perhaps play lets it breath again. ~ Alan Alda

You used to believe like that too. You used to turn sticks into swords or dirty flip-flops into glass slippers. You climbed trees and made forts and thought being a doctor wasn't out of reach. Nothing was out of reach. Then, somewhere along the way, you lost it. ~ Jon Acuff

You are not yet out of reach of the gunshot of the Devil. You have not yet resisted unto death in your striving against sin. Let the Kingdom be always before you, and believe with certainty and consistency the things that are yet unseen. Let nothing that is on this side of eternal life get inside you. Above all, take care of your own hearts, and resist the lusts that tempt you, for your hearts `are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.'d Set your faces like a flint; you have all the power of Heaven and earth on your side."
Christian ~ John Bunyan

If a child connects being hurt with being bad, weak, unable to cope, or constantly surrounded by threat, there is no room left for inner spiritual growth. For without a sense of safety, spirit remains out of reach; one is forever trying simply to feel secure in this world, yet that security cannot be achieved without overcoming the imprints of early childhood. ~ Deepak Chopra

Watson is a cheap, efficient little sod of a literary device. Holmes doesn't need him to solve crimes any more than he needs a ten-stone ankle weight. The audience, Arthur. The audience needs Watson as an intermediary, so that Holmes's thoughts might be forever kept just out of reach. If you told stories from Holmes's perspective, everyone would know what the bleeding genius was thinking the whole time. They'd have the culprit fingered on page one. ~ Graham Moore

Few knew that she was broken. Whatever power had blessed her, divine or otherwise, was gone-or at least out of reach. Her followers were kept at a distance so they could not see that her eyes were dark hollows, that her breath came in frightened gasps. She walked slowly, tentatively, her driftwood bones fragile in her body, this sickly girl upon whom all their hopes rested. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I can be your savior, I can cloak you in gold, or I can be your worst nightmare. I can destroy your life, your career, everything can come crashing down around you. Chicago will become a place worse than hell because I get whatever I want when I want it. Those who get in my way never get back up after I knock them down. Nothing and no one is out of reach for me. So doctor, when I ask you what else, speak, and when you speak, don't waste my time preaching ethics and morality to me ... I have and want none. ~ J.J. McAvoy

Every writer dreams of having a backyard cottage, similar to Dahl's 'writing hut.' English cottages and charming huts might seem out of reach, but a good carpenter could build a modest cottage on the cheap. ~ Kate Klise

All efforts of reason and analysis are, in a word, like trying to slice through a watermelon with sewing needles. They may leave marks on the outer rind, but the fruity pulp will remain perpetually out of reach. ~ Haruki Murakami

When the world you know is out of reach, nothing is more welcome than a measurable reminder that it still exists. ~ Becky Chambers

World-class performance comes by striving for a target just out of reach, but with a vivid awareness of how the gap might be breached. Over time, through constant repetition and deep concentration, the gap will disappear, only for a new target to be created, just out of reach once again. ~ Matthew Syed

Choose forgiveness not revenge , choose unity in diversity , choose equality and seeing everyone's value , choose to love even if undeserved , choose life even when you feel like it's out of reach ,choose to have hope when the circumstances might scream despair, choose according to His word and not what people would prefer. ‪#chooseHisway‬ ~ Timothy Padayachee

Apparently we believe
in the words
and through them
but we long beyond them
for what is unseen
what remains out of reach
what is kept covered ~ W.S. Merwin

Grey was here."
He hadn't known, that was obvious from the way his eyes widened. "You lie."
Rose chuckled. "I saw him. I spoke to him. He said he came to see me. And then he ran out of here as though the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels."
Archer shook his head, an expression of disbelief on his face. "They tend to do that when Hades freezes over." Then he offered her a grin. "He braved being seen in public just to come here and see you?"
"He was watching from a balcony. I wouldn't have known he was here if the fortune teller hadn't told me."
His brows shot up. "And there's a story for another time. Look, Lady Rose, I know he's frustrating as all get-out, but you cannot expect Grey to change years of behavior in a week. You have to be patient-like waves lapping at a stone."
That was so very easily said. He wasn't the one being pressured to find a husband. He wasn't the one who felt as though everything she wanted was just out of reach. "You know, I suddenly find myself very interested in Lady Monteforte's literary tastes. Shall I make the introductions?"
"I will hang your puppy if you do not."
Rose grinned. He truly was the most charming of rascals. "How very fortunate for me then, that I do not own a puppy."
"For shame. Every young lady should have a puppy."
Rose made the introductions, and Archer wasted no time in asking Lady Monteforte if she cared to dance. For a moment it seemed the lady might decline, but then Ros ~ Kathryn Smith

I dreamed of death the way previously I'd dreamed of the pain leaving me, and the way before that I'd dreamed of gardens and children and weekends away. Death was my elusive lover, treasured and longed for and jealously guarded, and always distant. Always out of reach. ~ Elizabeth Haynes

If part of that heart was always out of reach, that seemed entirely fair to Ian. You did not get a whole heart when you pinned yours to a splendid, battered, high-flying hawk like a nightwhich. Nina's soul would always, in some deep place, yearn to be flying under a bomber's moon with her dark-eyed Moscow rose. 99% ~ Kate Quinn

There's a time I can recall
Four years old and three feet tall
Trying to touch the stars and the cookie jar
And both were out of reach ~ Hilary Weeks

The trance of unworthiness keeps the sweetness of belonging out of reach. The path to "the sweetness of belonging," is acceptance - acceptance of ourselves and acceptance of others without judgment. ~ Tara Brach

Was there another life she was meant to be living? At times she felt a keen certainty that there was ― a phantom life, taunting her from just out of reach. A sense would come over her while she was drawing or walking, and once while she was dancing slow and close with Kaz, that she was supposed to be doing something else with her hands, with her legs, with her body. Something else. Something else. Something else. ~ Laini Taylor

Or we can blaze! Become legends in our own time, strike fear in the heart of mediocre talent everywhere! We can scald dogs, put records out of reach! Make the stands gasp as we blow into an unearthly kick from three hundred yards out! We can become God's own messengers delivering the dreaded scrolls! We can race dark Satan himself till he wheezes fiery cinders down the back straightaway ... They'll speak our names in hushed tones, 'those guys are animals' they'll say! We can lay it on the line, bust a gut, show them a clean pair of heels. We can sprint the turn on a spring breeze and feel the winter leave our feet! We can, by God, let our demons loose and just wail on! ~ John L. Parker Jr.

Grace is my favourite church word. A state of being. Something you can pray for. Something God can grant. Something you can obtain. Perfection is out of reach. But grace
grace you can reach for. ~ Elizabeth Scott

Could she possibly have
someone who really could love
And add to her fins the wings
of a dove

So not only the waves could
she enjoy through the day
But soar 'bove the clouds,
perhaps see a new way

To enjoy a full life she didn't
think she'd deserve
Too far out of reach so far as
she could observe

The final decision she and she
alone must make
One heart is committed,
but both are at stake ~ Ken Maxon

The wind picks up. It sends leaves scurrying for cover until a softer breeze blows through, settling them down again as if to say, Shhh, there, there, it's all right. One leaf still dances in the air. It spins higher and higher, defying gravity and logic, stretching for something just out of reach. It shall have to fall, of course. Eventually. But for now, I hold my breath, willing it to keep going, taking comfort in its struggle. ~ Libba Bray

In the West, for example, people believe they must 'pursue happiness' as if it were some kind of a flighty bird that is always out of reach. In the East, we believe we are born with happiness and one of life's important takes, my mother told me, is to protect it. ~ Le Ly Hayslip

I think she would have preferred being spared from understanding all the physical signals one hopes the world will notice and reward with caresses. It's the body and its longing that bends the mind and teaches the eye to calculate the distance to one's desires so often out of reach. ~ Erik Valeur

Love to love, connection to connection, you carve your complicated path through life; leave one love behind, and the next one always seems out of reach. What can buoy you up in the meantime. What can underlie love, but love. ~ Michael Davidow

In tennis, it is not the opponent you fear, it is the failure itself, knowing how near you were but just out of reach. ~ Andy Murray

There is something perverse about more then enough. When we have more, it is never enough. It is always somewhere out there, just out of reach. The more we acquire, the more elusive enough becomes. ~ Aleatha Romig

If I could understand everything the way I do now, I could make it all
and then it just stopped. Leaving me with that feeling like when you figure out something brilliant and profound in a dream, but you wake up, and all you remember is that you knew this amazing thing, and now it's just out of reach. ~ Jeff Parker

It's okay if some things
are always out of reach.
If you could carry all the stars
in the palm of your hand,
they wouldn't be
half as breathtaking ~ Caroline Kaufman

It sets something off in Maven. He jumps out of reach, keeping his distance from all of us. The twitching returns in force, but his eyes blaze, all fire. No fear.
"You think I can't lie through pain," he snarls, his voice thundering through the room. "You think I haven't done it a thousand times?"
...
For a brief, empty moment I see nothing but darkness, and I try not to think of Maven. His words. What his life was and continues to be. ~ Victoria Aveyard

Whenever I've made a choice in my life, a real choice... I can always feel the change, after I choose. The better versions of myself, moving just out of reach. ~ Kawai Strong Washburn

Those moments aren't ours any more. They're shut up in a box, buried at the back of a cupboard, out of reach. They're frozen like on a postcard or a calendar. The colours will end up disappearing, fading. They're forbidden to our memories and our words. ~ Delphine De Vigan

Even if the previous millisecond is closer to us than the birth of the universe, it is equally out of reach. ~ Jean-Christophe Valtat

He at no time thought himself out of the Black Douglas's reach, any more than the good Christian supposes himself out of reach of the wiles of the devil; while every new temptation, instead of confirming his hope, seems to announce that the immediate retreat of the Evil One will be followed by some new attack yet more cunningly devised. ~ Walter Scott

The Orient and Islam have a kind of extrareal, phenomenologically reduced status that puts them out of reach of everyone except the Western expert. From the beginning of Western speculation about the Orient, the one thing th orient could not do was to represent itself. Evidence of the Orient was credible only after it had passed through and been made firm by the refining fire of the Orientalist's work. ~ Edward W. Said

A thinker builds his castle of thoughts inside a garden of roses and it loses its relevance among the roses. He builds it along the shore and it's trampled by the fury of waves eventually. He builds it on a cliff high enough and it becomes impregnable but out of reach. Such is the fate of that castle ~ Ashutosh Gupta

The truth is that the dream of homeownership is out of reach for too many Americans. ~ Julian Castro