Popular quotes about Intimacy! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 2
One cannot really know an other without intimacy. Detached, objective observations alone leave a surface upon which it is too easy to project one's own image or fantasies. In intimacy, one respectfully interacts with the other, invites the penetration of the other, enters into a common effort, and then the strange and distinct contours of self and other become more apparent.
Deena MetzgerPeople have become afraid of love because in love also, death penetrates. If two lovers are sitting side by side in deep love and intimacy, not even talking.... Talking is an escape, an escape from love. When two lovers are talking that simply shows they are avoiding the intimacy. Words in-between give distance - with no words distance disappears, death appears. In silence there is death just lurking around - a beautiful phenomenon. But people are so afraid that they go on talking whether it is needed or not. They go on talking about anything, everything - but they cannot keep silent.
RajneeshThe married are those who have taken the terrible risk of intimacy and, having taken it, know life without intimacy to be impossible.
Carolyn HeilbrunJesus didn't live alone. He had Peter, John, and James around him. There were the Twelve and the other disciples. They formed circles of intimacy around Jesus. We too need these circles of intimacy, but it's a discipline.
Henri NouwenTo mature is in part to realize that while complete intimacy and omniscience and power cannot be had, self-transcendence, growth, and closeness to others are nevertheless within one's reach.
Sissela BokI believe it was Shakespeare, or possibly Howard Cosell, who first observed that marriage is very much like a birthday candle, in that 'the flames of passion burn brightest when the wick of intimacy is first ignited by the disposable butane lighter of physical attraction, but sooner or later the heat of familiarity causes the wax of boredom to drip all over the vanilla frosting of novelty and the shredded coconut of romance.' I could not have phrased it better myself.
Dave BarryThe dangerous time when mechanical voices, radios, telephones, take the place of human intimacies, and the concept of being in touch with millions brings a greater and greater poverty in intimacy and human vision.
Anais NinAn American in London...cannot but be impressed and charmed by the city. The momumentality of Washington, the thriving business of New York, the antique intimacy of Boston, plus a certain spacious and open feeling reminiscent of Denver and San Francisco-all these he finds combined for his pleasure.
John UpdikeOne passes through the world knowing few, if any, of the important things about even the people with whom one has been from time to time in the closest intimacy.
Anthony PowellYou're looking for ways always as the writer to bring readers into intimacy, you with them with you. Photos can sometimes do the opposite, create distance and perspective, but these somehow didn't. They somehow bring the reader closer.
Nicole KraussMany years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want.
Edgar Allan PoeThis intimacy is not necessary; no one is compelling me to open my inmost self and lay it naked, undefended, against that of another โ merely for the joy of the communion.
Sebastian FaulksNo other human relationship can approach the potential for intimacy and oneness than can be found within the context of a marriage commitment. And yet no other relationship can bring with it as many adjustments, difficulties and even hurts. There's no way you can avoid these difficulties; each couple's journey is unique. But there is much you can do to prepare for that journey. An engagement is not just a time of preparation for a wedding, but also preparation for a marriage.
Dennis RaineyThose who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
Bertrand RussellThe only free mind is one that, pure of all intimacy with beings or objects, plies its own vacuity.
Emile M. CioranI would love to be able to play anywhere, but to me the sweet spot is clubs and theaters, just because I feel like you lean in to tell a joke. You don't back up. Comedy lives in that area. I've played amphitheaters, big clubs, and pool halls, and the most fun rooms hold anywhere from 500 to 2,000 people. That intimacy is where comedy really lives.
Michael CheSolitude is very different from a 'time-out' from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other.
Henri NouwenI'm willing to show good taste, if I can, in somebody else's living room, but our reading life is too short for a writer to be in any way polite. Since his words enter into another's brain in silence and intimacy, he should be as honest and explicit as we are with ourselves.
John UpdikeThe intimacy that arises in listening and speaking truth is only possible if we can open to the vulnerability of our own hearts. Breathing in, contacting the life that is right here, is our first step. Once we have held ourselves with kindness, we can touch others in a vital and healing way.
Tara BrachI look for stories that tell transformative, emotional journeys, have big emotional worlds, feel very relevant and true to the times we're living in - even though they might be of a different time - have a sense of real intimacy with larger forces at work, where there's some kind of social injustice and inequity happening that needs to be conquered or addressed. I find historically that's the formula for a lot of successful operas.
Jake HeggieTwo things I do value a lot, intimacy and the capacity for joy, didn't seem to be on anyone else s list. I felt like the stranger in a strange land, and decided I'd better not marry the natives.
Richard BachI hate solitude but I am afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself and to turn it into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls.
Iris MurdochI thought I had learned how to have an intimate relationship. And I thought I'd learned how to be happy. Everybody has issues. For me, the challenge is intimacy, but I really didn't start to get that until I turned 60.
Jane FondaUntil you have bred dogs and have drawn and painted them, it is difficult to realize that no two are identical in conformation. You need do no more than gun for a day over two of them to recognize that each is an individual. It requires the intimacy of daily living with a dog to know the subtle quality of his mind, the ham-smell of his ears, and that his wet nose in your mouth tastes salty.
George Bird EvansIt is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;โit is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.
Jane AustenDon't give way to heedlessness or to intimacy with sensual delight - for a heedful person, absorbed in jhana, attains an abundance of ease.
Gautama BuddhaFriends need not agree in everything or go always together, or have no comparable other friendships of the same intimacy.
George SantayanaWhen you are doing portraits, you have that intimacy with someone for a few minutes. For a really good portrait, you don't take the portrait - it's given.
Giles DuleyThe forgiveness of God is gratuitous liberation from guilt. Paradoxically, the conviction of personal sinfulness becomes the occasion of encounter with the merciful love of the redeeming God. "There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner repenting..." (Luke 15:7). In his brokenness, the repentant prodigal knew an intimacy with his father that his sinless, self-righteous brother would never know.
Brennan ManningAnd when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment.
PlatoIt is precisely in relationships of intimacy that your craziness (and mine) will be hardest to conceal.
Stephanie DowrickProse is not to be read aloud but to oneself alone at night, and it is not quick as poetry but rather a gathering web of insinuations ... Prose should be a long intimacy between strangers with no direct appeal to what both may have known. It should slowly appeal to feelings unexpressed, it should in the end draw tears out of the stone.
Henry GreenWith our technologies--ones of incalcuable power: earth-restoring, planet preserving--we can rediscover an intimacy, a mutuality with the natural world, that is not primitive (though based in part on fear), but knowing. It might even be possible to relearn a life of awe. And inhabit the landscape without violation. With the least violation.
Janet KauffmanEvery intimacy carries secreted somewhere below its initial lovely surfaces, the ever-coiled makings of complete catastrophe.
Elizabeth GilbertI am not keen on the idea of an oversharer. I don't like that as a problem. I have more of a problem with an undershare. If I'm talking to somebody and I ask them how their love life is and they say "fine," that's a problem for me. I want to know things about people, I feel like we're all here on this planet, and intimacy is important.
Simon AmstellShe rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself. With him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was her right size.. It seemed so natural, to talk to him about odd things. She had never done that before. The trust, so sudden and yet so complete, and the intimacy, frightened her.. But now she could think only of all the things she yet wanted to tell him, wanted to do with him.
Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieIf you want to love, take the time to listen to your heart. In most ancient and wise cultures it is a regular practice for people to talk to their heart. There are rituals, stories, and meditative skills in every spiritual tradition that awaken the voice of the heart. To live wisely, this practice is essential, because our heart is the source of our connection to and intimacy with all of life. And life is love. This mysterious quality of love is all around us, as real as gravity... Yet how often we forget about love.
Jack KornfieldAs you all become more intimate with Me, with opportunities to come closer to Me, all that is good and bad within you comes out in sparks, as it were . . . all the impressions of the past, the accumulations of past sanskaras - of all illusory things, which includes both good and bad - come out. My proximity, the intimacy with Me, just changes that mass of sanskaras, and sometimes you find sparks of good and bad flying out.
Meher BabaOur growing addiction to the Internet is impairing precious human capacities such as memory, concentration, pattern recognition, meaning-making, and intimacy. We are becoming more restless, more impatient, more demanding, and more insatiable, even as we become more connected and creative. We are rapidly losing the ability to think long about any- thing, even those issues we care about. We flit, moving restlessly from one link to another.
Margaret J. Wheatley