quotations about intimacy
How intimate is a plant with the soil;
Its roots, like many tiny fingers, spreading through the earth
Absorb moisture and food for its growth--
This intimacy is its life.
How afraid we mortals are of such a closeness--
Perhaps we will be swallowed up and lose ourselves,
Perhaps we will die.
We try to keep our separation at all costs,
Afraid and afraid.
O to be like a plant, unafraid,
Flourishing on closeness, being fruitful
And blossoming on intimacy.
MARJORIE PIZER
"Intimacy", Poems
It wasn't a thing I had consciously missed, but having it now reminded me of the joy of it; that drowsy intimacy in which a man's body is accessible to you as your own, the strange shapes and textures of it like a sudden extension of your own limbs.
DIANA GABALDON
Voyager
The deepest moments of intimacy occur when you're not talking.
PATRICIA LOVE
O Magazine, Feb. 2007
Be intimate only with such as you are willing to make your guide and master.
CHANG YEW
attributed, Day's Collacon
They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
This Side of Paradise
Intimacy is a totally different dimension. It is allowing the other to come into you, to see you as you see yourself.
OSHO
Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other
Familiarity and intimacy have the same effect on the light in which some characters appear to us when viewed at a distance, which sunshine has on those towers and buildings which we beheld and venerated, when seen by the pale moonlight. Sunshine divests them of the awfulness and grandeur which moonlight had bestowed, and the supposed greatness and beauty of a character often disappear on a nearer approach to, and on a further knowledge of it.
G. R. GLEIG
attributed, Day's Collacon
Jason once told me that eye contact is the most intimacy two people can have -- forget sex -- because the optic nerve is technically an extension of the brain, and when two people look into each other's eyes, it's brain-to-brain.
DOUGLAS COUPLAND
Hey Nostradamus!
Intimacy is experienced through shared knowledge. This knowledge, which is gained through intimate interaction, is stored in cognitive schemas. The extent to which these schemas are accurate and reflect shared meaning defines the quality of intimate relationships.
VALERIE MANUSOV
The SAGE Handbook of Nonverbal Communication
Among men, sex sometimes results in intimacy; among women, intimacy sometimes results in sex.
DONALD SYMONS
attributed, Love Signals: A Practical Field Guide to the Body Language of Courtship
I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been.
RAYMOND CARVER
Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories
Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people--there are many of them--who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our interests and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling around them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a definite name for such behaviour--flirting--and if carried far enough, it is punishable by law.
E. M. FORSTER
Howards End
Real intimacy is a sacred experience. It never exposes its secret trust and belonging to the voyeuristic eye of a neon culture. Real intimacy is of the soul, and the soul is reserved.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
Intimacy is not trapped within words. It passes through words. It passes. The truth is that intimates leave the room. Doors close. Faces move away from the window. Time passes. Voices recede into the dark. Death finally quiets the voice. And there is no way to deny it. No way to stand in the crowd, uttering one's family language.
RICHARD RODRIGUEZ
Hunger of Memory
There's nothing more intimate in life than simply being understood. And understanding someone else.
BRAD MELTZER
The Inner Circle
Be courteous to all but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence; true friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to appellation.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter, January 15, 1783
Intimacy is a four syllable word for "Here are my heart and soul, please grind them into hamburger, and enjoy."
MEREDITH GREY
"No Man's Land", Grey's Anatomy
Intimacy is often considered synonymous with family satisfaction--if a family is happy, it is intimate; if a family is intimate, it is happy.
MEGAN K. FOLEY & STEVE DUCK
"That Dear Octopus: A Family-Based Model of Intimacy", The Family Communication Sourcebook
Terrifying, that the loss of intimacy with one person results in the freezing over of the world, and the loss of oneself!
JAMES BALDWIN
Another Country
The married are those who have taken the terrible risk of intimacy and, having taken it, know life without intimacy to be impossible.
CAROLYN HEILBRUN
Ms. Magazine, Aug. 1974