Human Closeness Quotes

The only thing I have never known is true intimacy with a man. I absolutely wanted to discover that before dying.

That renunciation of human closeness, of our deepest instincts: is it, in the end, simply too much to ask? Good men-sound, healthy men-can't make the sacrifice, or don't want to; has Holy Mother settled for the unsound and unhealthy? Has the Church, ever pragmatic, made do with what is left?

Some of his own closeness to nature, his great love for human beings, was passed on by Whitman to all of us who knew and loved him.

Jesus Christ does not teach us a spirituality “of closed eyes”, but one of “alertness”, one which entails an absolute duty to take notice of the needs of others and of situations involving those whom the Gospel tells us are our neighbours. The gaze of Jesus, what “his eyes” teach us, leads to human closeness, solidarity, giving time, sharing our gifts and even our material goods.

You can break through old limits, past inertia and fear, to... richness of choice, freedom, human closeness.

To this day, I'm not as interested in music as people think. I'm more interested in how close we can get through the music.

If mothers are our first teachers, then having a narcissistic one teaches us that human closeness is terrifying, and the world is a heartless, inconsistent place.

I had never been with a woman for longer than a night, and they had always been whores. And while throughout each of these speedy encounters I tried to maintain a friendliness with the women, I knew in my heart it was false, and afterward always felt remote and caved in. I had in the last year or so given up whores entirely, thinking it best to go without rather than pantomime human closeness.