Quotes About Intimacy

Often the difference between a successful marriage and a mediocre one consists of leaving about three or four things a day unsaid.

In our opposed forms of loneliness and self-recognition and recognition of the other, we touched each other often as we spoke; and on shore in explorations of the past, we strolled with our arms linked...

Reading is an intimate act, perhaps more intimate than any other human act. I say that because of the prolonged (or intense) exposure of one mind to another.

They would walk in silence to Adams House, and Elgin would sign Caroline in at the policeman's room. In silence they would mount the stairs, and Elgin would unlock the door of his room, and then they would fall into each other's arms, sometimes giggling with relief, sometimes sombre, sometimes almost crying with the joy of this privacy and this embrace. Then

Ignoring emotional feelings never contributes to the stability of a marriage or any other relationship.

I don't think we don't love each other.

RUTH: If you take the glass…I'll take you.

But in the room there was nothing but the exciting scent of the girl and her wanting. We

Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserved; it is life's undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room, from which we go forth to more careful and guarded intercourse, leaving behind us much debris of cast-off and everyday clothing.

Could I ever have loved you, had I not known you better than you know yourself?

It was completely still, not a sound within or outside. As if it was just the two of them, nothing more in the world, in this room alone.

She didn't realise it, for a long time, and it wasn't until they were having dinner one evening that he said something that she found funny and she looked at him and thought, Yes. I know you. I know you

She knew him so well, the amused, detached tone of his voice, the scroll of his ear, his eyes, his bony frame. Someone whom she always wanted in the room, someone who saw the world the same way, and it had always been like that.

Their marriage was based on silence these days. More and more. What they didn't say was everything, and what they did, inconsequential.

Intimate relationships cannot substitute for a life plan. But to have any meaning or viability at all, a life plan must include intimate relationships.

Why must they share their uncensored reactions?" She was referring to the corrosive criticism that wears couples down as they selectively attend to what bothers them in a partner rather than speaking to what they appreciate and admire. And she was referring to the raw, unbridled emotional exchanges that, when unchecked, erode intimacy and connection in family relationships.

We commonly confuse closeness with sameness and view intimacy as the merging of two separate "I's" into one worldview.

Likewise, the other person has a right to know us accurately, to consider the relationship and make plans for the future based on facts, not fantasies or projections.

I feel calmed and relieved when my husband knocks at my study door in the middle of a fight, puts his arms around me, and says, "I love you. This is stupid. Let's just drop it." Like two kids in the sandbox, we're suddenly light and playful again.

The challenge in all intimate relationships is to preserve both the "I" and the "we" without losing either when the going gets tough. If we're faced with a choice, we need to choose speech over silence, keep our behavior in line with our stated values and beliefs—and save ourselves first.

privacy shifts into secrecy when an act of deliberate concealment or hiding has a significant impact on a relationship process

working on key emotional issues at their source, lays the groundwork for more solid intimate relationships in the present or future.

The more we carve out a clear and separate "I," the more we can experience and enjoy both intimacy and aloneness.

Intimacy can happen only after we work toward a more solid self, based on a clear understanding of our part in the relationship patterns that keep us stuck.