Arm's Length Quotes

“One particular aspect of Siddhartha's revelation of the outside world has always struck me. Quite possibly he lived his first thirty years without any knowledge of number. How must he have felt, then, to see crowds of people mingling in the streets? Before that day he would not have believed that so many people existed in all the world. And what wonder it must have been to discover flocks of birds, and piles of stones, leaves on trees and blades of grass! To suddenly realise that, his whole life long, he had been kept at arm's length from multiplicity.”

— Daniel Tammet

“The shots left a hard ringing sound within the closeness of the brick walls. Terry held the pistol at arm's length on a level with his eyes
the Russian Tokarev resembling an old-model Colt .45, big and heavy
and made the sign of the cross with it over the dead. He said, "Rest in peace, motherfuckers," turned, and walked out of the beer lady's house to wait at the side of the road.”

— Elmore Leonard

“For so long, she'd taken her memories of Patty - the memories they'd created together - and held them outside of herself, protecting herself from the pain of carrying them deep within. It was as if she carried all the memories in her jars. But if doing so, it was as if she'd also kept everyone else - those still in her life - at arm's length too.”

— Tricia Goyer

“That's why I stay to myself, and why I can never have a normal relationship with anyone. I have to keep my friends at arm's length at all costs because if I get too close to anyone-no matter how close I want to be-their lives and mine are at risk."
His fingers skimmed over the length of my arm down to my wrist. "What happens when you find that one person worth breaking the rules for?"
"I have to walk away."
Max stepped closer, and his body was pressing against mine. When I tried to move back, I hit the pylon, thereby preventing any escape. His lips were inches from mine. "What if someone thinks you're worth the risk?"
"I'd say that person is very foolish. I'm not worth dying for."
"You are worth it and I'm as foolish as they come.”

— Loni Flowers

“There was so much unpleasantness in the workaday world. The last thing you ever wanted to do at night was go home and do the dishes. And just the idea that part of the weekend had to be dedicated to getting the oil changed and doing the laundry was enough to make those of us still full from lunch want to lie down in the hallway and force anyone dumb enough to remain committed to walk around us. It might not be so bad. They could drop food down to us, or if that was not possible, crumbs from their PowerBars and bags of microwave popcorn surely would end up within an arm's length sooner or later. The cleaning crews, needing to vacuum, would inevitably turn us on our sides, preventing bedsores, and we would make little toys out of runs in the carpet, which, in moments of extreme regression, we might suck on for comfort.”

— Joshua Ferris

“Only for a minute. I'll be right back." He plopped the baby in her lap and hopped to his feet. Wren held her at arm's length and frowned. She did not appreciate that, because she immediately began wailing.
"Here," Wren said, thrusting her in my direction. "Take the mutant baby.”

— Amy Tintera

“And just like that she was crying.
I felt a little like That Guy who holds a baby at arm's length because he's afraid it's going to pee on him.”

— Tessa Gratton

“Amber, you could never embarrass me."
"Never?" she asked.
"Never."
"One time, I yelled across the store to Mom and asked her if she wanted the regular or the super-absorbent tampons. I added that, according to the box, the super-absorbent were for those heavy days. Then I asked her to rate her heaviness on a scale of one to ten."
"Okay, you could."
"Then while we were standing in line, I asked her why she was buying three boxes of Summer's Eve in the middle of winter."
I set her at arm's length. "Wow."
"I know, right? I had no idea a person could turn so red.”

— Darynda Jones

“Keep things at arm's length ... If you let anything come too near you want to hold on to it. And there is nothing a man can hold on to.”

— Erich Maria Remarque

“I very specifically told you to stay away from Ned Blydon."
"I chose not to follow your advice. Ned is a very nice person. Handsome, personable-a perfect escort."
"That is precisely why I wanted you to keep him at arm's length.”

— Julia Quinn

“But sometimes, like tonight, she feels plugged in to the raw emotion of it all, a closed circuit, and if she doesn't keep it at arm's length, it still has the power to break her.”

— Blake Crouch

“But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable,walking through this life half-sleeping,everything at arm's length or farther away.
I understood those mermaids.I didn't care if they sang to me.All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again,pulling me upward into light,to drown.”

— Sarah Dessen

“I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I'd slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, truths and half-truths, that kept her always at arm's length, behind a closed door, miles away.”

— Sarah Dessen

“And guys don't get attached, guys don't give themselves over completely, and guys lie. That's why they should be handled with great trepidation, not trusted, and held at arm's length whenever possible.”

— Sarah Dessen

“I picked up my camera and held it at arm's length and took a picture of myself not caring. I called it: Glory Doesn't Care.”

— A.S. King

“To have done no man a wrong ... to walk and live, unseduced, within arm's length of what is not your own, with nothing between your desire and its gratification but the invisible law of rectitude-this is to be a man”

— Orison Swett Marden

“We started at once to dig our trenches, half of my platoon stepping forward abreast, the men being placed an arm's length apart. After laying their rifles down, barrels pointing to the enemy, a line was drawn behind the row of rifles and parallel to it.”

— Fritz Kreisler

“She edged away from him, trying to put a greater distance between herself and Creepy McCreeperson. She bent down, careful not to let her eyes leave him, and plucked up a hairbrush from where it had fallen on her floor. She held it at arm's length in front of herself, a stupid weapon feeling better than no weapon at all. At the very least, she could give him style.”

— Kelly Creagh

“I definitely tell things at arm's length but that is conscious. No part of me wants everybody to know what's going on.”

— Laura Marling

“Proud folk separate themselves from others, judging them ... To criticize others we must hold them from us, at arm's length so to speak. And then before you know where you are you've pushed them away and you're the poorer.”

— Elizabeth Goudge

“Then don't give me a deadline. Let me do it in my own way."
"As you have been until now, keeping every man at arm's length, scaring them away with your target shooting?" Gran shook her head. "You cannot fall in love if you do not let a man close. And you will not let a man close unless you have a reason. I know you. If I rescind that ultimatum, you will bury yourself on this estate and never come out.”

— Sabrina Jeffries

“Keep people at arm's length and your feelings to yourself.”

— Morgan Matson

“Readers, like writers, are essentially amoral. Arm's length will never do. We want to get closer.”

— Stacey D'Erasmo

“He had fled the claustrophobic confines of his family. He'd successfully kept Jan Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm's length, flitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him. And now he'd slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz's life as well.”

— Jon Krakauer

“She still smiles from time to time, definitely a charming smile, but it's always limited somehow, a smile that never goes beyond the moment. A high, invisible wall surrounds her, holding people at arm's length.”

— Haruki Murakami

“History may be a nightmare-an endless cycle of violence and oppression. Old victims of domination soon became new perpetrators of domination. We have seen this cycle over and over again: American revolutionaries dominating Indigenous peoples and defending slavery, anti-colonial heroes becoming dictators, anti-racists supporting patriarchy and homophobia, liberals crusading for imperial invasion and occupation. Such a nightmare radically calls into question the power of radical love in human history. For King, if we accept such a nightmare, then only self-destruction awaits us. To dream is to hold death at arm's length. To love is to really be alive in history. Without radical love, nihilism triumphs-"power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight."1”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

“In China, I realized that if you visit often enough and learn the language, you will be assimilated, but you'll still be kept at arm's length; you'll always be looked on as a foreigner.”

— Abigail Washburn

“Holding a menu at arm's length, peering at anything that required reading, made me feel so old.”

— Bonnie Tyler

“If you face life with the sincere faith that through the aid of the Almighty you can overcome your troubles, then you will keep defeat at arm's length. And this applies in all the circumstances life can bring.”

— Norman Vincent Peale

“For all the splendours of the world's greatest galleries, visitors are likely to be kept at arm's length, spectators of a world that can seem too rarefied to let them in.”

— Jim Crace

“Jericho lay back down on his side, watching her breathe just an arm's length from him. She was not beautiful while she slept; her mouth hung open and she snored very lightly, and this, despite everything that had happened, made him smile.”

— Libba Bray

“A minimum of two voting members must be at arm's length from the thesis (one of these two is usually the external examiner). A maximum of two members can participate remotely (via videoconference or teleconference).”

— Anonymous.

“Now there's something for you to think about. If you don't know that you can't do something, isn't there a remote possibility that you'll go ahead and do it anyway in absolute defiance of physical law? That might be one of the drawbacks of education. If you don't know that you can't pick yourself up by the scruff of the neck and hold yourself at arm's length, maybe you can.”

— David Eddings

“There were several pictures of Lula with Evan Duffield, a few of them clearly taken by one or other of the pair themselves, holding the camera at arm's length, both of them apparently stoned or drunk.”

— Robert Galbraith

“I am, of course, aware that for over two hundred years scholars have laboured to keep history and theology, or history and faith, at arm's length from one another. There is a good intention behind this move: each of these disciplines has its own proper shape and logic, and cannot simply be turned into a branch of the other.”

— N.T. Wright

“We shouldn't be doing this. We shouldn't have done this. She's my sister."
"Don't say that," Silas murmurs into my hair, voice genuinely pleading. "Please don't ever say that."
"We're hunters," I choke.
"Yes. Of course we are. We're ... we're more ... but ... " He shakes his head and pushes me out to arm's length, lowering his head to look me in the eyes. "I didn't mean for us to hurt her, Rosie, but I wouldn't take any of it back. I couldn't take any of it back-I love you too much.”

— Jackson Pearce

“When she leaned forward to mess with the AC vents, her hair brushed against my leg and it was really soft. It made remember all over again. It made it hard to stay pissed and keep her at arm's length the way I'd planned. It was pretty near damn impossible. When I was near her, I just wanted to grab her and hold her and kiss the shit out of her. Maybe then she'd forget about my asshole of a brother.”

— Jenny Han

“If you tell yourself there is a path you need to travel, that it will take time to get where you want to go-that there is a distance between you and the fully realized state-then the path can become a way of holding liberation at arm's length.”

— Jan Frazier

“As a general rule, fans and idols should always be kept at arm's length, the length of the arm to be proportionate to the degree of sheer idolatry involved. Don't take a Beatle to lunch. Don't wait up to see if the Easter Bunny is real. Just enjoy the egg hunt.”

— Shana Alexander

“Proud people keep others at arm's length. Broken people are willing to take the risks of getting close to others and loving intimately.”

— Nancy Leigh DeMoss

“The distance between yourself and others should not be greater than your arm's length.”

— Christophe Agou

“To suppress the grief, the pain, is to condemn oneself to a living death. Living fully means feeling fully; it means becoming completely one with what you are experiencing and not holding it at arm's length.”

— Philip Kapleau

“Country music was a part of my life. Now it isn't. We had a good relationship, really, but we wanted each other at arm's length. The people in Nashville didn't want to be responsible for my looks or my actions. But they sure did like the listeners I brought.”

— K.d. Lang

“Sometimes the European and North American public like some things to be exotic and kept at arm's length. They don't want sometimes to know that foreign artists are doing something that's at least as relevant as what's being done here.”

— David Byrne

“There are good people, who are in politics - in both parties - who hold this at arm's length, because if they acknowledge it and recognize it, then the moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable.”

— Al Gore

“The psyche is highly flammable material. So we are always wrapping things in asbestos, keeping our images and fantasies at arm's length because they are so full of love”

— James Hillman

“People meet writers and are bowled over when the writer is friendly to them and invites them to his house for a glass of wine or to shoot up heroin or whatever they do, and they talk their heads off, and a year later it comes out in a book, and there follow years of bitter and fruitless litigation, and that is why you should always keep a writer at arm's length.”

— Garrison Keillor

“I think Queen tribute bands are great. However, we have to keep them at arm's length, otherwise it could be too dangerous.”

— Brian May

“Sometimes we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord's wounds at arm's length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people's lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people.”

— Pope Francis

“I think the [fan] access is complicated, because it brings wonderful things into my life, and it brings really negative things into my life. I just try to keep the negative stuff at arm's length. Laugh at it and walk away.”

— Kathleen Hanna