Paul Newman Quotes

Games are a compromise between intimacy and keeping intimacy away.

It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us.

...it's closeness that does you in. Never get too close to people, son.

You can't always be pushing people away. Someday nobody'll come back.

My theory is - we don’t really go that far into other people, even when we think we do. We hardly ever go in and bring them out. We just stand at the jaws of the cave, and strike a match, and ask quickly if anybody’s there.

We had lain together, skin on skin, been as close as two people could, and he was a stranger. He was that someone who you are afraid of as a child, stranger. They never told you that stranger might be someone you knew.

I'm so interested in the fact that we really don't know anybody. We think we know the people close to us, but we don't, we really don't.

As regards personal relationships I cannot say that I had any particularly personal intercourse with anyone.

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.

For when two beings who are not friends are near each other there is no meeting, and when friends are far apart there is no separation.

Sometimes I felt glad not to be too close to people. I might have been happier, I suppose. On the other hand, I never had much luck with people over the years.

I'm not an intimate person, really.

I never want to feel too far away from people. I think that's when you get in trouble.

It's amazing how much distance one truth can create between two people.

I'm much more careful now about who I let into my life, but I don't think you could ever change what you're attracted to. You can make choices if you want to be with those people.

Remember, intimacy increases with honesty. Share less to keep people away and more to draw them closer.

It is sad that the air is the only thing we share. No matter how close we get to each other, there is always air between us.

I suppose all of my films have a common theme. If I think about it, though, the only theme I can think of is really a question: Why can’t people be happier together?

It is my secrecy which makes you unhappy, my evasions, my silences. And so I have found a solution. Whenever you get desperate with my mysteries, my ambiguities, here is a set of Chinese puzzle boxes. You have always said that I was myself a Chinese puzzle box. When you are in the mood and I baffle your love of confidences, your love of openness, your love of sharing experiences, then open one of the boxes. And in it you will find a story, a story about me and my life. Do you like this idea? Do you think it will help us to live together?

People forget that I was married. I love that, Will he get married? I don't talk about it because I don't think about it. I don't ever question other peoples' versions of how they live their lives or what they do.

That's something I have to work on: to separate what really matters, to conserve energy by not worrying about what other people think. When I walk through that door, it's about home. If I didn't do that, I'd become consumed by one thing only and damage the people who love me. And it would damage the work.

How many people ask you to come share their life?

Most sex doesn't really bring people together. You have to reach a certain level of connection, I think, and that's pretty rare.

Let's not get too comfortable with each other.

It feels good to think about you when I'm warm in bed. I feel as if you're curled up there beside me, fast asleep. And I think how great it would be if it were true.