Scary Close Quotes

“kids with parents who are honest about their shortcomings seem to do better in life. What I mean is parents who aren’t trying to be perfect or pretend they’re perfect have kids who trust and respect them more. It’s as though vulnerability and openness act as the soil that fosters security. And I’d say that’s the quality I most often sense in the children of honest, open parents. I sense security.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Unless we’re honest with each other, we can’t connect. We can’t be intimate.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“I remember another story from church. I remember a story about Jesus meeting a rich man and really liking him. Jesus invited the man to go with him, to sell all his stuff and follow him. The rich man really wanted to go but didn’t want to sell his stuff. Jesus looked at the man and loved him. Jesus didn’t berate the man or chastise him but actually stood there and felt love for him. But in the end they went their separate ways. I used to think that story was about the dangers of wealth, and to some degree I suppose it is. But I also think it’s a story about boundaries. Jesus didn’t give up his purpose and community and calling to swim in the rich man’s pool or vacation with him in Spain. I think that story about Jesus and the rich man also means that while everybody is invited, not everybody is willing.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“part of me believes when the story of earth is told, all that will be remembered is the truth we exchanged. The vulnerable moments. The terrifying risk of love and the care we took to cultivate it. And all the rest, the distracting noises of insecurity and the flattery and the flashbulbs will flicker out like a turned-off television.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“I am willing to sound dumb. I am willing to be wrong. I am willing to be passionate about something that isn’t perceived as cool.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“I only say this because a positive evolution happened in my life when I realized healthy relationships happen best between healthy people.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Having integrity is about being the same person on the inside that we are on the outside, and if we don’t have integrity, life becomes exhausting. I wonder how many people get tempted by the gains they can make by playing a role, only to pay for those temptations in public isolation.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“All relationships are teleological, are going somewhere.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy

“I knew then, this relationship would have to be different. I knew I'd have to know myself and be known. These weren't only terrifying prospects, they were foreign. I didn't know how to do either. And the stakes were high. I was going to have to either learn to be healthy or I'd spend the rest of my life pretending. It was either intimacy or public isolation.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“She said I didn’t have to perform for her. She didn’t have to say that. I knew it was true. Who else do you marry but the person who pulls you off the stage?”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“THERE ARE PRUNING SEASONS IN LIFE AND THERE are growing seasons. When I look back on my life, I can tell the greatest growth comes right after you get cut back.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“the most common regret of the dying was this: they wish they’d had the courage to live a life true to themselves and not the life others expected of them.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“What if some of the most successful people in the world got that way because their success was fueled by a misappropriated need for love? What if the people we consider to be great are actually the most broken?”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“WE WILL NEVER FEEL loved until we drop the act, until we’re willing to show our true selves to the people around us.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“ONLY A FEW TIMES IN OUR LIVES DO WE GET TO know, in the moment, the impact of the moment itself.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“the ideas and experiences we exchange with others grow into us like vines and reveal themselves in our mannerisms and language and outlook on life. If you want to make a sad person happy, start by planting them in a community of optimists.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“If I was going to make Betsy happy, I’d have to trust that my flaws were the ways through which I would receive grace. We don’t think of our flaws as the glue that binds us to the people we love, but they are. Grace only sticks to our imperfections. Those who can’t accept their imperfections can’t accept grace either.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“That’s one of the problems with the way I’m wired. I don’t trust people to accept who I am in process. I’m the kind of person who wants to present my most honest, authentic self to the world—so I hide backstage and rehearse honest and authentic lines until the curtain opens. I only say this because the same personality trait that made me a good writer also made me terrible at relationships. You can only hide backstage for so long. To have an intimate relationship, you have to show people who you really are. I’d gotten good at reeling in a woman and then bowing to say, “Thanks, you’ve been a great audience,” right about the time I had to let her know who I really was. I hardly knew who I really was myself, much less how to be fully known. WHEN BETSY ARRIVED IN ASHEVILLE, I’D HARDLY talked to another human being in weeks. I felt like a scuba diver having to come to the surface when she asked a question. We were sitting by the pond in front of the cabin when she asked how I could spend so much time alone. She said her friends admired my ability to isolate for a book’s sake but wondered whether it was healthy. I don’t think she was worried. She just found the ability foreign. I thought about it and told her something I’d learned about myself in the year I spent pursuing her. I’d learned my default mode was to perform. Even in small groups I feel like I have to be “on.” But when I’m alone my energy comes back. When I’m alone I don’t have to perform for anybody. She said I didn’t have to perform for her. She didn’t have to say that. I knew it was true. Who else do you marry but the person who pulls you off the stage?”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Finally, when I finished rambling, he said, “Don, all relationships are teleological.” I asked him what the word teleological meant. “It means they’re going somewhere,” Al said. “All relationships are living and alive and moving and becoming something.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Back at Onsite, our group therapist created a terrific visual example of what a healthy relationship looks like. She put three pillows on the floor and asked a couple of us to stand on the pillows. She told us to leave the middle pillow open. She pointed at my pillow and said, “Don, that’s your pillow, that’s your life. The only person who gets to step on that pillow is you. Nobody else. That’s your territory, your soul.” Then she pointed at my friend’s pillow and told her that was her pillow, that she owned it and it was her soul. Then, the therapist said, the middle pillow symbolized the relationship. She said that both of us could step into the middle pillow any time we wanted because we’d agreed to be in a relationship. However, she said, at no point is it appropriate to step on the other person’s pillow. What goes on in the other person’s soul is none of your business. All you’re responsible for is your soul, nobody else’s. Regarding the middle pillow, the question to ask is, “What do I want in a relationship?” If the pillow you two step on together works, that’s great. If not, move on or simply explain what you’d like life to feel like in the middle pillow and see if the other person wants that kind of relationship too. But never, she said, ever try to change each other. Know who you are and know what you want in a relationship, and give people the freedom to be themselves. I wish I’d have heard that in my twenties. I can’t tell you how many girls’ pillows I’ve stomped on trying to get them to change. And the sleepless nights I’ve spent wondering what they were thinking or how much they liked me or whether I was a good enough man for them. A complete waste of time.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“If raising healthy children involves telling the truth about the family narrative, that was something I could do. It would take some practice and a whole lot of courage, but I could do it. I felt a sense of relief. If honesty is the key to intimacy, it means we don’t have to be perfect and, moreover, we don’t have to pretend to be perfect.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“IT WOULD BE ANOTHER MONTH BEFORE I NOTICED it, though. It wasn’t Betsy, exactly. It was the whole town. But it affected Betsy and my relationship. People in DC, for reasons I couldn’t figure out, were harder to get to know. I first noticed it when I made a joke and the group I was talking to looked at each other to see if it was okay to laugh. One of them kind of chuckled and changed the subject as though to help me save face, even though I didn’t want to save face, or need to, for that matter. The whole thing reminded me of having grown up in a legalistic religious environment. It was more than just jokes. It was as though people only wanted to eat at restaurants that had been approved of, listen to music other people thought was popular, or understandably, express a political opinion that appealed to a broad demographic. And there was almost no self-expression. There was no art in the subways, no poetry sprawled on buses, no local art more risky than paintings of flowers. And everybody’s wardrobe seemed to have been stolen from the Reagan White House. I’d done a little work in DC a few years before, so I had a friend in town. Over lunch I asked why people in DC were timid to express themselves. My friend had worked in the White House and answered my question by tilting his head toward the window. I turned and saw the Capitol dome towering high across the lawn. “Think about it, Don,” he said. “Every day fifty thousand people climb out of these buildings and crawl into your neighborhood. And every one of them works for somebody who is never allowed to express themselves. This is a town in which you get ahead by staying on script. You become whoever it is people want you to be or you’re out of a job.” Suddenly DC made sense.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“One of the best conversations I ever had with Betsy happened when I asked why she thought I was good for her. I’d been wondering about it for a long time but I’d never brought it up. I could count the ways she was good for me, but had no idea why I was good for her. We were walking Lucy up near the Capitol when I asked. She laughed for a second. “Are you serious?” she asked. “You really don’t know?” “I don’t think I know,” I said. I’m glad I finally asked the question. Betsy’s answer changed me. She helped me believe I wasn’t just good for people, I was great for them. She said I had a way of not getting rattled when things were tense and that brought peace to her life. She said I loved adventure and without me her life wouldn’t be half as exciting. She said ever since we’d started dating she’d stopped doubting whether she was beautiful because I told her she was beautiful every day. She went on and on and talked about all the ways I was making her a better person. Not long after that conversation I found I enjoyed getting together with people a great deal more. Whereas before I’d endure having to get coffee with people, I began to enjoy sharing a bit of our stories. I realized that one of the reasons I’d been so isolated was because I’d subconsciously believed I wasn’t all that good for people. It’s true what I’m saying. If our identity gets broken, it affects our ability to connect. And I wonder if we’re not all a lot better for each other than we previously thought. I know we’re not perfect, but I wonder how many people are withholding the love they could provide because they secretly believe they have fatal flaws.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“I used to get mad at guys who’d made the mistakes my friend has made. Their lives seemed so dark and even evil that I wanted to distance myself from them. I felt that way about those guys until an acquaintance made a similar mistake and was shunned, and right about the time we all forgot about him the news broke about his suicide. Who was I to judge? When my friend Bob called to encourage me because of the relational mistakes I’d made, he didn’t call to condemn. There was plenty of that in my life. But Bob called to be a crack of light in a dark room, something to crawl toward. So I told my friend something like Bob told me. “I’m not sure of what all you’ve done,” I said to my friend. “And I know some people hate you. But I think you’re pretty good at relationships.” My friend looked at me confused. He laughed a little, then sighed, then teared up. “It’s true you’re bad at relationships,” I said, “but it’s also true you are good at them. They’re both true, old friend.” I reminded him of all the people who love him and all the people he’s loved. I told him I thought it was unfair for a man to be judged by a moment, by a season. We are all more complicated than that.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“BUT THERE WAS SOMETHING QUITE BEAUTIFUL about this new thing with Betsy. She was taking me somewhere. I’d known enough older guys who gave their lives to their careers and have nothing to show for it save a lot of money and power and loneliness to realize Betsy was right. Relationships matter. They matter as much as exercise and nutrition. And not all relationships help us reach our goals. God doesn’t give us crying, pooping children because he wants to advance our careers. He gives them to us for the same reason he confused language at the Tower of Babel, to create chaos and deter us from investing too much energy in the gluttonous idols of self-absorption.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Her relationships were more about shared memories and common values than about strategic partnerships to help each other succeed. That one killed me. I’d ask why we were getting together with so-and-so and she’d say something about how they hadn’t seen each other in a long time and one time they’d stayed up all night smoking cigarettes on the lawn and talking about boys. I had no mental category for that kind of friendship. I wasn’t sure how that kind of friendship profited anybody anything. What were they trying to build? Who were they trying to beat? What were the rules of the game, and how were they going to win? These are the questions in life that matter, right? “Staying up all night smoking cigarettes and talking about boys seems to me a waste of time,” I said sweetly. Betsy rolled her eyes. “Sometimes the real bonding happens in conversations about nothing, Don,” she said. “Sometimes being willing to talk about nothing shows how much we want to be with each other. And that’s a powerful thing.” She might be right. I’m unwilling to say at this point. God knows I’m not staying up all night to sit on a lawn and talk about nothing. Betsy said if we have children I’ll do it and I suppose I will. It’s funny what happens to you when part of your heart gets born inside somebody else. I trust I’ll do the crazy things parents do and they won’t seem crazy.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“I have no idea why one person can be handed a tragic past and become healthy and selfless while another amplifies their pain into the lives of others. Almost without exception the most beautiful, selfless people I’ve met are ones who’ve experienced personal tragedy. They remind me of the trees I occasionally stumble across in the Columbia River Gorge, the ones that got started under boulders and wound slowly around the rock face to find an alternative route to the sun. What’s harder for me to admit, though, is there are also people who’ve become the very rocks that hindered them. And perhaps there is redemption for these people and perhaps there is hope, but this doesn’t change the fact they are not safe. I only say this because a positive evolution happened in my life when I realized healthy relationships happen best between healthy people. I’m not just talking about romance either. I’m talking about friendships, neighbors, and people we agree to do business with. One of the things I admire most about John is his ability to hold compassion in one hand and justice in the other. He offers both liberally and yet they don’t cancel each other out. I remember talking to my friend Ben once about a person who had once lied to me. We’d been working on a project together, and this person lied about some of the finances. Ben is a decade older than me, a cinematographer with a gentle heart, a guy you’d think could easily be taken advantage of. But when I told him about my friend, Ben said, “Don, I’ve learned there are givers and takers in this life. I’ve slowly let the takers go and I’ve had it for the better.” He continued, “God bless them, when they learn to play by the rules they are welcomed back, but my heart is worth protecting.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“THE REALITY OF TRYING TO BE BIGGER AND smarter than we are is that it sort of works, and then falls apart. It’s true people are attracted to intelligence and strength and even money, but attraction isn’t intimacy. What attracts us doesn’t always connect us. I can’t tell you how many friends I have who have been taken in by somebody sexy or powerful or charming but soon after find themselves feeling alone in the relationship. It’s one thing to impress people, but it’s another to love them.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Ever since I was a child, ever since I became wrongly convinced I had to be bigger and smarter than I really was, I’ve been trying to perform, trying to convince people I was more capable than I really was. I’d been sending that same nine-year-old kid who took the tape recorder apart out into the world to speak and perform and interact with people. She asked me to come back and sit in the adult chair and tell the nine-year-old what I thought about him. I didn’t know what to say. She asked me to imagine what he looked like, and I immediately pictured the chubby kid from the movie The Goonies. I smiled. I liked the kid. He was funny and disarming and yet still only nine years old. He seemed alone and afraid, and the only way he could get attention was to convince everybody around him he was smarter and stronger than he actually was. My therapist asked me, again, to say something to him. I looked at him for a while and he looked back, wide eyed and curious. I finally spoke up and said I liked him. I told him I thought he was funny and charming and smart. “Anything else?” my therapist said. “Yeah,” I said. “I also want to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for pushing you out there in the world so you could impress people for us and fight for us and make money for us while I sat in here and read books.” The moment was powerful for me. I’d completely disassociated from the kid who had taken apart his tape recorder. I hardly knew him. I’d not raised him to maturity and he’d spent the last thirty years lonely and desperate for attention. It’s no wonder I hid from the world. It’s no wonder parties made me tired or I got exhausted after I spoke. It’s no wonder criticism made me angry or I overreacted to failure. I think the part of me I sent out to interact with the world was, in some ways, underdeveloped, still trying to be bigger and smarter as a measure of survival.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Somewhere along the line I think many of us buy into a lie that we only matter if . . . We only matter if we are strong or smart or attractive or whatever. It makes me wonder if this isn’t the reason I’ve struggled with a kind of performance anxiety. I’m not talking about the kind of anxiety you get before you have to give a speech or something. I’m talking about the fact I’d rather be alone or with a close friend than have to make small talk at a party. It’s exhausting to me and I feel like I’m acting in a play about life every time I have to do it.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy