Scary Close Quotes

“What if part of God’s message to the world was you? The true and real you?”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“After the injury he began to dress more like an artist. He wore nice scarves and saved his money for a good hat, a full-round brim with a small feather under the band. He wore bright socks and loved long conversations over supper—rich, funny conversations that could easily replace dessert. If there was a lull in the dialogue, he’d point to you and say it was your turn to talk. “Now you say something interesting.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“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 love doesn’t control, and I suppose that’s why it’s the ultimate risk. In the end, we have to hope the person we’re giving our heart to won’t break it, and be willing to forgive them when they do, even as they will forgive us.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“when two people are entirely and completely separate they are finally compatible to be one. Nobody’s self-worth lives inside of another person. Intimacy means we are independently together.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“We didn’t become the best of friends, but he was my best friend. By best friend I mean he was the best person for me to talk to. Every time I walked away from a beer or a lunch with him I was, somehow, a more centered person. He never let me control the conversation with distractions. He’d just laugh them off and repeat the question I was running from.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“What’s a healthy person?” he asked. I told him I was still figuring that out myself, but I’d not met a lot of healthy people who were dramatic. The reality is this, though: a healthy person coupled with an unhealthy person will still result in an unhealthy relationship.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“After all, to love somebody is to give them the power to hurt you, and nobody can hurt you if you’re the only one writing the script. But it doesn’t work. Controlling people are the loneliest people in the world.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“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.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“One day I realized something obvious: In all these movies, there was a similar plot. The hero is always weak at the beginning and strong at the end, or a jerk at the beginning and kind at the end, or cowardly at the beginning and brave at the end. In other words, heroes are almost always screwups. But it hardly mattered. All the hero has to do to make the story great is struggle with doubt, face their demons, and muster enough strength to destroy the Death Star. That said, I noticed another thing. The strongest character in a story isn’t the hero, it’s the guide. Yoda. Haymitch. It’s the guide who gets the hero back on track. The guide gives the hero a plan and enough confidence to enter the fight. The guide has walked the path of the hero and has the advice and wisdom to get the hero through their troubles so they can beat the resistance. The more I studied story, the more I realized I needed a guide.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“I suppose that’s the point of this book. There’s truth in the idea we’re never going to be perfect in love but we can get close. And the closer we get, the healthier we will be. Love is not a game any of us can win, it’s just a story we can live and enjoy. It’s a noble ambition, then, to add a chapter to the story of love, and to make our chapter a good one. We don’t think much about how our love stories will affect the world, but they do. Children learn what’s worth living for and what’s worth dying for by the stories they watch us live. I want to teach our children how to get scary close, and more, how to be brave. I want to teach them that love is worth what it costs.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“YEARS AGO I WORKED ON A GOVERNMENT TASK force studying fatherhood and healthy families. As we met in DC, I learned one of the main causes of the breakdown of the American family was the Industrial Revolution. When men left their homes and farms to work on assembly lines, they disconnected their sense of worth from the well-being of their wives and children and began to associate it with efficiency and productivity in manufacturing. While the Industrial Revolution served the world in terrific ways, it was also a mild tragedy in our social evolution. Raising healthy children became a woman’s job. Food was no longer grown in the backyard, it was bought at a store with money earned from the necessary separation of the father. Within a few generations, then, intimacy in family relationships began to be monopolized by females.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“HERE’S SOMETHING I HEARD RECENTLY: “MEN move toward whatever makes them feel competent.” As soon as I heard that I knew it was true. Every man I know migrates toward something that makes him feel powerful and in control. If it’s work, he puts in more hours, if it’s sports he’s constantly at the gym. I only bring this up because few men I know feel competent in intimate relationships, which might be one of the reasons they don’t sit around talking about how well they do or don’t get along with the people they love.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Once we got back to the office, our graphic artist made a poster of our core values. We believed we had the power to make one another’s professional dreams come true. We believed the work we did affected more than just our clients, but each other. We believed in grace over guilt and we believed anybody could become great if they were challenged within the context of a community. Suddenly we were more than a company, we were a new and better culture. Our business had become a fund-raising front for a makeshift family.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“It’s true of Jamie. But I want it to be true of you too. And for that matter, me. I don’t believe we are accidents in the world, and I don’t believe we were supposed to be actors either. I think we were supposed to be ourselves and we were meant as a miracle. Jamie, Be encouraged. Your heart is writing a poem on the world and it’s being turned into a thousand songs. Much love, Don”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“TO REMIND MYSELF TO NEVER GO BACK TO BEING careful, I made a list of new freedoms. It looked like this: 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. I am willing to express a theory. I am willing to admit I’m afraid. I’m willing to contradict something I’ve said before. I’m willing to have a knee-jerk reaction, even a wrong one. I’m willing to apologize. I’m perfectly willing to be perfectly human.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Later that year I happened to read a book by Dr. Neil Fiore that validated Bill’s suspicion about being too careful. The book was called The Now Habit and was about overcoming procrastination. Dr. Fiore suggested that succeeding in a career is not unlike walking on a tightrope. The more success we achieve, the higher the rope. As we gain something, we have more to lose. Success causes a ravine beneath our careers that grows more deadly, creating a kind of fear of trying. He said the fear of letting people down is one of the primary reasons people procrastinate.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Some people manage to perfect the disappearing act well into adulthood. I went out with a girl once, years ago, who would disappear whenever there was conflict. Anytime there was tension she’d just go missing, and when I’d run into her again, or when I’d go over to her house to see what was going on, she’d be all chipper and act like everything was fine. Finally, one night when she was able to be vulnerable, she explained whenever she felt like she’d messed up she could close off that part of her mind and feel an inner peace that was completely disconnected from reality. She drove everybody else crazy because she couldn’t resolve conflict, yet inside the false world of her mind everything was calm.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Applause is a quick fix. And love is an acquired taste.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“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.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“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

“There was also no character arc. Change only comes when we face the difficulty of reality head-on. Fantasy changes nothing, which is why, once we're done fantasizing, it feels like a bankrupt story.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“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

“Shame, he said, caused me to hide. “And that,” he said, “is a problem. Because the more we hide, the harder it is to be known. And we have to be known to connect.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy