The just is close to the people's heart but the merciful is close to the heart of God.

I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation.

Italy has piled up huge public debt because the successive governments were too close to the life of ordinary citizens too willing to please the requests of everybody thereby acting against the interests of future generations.

I got a poster from Columbia Records and there's Miles Davis Charlie Mingus Ellington Count Basie - everybody in that poster has died I'm the only one left. And great players like Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan it's hard to believe they're gone because we were all so close. But I believe in the future and the tradition will go on.

The fighter loses more than his pride in the fight he loses part of his future. He's a step closer to the slum he came from.

We have a positive vision of the future founded on the belief that the gap between the promise and reality of America can one day be finally closed. We believe that.

We have a close unshakable bond between the United States and Israel and between the American and Israeli people. We share common values and a commitment to a democratic future for the world and we are both committed to a two-state solution. But that doesn't mean that we're going to agree.

I had seen movies before that that had made me laugh but I had never seen anything even remotely close to as funny as Richard Pryor was just standing there talking.

Some of the writers I admire who seem very very funny and very emotional to me can develop a closeness with the reader without giving too much of themselves away. Lorrie Moore comes to mind as does David Sedaris. When they write the reader thinks that they're being trusted as a friend.

Hemingway seems to be in a funny position. People nowadays can't identify with him closely as a member of their own generation and he isn't yet historical.