56 Touching Quotes

In a world filled with fleeting moments and constant change, sometimes the words of another can touch our hearts and resonate deeply within us. Whether you're seeking solace, inspiration, or a gentle reminder of life's beauty, touching quotes have a unique way of connecting us to universal truths and emotions. We've curated a collection of the top 56 touching quotes to offer you comfort, insight, and a sense of shared humanity. Dive in and let these timeless words soothe your soul and uplift your spirit.

1. “Touch has a memory.” - John Keats

2. “Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."(Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains.)” - Gustave Flaubert

3. “I feel the healinghands of Godtouch my heartand kiss my soul.” - Harley King

4. “Never in his life had Edward been cradled like a baby. Abilene had not done it. Nor had Nellie. And most certainly, Bull had not. It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely, to be stared down at with so much love. Edward felt the whole of his china body flood with warmth. (page 128)” - kate dicamillo

5. “See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand That I might touch that cheek!” - William Shakespeare

6. “In the hills giant oaksFall upon their kneesYou can touch parts You have no right to” - Kay Ryan

7. “Symbolic of life, hair bolts from our head[s]. Like the earth, it can be harvested, but it will rise again. We can change its color and texture when the mood strikes us, but in time it will return to its original form, just as Nature will in time turn our precisely laid-out cities into a weed-way.” - Diane Ackerman

8. “Darling, do you rememberthe man you married? Touch me, remind me who I am.” - Stanley Kunitz

9. “Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey.At other times, it is allowing another to take yours.” - Vera Nazarian

10. “Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others ... an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands ... hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.” - Wallace Stegner

11. “You jumped like a frog.You touched like a dog.You kissed like a bird.” - Santosh Kalwar

12. “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, alistening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, allof which have the potential to turn a life around.” - Leo F. Buscaglia

13. “Afterward she lies nestled against me, her hair tickling my face. I stroke her lightly, memorizing her body. I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin.” - Sara Gruen

14. “As soon as I turned the key I saw it hanging, the color of fire and sunset. the colour of flamboyant flowers. ‘If you are buried under a flamboyant tree, ‘ I said, ‘your soul is lifted up when it flowers. Everyone wants that.’She shook her head but she did not move or touch me.” - Jean Rhys

15. “I never touch sugar, cheese, bread... I only like what I'm allowed to like. I'm beyond temptation. There is no weakness. When I see tons of food in the studio, for us and for everybody, for me it's as if this stuff was made out of plastic. The idea doesn't even enter my mind that a human being could put that into their mouth. I'm like the animals in the forest. They don't touch what they cannot eat.” - Karl Lagerfeld

16. “If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again. I wanted her to touch me but I could not let her. No cat will. We let human beings caress us because it is pleasant enough and calms them - but not her. The price is more than a cat can pay.” - Peter S. Beagle

17. “He said it with everything he did, every touch, every caress, every physical pleasure he bestowed upon me. Give it all to me. Give me your will.” - Kitty Thomas

18. “I want to see the thirstinside the syllablesI want to touch the firein the sound:I want to feel the darknessof the cry. I wantwords as roughas virgin rocks.” - Verb.” - Pablo Neruda

19. “I never heard sound and thrill of my painful heart until that very day she touched it.” - Santosh Kalwar

20. “Who taught you to write in blood on my back? Who taught you to use your hands as branding irons? You have scored your name into my shoulders, referenced me with your mark. The pads of your fingers have become printing blocks, you tap a message on to my skin, tap meaning into my body.” - Jeanette Winterson

21. “If I could touch anything in the world right now, it would be your heart. I want to take that piece of you and keep it with me.” - Jessica Verday

22. “The pages and the words are my world, spread out before your eyes and for your hand to touch. Vaguely, I can see you face looking down into me, as I look back. Do you see my eyes?” - Markus Zusak

23. “Keep in touch without touching” - Amit Abraham

24. “So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.” - Hermann Hesse

25. “And then there's the sickness I feel from looking at legs I can't touch, or at lips that don't smile at me. Or hips that don't reach for me. And hearts that don't beat for me.” - Markus Zusak

26. “Touch is a freaky thing when you're not used to it. It makes you feel all kinds of things.” - Neal Shusterman

27. “Don't touch me without my permission. Mr. Little Boy” - Peach-Pit

28. “I rush to her side and touch her cold skin, hoping against hope for a pulse.” - Steven Herrick

29. “I remember that feeling of skin. It'sstrange to remember touch more than thought. But my fingersstill tingle with it.” - Lucy Christopher

30. “The only spot of comfort was the lingering impression of her fingertips through the fabric of his shirt, a reminder of the good side of having skin. He cultivated that square-inch patch, tilled and tended it into a full-body embrace.” - Alex Shakar

31. “Everywhere he touches is fire. My whole body is burning up, the two of us becoming twin points of the same bright white flame.” - Lauren Oliver

32. “If I let him touch me,it'd be like openinga one-waytelepathic tunnel.” - Emma Cameron

33. “He loved the feel and smell of her palm and because he was one of those men who was always ultimately looking to dissolve himself into a woman.” - Glen Duncan

34. “One touch from you...,” water coated his lips, gathered in thick drops on his dark lashes, “makes me feel more than a whole goddamned orgy.” - Aleksandr Voinov

35. “…if a thing can be said to be, to exist, then such is the nature of these expansive times that this thing which is must suffer to be touched. Ours is a time of connection; the private, and we must accept this, and it’s a hard thing to accept, the private is gone. All must be touched. All touch corrupts. All must be corrupted. And if you’re thinking how awful these sentiments are, you are perfectly correct, these are awful times, but you must remember as well that this has always been the chiefest characteristic of the Present, to everyone living through it; always, throughout history, and so far as I can see for all the days and years to come until the sun and the stars fall down and the clocks have all ground themselves to expiry and the future has long long shaded away into Time Immemorial: the Present is always an awful place to be.” - Tony Kushner

36. “Friends might lose touch but never lose feelings” - Josh Stern

37. “You are as ordinary as spring,' he murmured. 'As powerless as sunlight.' He ran his fingertips down her neck. 'And when I touch you, I burn,' he said, making her heart stop and a flare of wild panic light inside her. He was too close; he was getting to her.” - Charlotte Lamb

38. “She reminded me of the sea; the way she came dancing towards you, wild and beautiful, and just when she was almost close enough to touch she'd rush away again.” - Glenda Millard

39. “Some guys touch the girls they love. Others touch the girls they use. The worst touch girls they hurt.” - Katie McGarry

40. “Help you? I’d lick you, and most girls would want to marry you if you so much as talked to them.” - Missy Lyons

41. “Total knowledge is annihilation Of the desire to see, to touch, to feel The world sensed only through senses And immune to the knowledge without feeling.” - Dejan Stojanovic

42. “We have lost the art of public tenderness, these small gestures of wiping and washing; we have forgotten how abjectly the body welcomes a formal touch.” - Anne Enright

43. “Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other.” - Paolo Giordano

44. “...finally her hands, so light, holding his head still and catching all his thoughts and imprisoning them there, in the space that no longer existed between them.” - Paolo Giordano

45. “... If the dead can come back to this earth and move unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night—amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours—always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or if the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.” - Paul Hoffman

46. “I have a message for your daughter,” said Cale. “I am bound to her with cables that not even God can break. One day, if there is a soft breeze on her cheek, it may be my breath; one night, if the cool wind plays with her hair, it may be my shadow passing by.” And with this terrible threat he faced forward and the procession started once more. In less than a minute they were gone. In her shady room Arbell Swan-Neck stood white and cold as alabaster.” - Paul Hoffman

47. “...dark embers smolder inside me - one touch and they flare - who would have thought memory combustible, or near you bright sparks appear?...” - John Geddes

48. “If he touches me, I will succumb. I know the power he wields over me and my traitorous body. I know.” - E.L. James

49. “In Narnia a girl might ring a bell in a deserted temple and feel the chime in her eyes, pure as the freeze that forces tears. Then when the sound dies out, the White Witch wakes. It was like, I want to touch you, and I can touch you, now what next, a dagger?” - Helen Oyeyemi

50. “His closeness makes my heart beat faster, my skin tingle, my body want things it doesn't even know.” - Teri Terry

51. “As writers we live life twice, like a cow that eats its food once and then regurgitates it to chew and digest it again. We have a second chance at biting into our experience and examining it. ...This is our life and it's not going to last forever. There isn't time to talk about someday writing that short story or poem or novel. Slow down now, touch what is around you, and out of care and compassion for each moment and detail, put pen to paper and begin to write.” - Natalie Goldberg

52. “Success is not money, cars, fame or material possessions but the lives you touched positively.” - Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

53. “Galen cupped her cheek with his uninjured hand, his thumb caressing the rise of satin-covered bone. She trembled, but didn’t pull away.” - Gena Showalter

54. “She liked his unique smell, and it turned on all five of her senses, wanting to see him naked, touch him while naked, hear him as he moaned while he made love, taste his skin, and feel his naked body as she seduced him with the trailing of hungry fingers.” - Keira D. Skye

55. “If you currently travel abroad or plan to in the future, make sure you understand the cultural convention of the country that you are visiting. Particularly with regard to greetings. If someone gives you a weak hand-shake, don't grimace. If anyone takes your arm, don't wince. If you are in the Middle East and a person wants to hold your hand, hold it. If you are a man visiting Russia, don't be surprised when your male host kisses your cheek, rather than hand. All of these greetings are as natural as way to express genuine sentiments as an American handshake. I am honored when an Arab or Asian man offers to take my hand because I know that it is a sign of high respect and trust. Accepting these cultural differences is the first step to better understanding and embracing diversity.” - Joe Navarro

56. “This is what it means to be loved... when someone wants to touch you, to be tender...” - Banana Yoshimoto