close quotes

A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct; The language plain, and incidents well linked; Tell not as new what ev'ry body knows, And new or old, still hasten to a close.

-William Cowper
  Poems,'Conversation', l.235^8.

With lack of sleep and too much understanding I grow a little crazy,Ithink, likeall menat seawho livetoo closeto each other and too close thereby to all that is monstrous under the sun and moon.

- Sir William (Gerald) Golding
  Rites of Passage, closing words.

Close the playand keep the store open nights.

- George S(imon) Kaufman
Reply when asked by one of his backers, the owner of Bloomingdale's department store, how the premi e' re of Kaufman's latest play had gone.  Attributed.

Die Szenen unsers Lebens gleichen den Bildern in groÞer Mosaik, welche in der N a« he keineWirkung tun, sondern von denen man fern stehn muss, um sie sch o« n zu finden. Thescenes ofour liferesemble picturesinrough mosaic; theyareineffective fromcloseup, and havetobe viewed from a distance if theyare to seem beautiful.

- Arthur Schopenhauer
Parerga und Paralipomena, ch.11 (translated by R J Hollingdale).

The longest day must have its close,the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to aneternal night, andthenightofthejusttoaneternalday.

- Harriet (Elizabeth) ne  e Beecher Stowe
  UncleTom's Cabin, ch.40.

I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses.

-W(illiam) B(utler) Yeats
  'Easter,1916', l.1^4. Collected in Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921).