"We have forgotten how to touch each other, and we try desperately to do it in wrong, impossible ways which push us further and further apart. Sometimes when Hugh [her husband] and I are in a large group, I need to touch him; the only this touch can be realized is if it's tiny and unobtrusive; if I put my arms around him in the middle of a cocktail party we wouldn't touch at all. But if I stand by him and let my finger brush momentarily against his, we meet; we are together. Too many of us have forgotten that this gesture, this incredibly potent flame, can be as powerful an act of love as any other. We impoverish our lives when we limit our expressions of love."

-Madeline L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet