The cliche¤   of whites being ignorant of blacks was not only true, but understandable.Oh, but we knew them with the intimacy of a surgeon's scalpel.

-Angelou, Maya originally MayaJohnson
The Heart of a Woman, ch.12.

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.

-Austen,Jane
Sense and Sensibility, vol.2, ch.12.

   You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy† In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women.You must entirely resist both temptations, and while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy.Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honour the King.

-Herbert, 1st Earl
  Message to the soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force, reported in The Times,19  Aug.

I have sat by night beside a cold lake And touched things smoother than moonlight on still water, But the moon on this cloud sea is not human, And here is no shore, no intimacy, Only the start of space, the road to suns.

-Scott, F(rancis) R(eginald)
  'Trans Canada'.