c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Despite all that education and experience can do, I retain a certain level of unsophistication that I cannot eradicate and that my friends find amusing. In fact, I think I sometimes detect conspiratorial plottings among my friends to protect me against my own lack of sophistication. I don't mind. I suspect that I am never quite as unsophisticated as they think I am, but I don't mind.
— Isaac Asimov, In Memory Yet Green: The Autobiography, 1920-1954
Is it just me, or is that guy the coolest boyfriend ever invented?" "It’s not just you." And there was that same dull pain-the one I get sometimes when I see the two of them together and realize I’ll never have that. I gave Amanda a smile. "He’s great. I’m really happy for you." And that was a hundred percent true. But it didn’t make it hurt any less.
— Robin Brande
You can't overdose on friends, only enemies.
— Thomas F. Shubnell
It felt as though they were the only people in the world, two young women about to bury the symbol of their helplessness, as if that's all it would take to make them whole again.
— Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper
Sometimes friendship means not having to say anything. Thank yous and apologies can sometimes get lost, but that doesn't mean they're unexpressed," murmured Hermione.
— Bex-chan
It started to rain and we just sat. Sat and watched the rain in silence.
— Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
I believe in women uplifting other women. The only thing that makes our gender weaker, is the fact that we are the gender less likely to stand up for the other. We are the gender more likely to try and make another look bad, and when one of us is already bad, instead of being kind, we pound them into the ditches. And that's what makes us weak, nothing else. If we can change this, we can change the whole structure of our being female, I truly believe this. Personally, I grew up admiring other women and wanting to be friends with them, but unfortunately, I learned the hard way that they were the ones who would hurt me. Women hurt other women all too often, and that's a fact. I'd like to see not just us not hurting one another; but us actually making a conscious effort to be happy for another when she is happy, to hope the best for another when she has better, and to lift another up when she is down. We know that so many of us are harsh, cold and selfish, and we try to protect ourselves from one another, that's the reality. But it's also a reality that what is real can change. So that means we can change it.
— C. JoyBell C.
(I think Rowdy might be the most important person in my life. maybe more important than my family.) Can your best friend be more importamt than your family?
— Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Maybe I'm just sick of putting more into this friendship than I get out of it.
— Daniel Clowes, Ghost World
Friendship gives us the strength to turn from lambs into lions.
— Stephen Richards
Harry Burns: You realize of course that we could never be friends. Sally Albright: Why not? Harry Burns: What I'm saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way. Sally Albright: That's not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved. Harry Burns: No you don't. Sally Albright: Yes I do. Harry Burns: No you don't. Sally Albright: Yes I do. Harry Burns: You only think you do. Sally Albright: You say I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge? Harry Burns: No, what I'm saying is they all WANT to have sex with you. Sally Albright: They do not. Harry Burns: Do too. Sally Albright: They do not. Harry Burns: Do too. Sally Albright: How do you know? Harry Burns: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her. Sally Albright: So, you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive? Harry Burns: No. You pretty much want to nail 'em too. Sally Albright: What if THEY don't want to have sex with YOU? Harry Burns: Doesn't matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story. Sally Albright: Well, I guess we're not going to be friends then. Harry Burns: I guess not. Sally Albright: That's too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York.
— Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally
Too bad Jason wasn’t a metal automaton. At least then Leo would have some idea of how to help his best friend. But with humans … Leo felt helpless. They broke way too easily.
— Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus
I'm just not prepared to be treated like this anymore.''Treated like what?'She sighed, and it was a moment before she spoke. 'Like you always want to be somewhere else, with someone else.
— David Nicholls, One Day
True friendship never questions what it costs you.
— Stephen Richards
She stabbed him with her wicked pretty knife, disrupted his simple life.She's a player, a heartbreaker,and now she breaks alone.
— Coco J. Ginger
It's not right for one friend to do all the giving and the other to do all the taking: that's not read friendship.
— Haruki Murakami, After the Quake
That's the cool thing about having a best friend. They know what your pain feels like already, so you don't have to explain it.
— Susane Colasanti, Take Me There
You renounce your friendship even in the hour of our need ' he said. 'Yet you were glad indeed to receive our aid when you came at last to these shores fainthearted loiterers and well-nigh emptyhanded. In huts on the beaches would you be dwelling still had not the Noldor carved out your haven and toiled upon your walls.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
Today I know this: when it comes time to take stock, the most painful wound is that of broken friendships; and there is nothing more foolish than to sacrifice a friendship to politics.
— Milan Kundera, Encounter
In the high tide or low tide, I'm gonna be your friend... I'm gonna be your friend!
— Bob Marley
A girl would be lucky to have you, but not like this, Carmine. Not the way you treat people now. You're wasting your time, and it's not worth it. You need to find something that is. So, maybe your life isn’t boring, but it has to be unfulfilling.
— J.M. Darhower, Sempre
There are three types of friends: those like food without which you can't live those like medicine which you need occasionally and those like an illness which you never want.
— Solomon ibn Gabirol
You had me at HelloYou had me at hello, but now it’s time to say goodbye.Whilst my lungs draw breath and my heart beats a steady beat, beside me, for you there will always be a seat.You my special friend brought laughter and smiles that knew no end.Although physically you may be gone, my memories of you will live on and on.I know within my soul once again that we shall meet and when we do,that seat is still reserved especially for you.You had me at hello, for now my friend I say goodbye.
— Michael Tianias
Friendship is a strange animal. It only thrives in voluntary enjoyment of each other's company, in the pleasure of nonobligatory connection. I repeat: You owe me nothing.
— Kate Christensen, The Astral
Hidden yourself in a hole and dared to burden no one with your grievous friendship? I will have friends, Katsa. I will have a life, even though I carry this burden.
— Kristin Cashore, Graceling
She turns her head, Bailey catches her eye, and she smiles at him. Not in the way that one smiles at a random member of the audience when one is in the middle of performing circus tricks with unusually talented kittens but in the way that one smiles when one recognizes someone they have not seen in some time.
— Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
Without the friendship we'd never have discovered the reason we were friends.
— Mike A. Lancaster, Human.4
..we'll deal with it, because the good outweighs the bad.
— E. Lockhart, The Treasure Map of Boys: Noel, Jackson, Finn, Hutch, Gideon—and me, Ruby Oliver
As everyone applauds and sips champagne, I smile back at Rachel, thinking she got it just right. Love and friendship. They are what makes us who we are and what can change us, if we let them.
— Emily Giffin
If I were not to put my arms out
—  would I have not caught you when you fell
It was so stupid, and random, but at that second, with the morning sun hitting her auburn hair, and her huge brown eyes fixed on him, the lock flew off the “do-not-allow-yourself-to-even-think-about-it” portion of his brain, and every feeling he ever had for her—feelings he never even realized he had for her—flooded over him like a tidal wave. Love, tenderness, desire—it hit him so hard he had to excuse himself, go to the men’s room, rest his forehead against the cool metal of the bathroom stall, breathing heavily, wondering what the hell had just happened. It left him exhausted and spent, as if he’d just run a hundred miles.And almost a year later, he was still exhausted, spent, frustrated … and madly in love.
— Claire Matthews, Intimate Friends
Soon, the two of them would leave this spot. . . walk into the house and into a whole changed world. . . 
— Marisa de los Santos, Falling Together
Gardens and flowers have a way of bringing people together, drawing them from their homes.
— Clare Ansberry, The Women of Troy Hill: The Back-Fence Virtues of Faith and Friendship
For us of course the shared activity and therefore the companionship on which Friendship supervenes will not often be a bodily one like hunting or fighting. It may be a common religion, common studies, a common profession, even a common recreation. All who share it will be our companions; but one or two or three who share something more will be our Friends. In this kind of love, as Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth? - Or at least, "Do you care about the same truth?" The man who agrees with us that some question, little regarded by others, is of great importance can be our Friend. He need not agree with us about the answer.
— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
We two make banquets of the plainest fareIn every cup we find the thrill of pleasure... For us life always moves with lilting measureWe two, we two, we make our world, our pleasure
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox
New hair, new clothes-the classic relationship break-up makeover," Jake
— Sarah Mayberry, Anything for You
Keep the Magic Alive!
— Debie Torkellson, The New Witches Club and the Power of Love, Magic and Friends
Nate stared, slack-jawed as the cab merged with the traffic and became impossible to spot. That was it.They chose each other.Just then, the dark sky lit up with fireworks. A cab sailing the street honked in celebration . In the night air , Nate thought he could hear Serena and Blairs' laughter, though he knew that was impossible; they were too far away by now.But as we know, in this city anything is possible
— Cecily von Ziegesar, I Will Always Love You
I didn’t want to upset my loved ones, but I couldn’t carry this alone.
— Julie Flygare, Wide Awake and Dreaming: A Memoir
An Eastern poet, Ali Ben Abu Taleb, writes with sad truth, —"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,And he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thank ye."“For what?"“For bein’ who ye are."Gabby chuckled and shook her head, saying, “And who else could I be?
— Patricia Grasso, Courting an Angel
At that moment there was a knock on the door, and Sam came in. He ran to Frodo and took his left hand, awkwardly and shyly. He stroked it gently and then he blushed and turned hastily away.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
You think you walk, Lucy? I think you fly. You see yourself in a uniform? I see you in a cape. You're a hero, of the quietest but most genuine nature.
— Kiera Cass, Happily Ever After
The bark on the tree was just a little softer.
— Louis Sachar, Holes
Roxy, stop being so obnoxious!" -Joy"I'm never obnoxious; I'm just concerned." -Roxy
— Katie MacAlister, Sex and the Single Vampire
I certainly should have,' he agrees, smiling and thinking what an absurd and universally-accepted bit of nonsense it is, that your best friends must necessarily be the ones who best understand you. As if there weren't far too much understanding in the world already; above all, that understanding between lovers, celebrated in song and story, which is actually such torture that no two of them can bear it without frequent separations or fights.
— Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
Loving someone is not tough but the real courage is to be with that person forever.
— Anuj Tiwari, It Had To Be You
Sometimes I lie in bed trying to decide which of my friends I truly care about, and I always come to the same conclusion: none of them.
— Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You
Karass: A group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident
— Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up
He says nothing but I know he is listening. Words are the only medicine I have.‘You make sense of a world that is senseless. You gave me space boots so that I could walk on other planets. Without you, I’m lost. There’s no left, no right. No tomorrow, only miles of yesterdays. It doesn’t matter what happens now because I’ve found you. That’s why I’m here. Because of you. You who I love. My best friend. My brother.
— Sally Gardner, Maggot Moon
Here's what we'll do. We're going to keep you at the end of our fishing line. And if you ever need anything, you just give a little tug and we'll reel you back in.
— Jeffrey Zaslow, The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and Friendship
If you are silent, if I never learn one fraction more of your soul's equation/I know you.
— Jeanie Thompson
When I was little, my dad used to tell me, "Will, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friends nose.
— John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
If we had more reliable systems of law and governance perhaps our friendship would be shallower.
— Kamila Shamsie, Kartography
He tried to tell me week after week to accept things as they were and move on with my life. But if there was one man who had put his life on hold to wait for something or someone, it was him.
— Cecelia Ahern, A Place Called Here
If you've ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you'll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be.
— Stephen King, 11/22/63
If frienship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.
— Abraham Lincoln
When you're alone is when you can count your friends.
— Stephen Richards
Perfect love is perfectly patient.
— Neal A. Maxwell, All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience
That was a good day for me," Skulduggery said. "I didn't have to hit anyone. I didn't have to shoot anyone. I just sat around and talked to my good friend and partner, Valkyrie Cain.
— Derek Landy, Death Bringer
Why can't we be friends now?" said the other, holding him affectionately. "It's what I want. It's what you want." But the horses didn't want it — they swerved apart: the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temple, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they emerged from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices "No, not yet," and the sky said "No, not there.
— E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
And what made these heart-to-hearts possible--you might even say what made the whole friendship possible during that time--was this understanding we had that anything we told each other during these moments would be treated with careful respect: that we'd honor confidences, and that no matter how much we rowed, we wouldn't use against each other anything we'd talked about during those sessions.
— Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
...it's only on a black day that you begin to have friends.
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle
No, friends were like clothes: fine while they lasted but eventually they wore thin or you grew out of them.
— David Nicholls, One Day
As Harry puts it, men and women can never be friends because 'the sex part always gets in the way.
— Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally
Honesty is a fine foundation from which to build upon
—  for if one was to really know what another thinks and how they feel…they would surely treat each other differently
I was terrified they would desert me the moment they found out what I was. But of course, they, like you, Hermione, wourked out the truth...And they didn´t desert me at all. Instead they did something for me that would make my transformations not only bearable, but the best times of my life. They became Animagi.(...)They couldn´t keep me company as humans, so they kept me company as animals.
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realisation that you can't make old friends.
— Christopher Hitchens, Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere
For a permanent solution to easing tension and soothe the rough waters of the world that cause people to go to drugs, drinking, gambling, pornography, overeating, or anything that will give them some temporary relief, you can’t beat the support and encouragement of a friend.
— Jonathan Anthony Burkett
We've had a beautiful friendship, Diana. We've never marred it by one quarrel or coolness or unkind word; and I hope it will always be so. But things can't be quite the same after this. You'll have other interests. I'll just be on the outside.
— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island
In love there are no friends everywhere where there is a pretty woman hostility is open.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
True friendship is as rare as twin lotuses on a single stalk.
— Lauren Bjorkman
Well, do as you think best. That's every man's right and duty. But for me, I pledge you now I will not surrender one grain of my rights. What I took, I took and by God, I'll keep it, too. Take her home tomorrow, Archie, and never look back to watch what I do, for you know it before. I would not give him one knigh who had confided himself to me and none other, much less you. Only over my dead body," said Hotspur hardily, eye to eye with the friend he had made under Homildon Hill, "will King Henry ever claim you as his prisoner.
— Edith Pargeter, A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury
Sounds like the start of a beautiful friendship, Leonard. It really does.” “Here’s looking at you, kid.
— Matthew Quick, Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
I decided that not talking is like a litmus test for a real friend. You can just sit there and be. Not always be filling up the air with words
— Catherine Ryan Hyde, Jumpstart the World
The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain. And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the center of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.
— C.S. Lewis
Better a friend to all his weight in gold.
— Válgame, Zori 2ª Parte
I don't give a crap if you're a Tangent or a really smart llama. You're my friend and that's all that matters
— James Dashner, The Rule of Thoughts
I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial.
— Thomas Jefferson
The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone for a season, that it may exalt its conversation or society.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
And Garrison...""Yeah, Maddie?""Well," Madeline said with cheeks red as a beet, "since we're leaving tomorrow, since it's all ending,and way may not be in touch gain, or at least not often...I want to tell you...that I think you're..."Madeline suddenly stopped. She could not quite bring herself to say what she wanted to,Instead she simply stared at Garrison,Her heart aflutter and her palms sweating.In her Mind she was screaming it but her lips just wouldn't move."i think you're...too..." Garrison said with a wink.
— Gitty Daneshvari, Class is Not Dismissed!
You told me men don’t do this.”“Do what?”She walked around the counter, speaking animatedly. “Two years ago. We were at Firelight, having drinks. Cade and I had split up and you said that men don’t mope around after a breakup. You said that men avoid issues, get drunk, and pick up a new girl to forget the old one—but that you don’t brood.”Ford held out his hands in disbelief. “How do you remember that? And I’m not brooding.”She folded her arms across her chest and looked at him.“I know you’re my friend,” he said. “But please, for once, can you just act like you have a penis?Because I don’t want to talk about this.”She shrugged. “Fine. We’ll just sit here and listen to music.” She reached for his phone again.“Have you heard Taylor Swift’s new song?”“No.”“Well, you’re going to—on endless repeat until you start talking.
— Julie James, Suddenly One Summer
There was love, a reliable and real love grown in a handful of days, and Tristan did not know why it was: friendship had happened to both of them, on the sudden, completely aside from Tristan's both endangering and saving Crissand's life. It was no reason related to that, it was no reason that either of them quite knew. Crissand had simply risen on his horizon like the sun of his banner...and that was that....They were together, and there was a great deal right with the day simply in that.
— C.J. Cherryh
To stand in true relations with men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity, is it not?
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Time meant nothing. She loved him in an instant.She would love him forever.
— Ellen Read, The Dragon Sleeps
You know power is the best thing in the world because as soon as you have it, everyone is trying to take it from you.No one is ever trying to take your friends away, so that's how you know they're less important.
— David Iserson, Firecracker
Where friendship blooms, life is reborn.
— Vincent van Gogh
Jimmy put in a word and told them that if I made it, I wouldn't be able to live with myself without paying them back. That I'd sooner die than owe anyone money for helping me. Apparently Jimmy knew more about me at that point than I knew about myself.
— Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot
As it is with the love of the body, so with the friendship of the mind, the full is only reached by admittance to the most retired places.
— Samuel Beckett, Murphy
Not all who demand your attention desire your happiness, many merely seeking a conveyance to their own. It is entirely easy when wrapped up with the petty to miss what is possible and what rows your ship to worthwhile dreams. But when two or more fall together to share the oars of what might be, dreams may find them in equal measure and as fast as the wake made.
— Tom Althouse
You send a girl to school in order to make friends - the right sort.
— Virginia Woolf
One can never had too many librarian friends.
— Jennifer Chiaverini, The Wedding Quilt
You want a friend in this city? [Washington, DC.] Get a dog!
— Harry Truman
I wait, you play. You speak, I cave. I promise, you break. You game me, daily, you play me.
— Coco J. Ginger
Other letters simply relate the small events that punctuate the passage of time: roses picked at dusk, the laziness of a rainy Sunday, a child crying himself to sleep. Capturing the moment, these small slices of life, these small gusts of happiness, move me more deeply than all the rest. A couple of lines or eight pages, a Middle Eastern stamp or a suburban postmark . . . I hoard all these letters like treasure. One day I hope to fasten them end to end in a half-mile streamer, to float in the wind like a banner raised to the glory of friendship.  It will keep the vultures at bay.
— Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every other moment in your life, and think, "Soon this will be over". But I understand more now. About the way life works.
— Nina LaCour
But on a Sunday morning when I want to grab an omelet over girl talk, I’m at a loss. My Chicago friends are the let’s-get-dinner-on-the-books-a-month-in-advance type. We email, trading dates until we find an open calendar slot amidst our tight schedules of workout classes, volunteer obligations (no false pretenses here, the volunteers are my friends, not me, sadly), work events, concert tickets and other dinners scheduled with other girls. I’m looking for someone to invite to watch The Biggest Loser with me at the last minute or to text “pedicure in half an hour?” on a Saturday morning. To me, that’s what BFFs are.
— Rachel Bertsche, MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search For A New Best Friend
She walked down the basement steps. She saw an imaginary framed photo seep into the wall - a quiet-smiled secret. No more than a few meters, it was a long walk to the drop sheets and the assortment of paint cans that shielded Max Vandenburg. She removed the sheets closest to the wall until there was a small corridor to look through. The first part of him she saw was his shoulder, and through the slender gap, she slowly, painfully, inched her hand in until it rested there. His clothing was cool. He did not wake.She could feel his breathing and his shoulder moving up and down ever so slightly. For a while, she watched him. Then she sat and leaned back.Sleepy air seemed to have followed her.The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder.They breathed.German and Jewish lungs.
— Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
…so many ticks steadily around the clock. My heart beats ferociously, as if to say it will not digest this leaving. But you are gone. I could never look into your tormenting eyes again. You mock me with each word you choose…. of the millions of words in the English tongue you could have chosen…you select the one’s that break me down.
— Coco J. Ginger
the important thing is not what we (look) like,but the role we play in our best friend's life.
— Cecelia Ahern, If You Could See Me Now
It all comes down to who's by your side.
— Nicholas Sparks
Their friendship was like a wilted bunch of flowers that she insisted on topping up with water. Why not let it die instead? It was unrealistic to expect a friendship to last forever…
— David Nicholls, One Day
Not my finest hour," he says, shaking his head."You realize you did it for no reason," I say. I tell him about talking to my dad and explain that I was crying because of that."That information would have been useful BEFORE I shoved him in the pool.
— Heather Hepler, Love? Maybe
He was everything I needed because his entire character had been molded by my deepest wants and desires. He was my rock when I cried, my playmate when I laughed, and my hero when I needed to imagine that one existed for me.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher
I shall never love any as I love thee, Moonbrow!” she cried.He nuzzled her, very gently. “Nor I you, Ryhenna,” he said. “Tek is my mate. I love her. You are my shoulder-friend, and I love you. I love you both, but differently. And when in a year or two years’ time, you dance court within this glade, it will be with one whom you love in a way entirely other than the way that you love me. I am your companion, your friend, Ryhenna, just as you are always and ever mine. Stand fast with me,” he said, “and no foe shall ever part us.
— Meredith Ann Pierce, Dark Moon
These three ladies disliked and distrusted one another as heartily as the First Triumvirate of Rome, and their close alliance was probably for the same reason.
— Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
Unconditional love is the greatest gift of all" ~ The Soul Bearers, by Sylvia Massara
— Sylvia Massara
Her eyes take on that suspicious, wounded look girls get when they know they've fallen off the top rung of friendship and someone else has passed them, but they don't know when or how the change took place.
— Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty
Aren't I enough for you?' she asked.'No,' he said. 'You are enough for me, as far as a woman is concerned. You are all women to me. But I wanted a man friend, as eternal as you and I are eternal.'(Women in Love)
— D.H. Lawrence
Friendships sail like any other ship... left unattended, it will drift away" - Sensei Stokes
— Sensei DarianStokes
There! Now we're friends!" declared the minx. "Say you're sorry about my sister -""I am desolated!""That's a good boy!
— Agatha Christie, The Murder on the Links
I’ll not let the pair of you charge boldly into wolves’ teeth without me alongside
— Meredith Ann Pierce, Dark Moon
Mates such as they must stand by one another
— Mary Grant Bruce
They were your friends?""Yes, they were my friends.""And they will leave you to suffer alone?""Now I see it.""And until this, were they friends you could trust?""I could trust them.""I see what you mean. You mean they were the kind of friends that a good man could choose, upright, hard-working, obeying the law?Tell me, were they such friends?And now they leave you alone?Did you not see it before?""I saw it.
— Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country
(T)here exist friendships which develop their own inner duration, their own eons of transparent time.
— Vladimir Nabokov
Love should not be polluted with friendship.
— Erich Maria Remarque, Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country
Because thou writest me often, I thank thee ... Never do I receive a letter from thee, but immediately we are together.
— Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Friendship was a concept men bandied about to save face when they were rejected.
— Courtney Milan
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;But do not dull thy palm with entertainmentOf each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!And yet they seem alive and quiveringAgainst my tremulous hands which loose the stringAnd let them drop down on my knee to-night.This said, -- he wished to have me in his sightOnce, as a friend: this fixed a day in springTo come and touch my hand ... a simple thing,Yet I wept for it! -- this, ... the paper's light ...Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailedAs if God's future thundered on my past.This said, I am thine -- and so its ink has paledWith lying at my heart that beat too fast.And this ... O Love, thy words have ill availedIf, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese
A moment of happiness,you and I sitting on the verandah,apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.We feel the flowing water of life here,you and I, with the garden's beautyand the birds singing.The stars will be watching us,and we will show themwhat it is to be a thin crescent moon.You and I unselfed, will be together,indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugaras we laugh together, you and I.In one form upon this earth,and in another form in a timeless sweet land.
— Jalaluddin Rumi
The world is round so that friendship may encircle it.
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Me? I was lost for long time. I didn’t make any friends for few years. You can say I made friends with two trees, two big trees in the middle of the school […]. I spent all my free time up in those trees. Everyone called me Tree Boy for the longest time. […]. I preferred trees to people. After that I preferred pigeons, but it was trees first.
— Rabih Alameddine, The Hakawati
and the creation, in the world and above the world, that once was at variance with itself, is knit together in friendship: and we ... are made to join in the angels' song, offering the worship of their praise.
— Gregory of Nyssa
Every day you say something or do something that challenges me, changes me.
— Kiera Cass, Happily Ever After
No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
— Samuel Johnson
But that would leave Paxton to fend for herself, and the last thing any woman wanted in this kind of situation was to look around and see all the people who could help her doing nothing.
— Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper
You can greet even the dullest acquaintance with pleasure, if you have forgotten their dreary story.
— Jude Morgan, Indiscretion
Puck shook her head ruefully. "We haven't even solved the first problem, and I'm worrying about the next one. I must be an idiot.""No," Hush said, wiggling an impossible finger at her. "Only kindness. Very much kindness.
— Annette Curtis Klause
We must stop eating!' cried Toad as he ate another.
— Arnold Lobel
Suddenly, something fluttered down from the nest to rest at Chasmira's feet. She picked it up- A phoenix father.It glistened in the sunlight, and tracing her fingers along its edges, she marveled at its soft and delicate touch.Extending it to Aaron, she said quietly, "They say a phoenix feather is a symbol of everlasting friendship.
— Christine E. Schulze, The Hero of 1000 Years
I'd pick you, I say. Fuck it, I do pick you. I want you to come over to my house in twenty years with your dud and your adopted kids and I want our fucking kids to hang out and I want to, like, drink wine and talk about the Middle East or whatever the fuck we're gonna want to do when we're old. We've been friends too long to pick, but if we could pick, I'd pick you.
— John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Did he ever--try?'Mingus shrugged. 'He was like you.'What's that mean?'Means he tried.'Of course. The ring was not a neutral tool. It judged its wearer: Aaron Doily flew drunkenly, and Dylan flew like a coward, only when it didn't matter, at the Windles' pond. So if had attuned to Robert Woolfolk's chaos.Don't tell me,' said Dylan. 'He flew sideways.'Mingus left it vague. He'd always made it his habit to protect their honor against one another--Dylan, Arthur, Robert. To say nothing.
— Jonathan Lethem, The Fortress of Solitude
You’re my prey tonight.
— Carla H. Krueger, Sex Media
....finally I see that it’s never been me, just a blanket that keeps you warm. Easily tossed alongwhen something flashier or someone prettier comes along. Your heart I held so carefully, I see, this was all just a game...
— Coco J. Ginger
That's what friends do: they notice things. They're there for each other. They see what parents don't.
— Nina LaCour, Hold Still
Favorite Quotations.I speak my mind because it hurts to bite my tongue.The worth of a book is measured by what you carry away from it. It's not over till it's over. Imagination is everything. All life is an experiment. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly.
— Pat Frayne, Tales of Topaz the Conjure Cat: Part I Topaz and the Evil Wizard & Part II Topaz and the Plum-Gista Stone
You’re like a god from a Greek myth, Saiman. You have no empathy. You have no concept of the world beyond your ego. Wanting something gives you an automatic right to obtain it by whatever means necessary with no regard to the damage it may do. I would be careful if I were you. Friends and objects of deities’ desires dropped like flies. In the end the gods always ended up miserable and alone."— Kate Daniels
— Ilona Andrews, Magic Strikes
I have a feeling,’ he said, ‘I have a feeling that we were meant to be together. That we have fought the good fight, side by side, in the past or in the future, I do not know. I am a rational man, but I have learned the value of a good companion, and from the moment I clapped eyes on you, I knew I trusted you as well as I do myself. Yes, I want you with me.
— Neil Gaiman, A Study in Emerald
But you're like me,” he says. “An outsider. Different. A freak. We're both weird, which is why we get along.
— Darren Shan, Lord Loss
I would carry some of it if I could, Bean said silently. Like I did today, you can turn it over to me and I’ll do it, if I can. You don’t have to do this alone.Only even as he thought this, Bean knew it wasn’t true. If it could be done, Ender was the one who would have to do it. All those months when Bean refused to see Ender, hid from him, it was because he couldn’t bear to face the fact that Ender was what Bean only wished to be — the kind of person on whom you could put all your hopes, who could carry all your fears, and he would not let you down, would not betray you.I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there.
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Shadow
When I'm in pain I want everyone I love on the island with me, sitting around the fire, getting drunk on coconut milk, banging out a plan.
— Melanie Gideon, Wife 22
As I look back over the other best friendships I've had that also ended, I wonder if, in addition to simply having a finite amount of time for such intimacy, we also have certain periods in our lives in which we seek out people who seem to embody the things we lack. Then, when we gain those things for ourselves, we no longer need that friend in the same way, which causes a serious dissonance in the relationship. Perhaps this is why these particular friendships burn so bright and then disappear so completely.
— Megan Crane, Everything I Needed to Know about Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume
The art of conversation lies in listening
— Malcolm Forbes
Severing our young and fragile friendship was a sad ordeal, but sadder still was the fact that this friend found it so difficult to respond to my immediate need, unlike a dreamed boy who always afforded me easy comfort. I couldn’t understand what was so hard about reaching out to hug someone. But judging by Gregory’s uncomfortable conduct I had to assume it was an honest trial.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher
There is such a thing as crazy-mother bonding. . . . It happens when one realizes the other also has had a crazy mother, and it is both painful and pleasurable. There are more crazy mothers than you might think.
— Minrose Gwin
He was able to love them again, but he loved them now in a wiser way, knowing their weakness.
— William Steig, The Real Thief
Lena realized that a fundamental layer of their happiness depended on the four of them being close to one another. Their lives were independent and full. Their friendship was only one aspect of their lives, but it seemed to give meaning to all the others.
— Ann Brashares, Sisterhood Everlasting
A true friend is the one who treats you and gives you advices, exactly as if he is treating himself and giving advices to himself, so if you are a true friend never ever talk about your friends behind their backs, cause you must be sure that you are talking about yourself :)
— Mona Hanie
I'm scared, all right?" I said. I could feel my stomach churn as my gaze rested on the wooden trunk.Nathan turned my chin, looking at me with an expression of utter sincerity. "You don't have to be. I'm here.
— Markelle Grabo, The Spell Master
I learned a lot that night—like how incredibly mind blowing ho-hos and wine coolers were together, how that you could discover the answers to life’s most difficult questions by watching Buffy, but most of all, that no matter what was going on in life—a best friend could make it all seem bearable.
— Peggy Martinez, Sweet Contradiction
It's one thing to have a divinely inspired love given to you to experience and share; it's something else altogether to recognize it when it appears. Our job is to go on being humbled and grateful that we should get to experience such a thing in our lifetimes, and preserve its magic by doing the most responsible thing possible to keep it alive . . . Just keep saying yes.
— Mark Fiore, You Are Loved . . . an email memoir
But in Friendship, being free of all that, we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting—any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends "You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then, in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing.
— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
And there it is: Even though we’re standing in the same patch of sun-drenched pavement, we might as well be a hundred thousand miles apart.
— Lauren Oliver, Delirium
Before a Cat will condescendTo treat you as a trusted friend,Some little token of esteemIs needed, like a dish of cream;And you might now and then supplySome caviare, or Strassburg Pie,Some potted grouse, or salmon paste —He's sure to have his personal taste.(I know a Cat, who makes a habitOf eating nothing else but rabbit,And when he's finished, licks his pawsSo's not to waste the onion sauce.)A Cat's entitled to expectThese evidences of respect.And so in time you reach your aim,And finally call him by his name.
— T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Alain Badiou was once seated amongst the public in a room where I was delivering a talk, when his cellphone (which, to add insult to injury, was mine -- I had lent it to him) all of a sudden started to ring. Instead of turning it off, he gently interrupted me and asked me if I could talk more softly, so that he could hear his interlocutor more clearly . . . If this was not an act of true friendship, I do not know what friendship is. So, this book is dedicated to Alain Badiou.
— Slavoj Žižek, In Defense of Lost Causes
Sharing secrets is the way in which women tie themselves together, for it reveals complicity and trust. Holding secrets shows trustworthiness and a sort of quite defiance. It is a natural thing for a female to hold secrets within her breast until the time is ripe to release them. Does it not follow the way in which her body is formed? A woman is made with that dark and mysterious recess that can grow a child safely until the child is ready to come out onto the birthing bed. And like birthing, secrets present themselves in many ways. some slip easily into the world, others must be torn out, if the body is unwilling.
— Kathleen Kent, The Heretic's Daughter
Who would guess," he teased, "that I'd ever see you on a rooftop with straw in your hair?"Kit giggled. "Are you saying I've turned into a crow?""Not exactly." His eyes were intensely blue with merriment. "I can still see the green feathers if I look hard enough. But they've done their best to make you into a sparrow, haven't they?
— Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond
There are people one knows and people one doesn't. One shouldn't cheapen the former by feigning intimacy with the latter.
— Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
You are in a melancholy humour, and fancy that any one unlike yourself must be happy. But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by every body at times, whatever be their education or state. Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience — or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.
— Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Scully,' [Mulder] said, his voice quiet and serious, 'with the... unorthodox explanations I often find when studying the evidence, I know you're always skeptical-but every time you're at least fair to me. You respect my opinion, even when you don't agree with it.' He looked at his hands. 'I don't know if I've ever told you, but I really appreciate that.'She looked at him and smiled. 'You've told me, Mulder. Maybe not in words... but you've told me.
— Kevin J. Anderson, Ruins
It occurs to me that she is not unique--that all women compare lives. We are aware of whose husband works more, who helps more around the house, who makes more money, who is having more sex. We compare our children, taking note of who is sleeping through the night, eating their vegetables, minding their manners, getting into the right schools. We know who keeps the best house, throws the best parties, cooks the best meals, has the best tennis game. We know who among us is the smartest, has the fewest lines around her eyes, has the best figure--whether naturally or artificially. We are aware of who works full-time, who stays at home with the kids, who manages to do it all and make it look easy, who shops and lunches while the nanny does it all. We digest it all and then discuss with our friends. Comparing and then confiding; it is what women do.The difference, I think, lies in why we do it. Are we doing it to gauge our own life and reassure ourselves that we fall within the realm of normal? Or are we being competitive, relishing others' shortcomings so that we can win, if only by default?
— Emily Giffin, Heart of the Matter
Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to him in his quiet hour, noiselessly climbing the winding stair to take him by surprise, and then with talk and music we should have held heavenly festival throughout the night!
— Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf
Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will.' Her lips touched his cheek. 'I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry.
— David Nicholls, One Day
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
— Kahlil Gibran
A young nurse, someone new whom he didn't recognise, came up to Henry and patted him on the arm. "Are you a friend or a family member?" She whispered the question in his ear, trying not to disturb Sheldon. The question hung there like a beautiful chord, ringing in the air. Henry was Chinese, Sheldon obviously wasn't. They looked nothing alike. Nothing at all. "I'm distant family," Henry said.
— Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet