c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
— Mark Twain
I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying 'flee at once - all is discovered.' They all left town immediately.
— Mark Twain
I don't want to be your friend, baby. I am your friend.
— Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
I dislike the phrase 'Internet friends,' because it implies that people you know online aren't really your friends, that somehow the friendship is less real or meaningful to you because it happens through Skype or text messages. The measure of a friendship is not its physicality but its significance.
— John Green, This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl
Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
May your adventures bring you closer together, even as they take you far away from home.
— Trenton Lee Stewart, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey
Celebrate the people in your life who are there because they love you for no other reason than because you are YOU.
— Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass
One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.
— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.
— Gautama Buddha
The distant soul can shake the distant friend's soul and make the longing felt, over untold miles.
— John Masefield
Lea stood upon a fallen log ahead of us, staring ahead. Mouse walked up to her.Gggrrrr rawf arrrgggrrrrarrrr," I said.Mouse gave me an impatient glance, and somehow--I don't know if it was something in his body language or what--I became aware that he was telling me to sit down and shut up or he'd come over and make me.I sat down. Something in me really didn't like that idea, but when I looked around, I saw that everyone else had done it too, and that made me feel better.Mouse said, again in what sounded like perfectly clear English, "Funny. Now restore them."Lea turned to look at the big dog and said, "Do you dare to give me commands, hound?"Not your hound," Mouse said. I didn't know how he was doing it. His mouth wasn't moving or anything. "Restore them before I rip your ass off. Literally rip it off."The Leanansidhe tilted her head back and let out a low laugh. "You are far from your sources of power here, my dear demon."I live with a wizard. I cheat." He took a step toward her and his lips peeled up from his fangs in unmistakable hostility. "You want to restore them? Or do I kill you and get them back that way?"Lea narrowed her eyes. Then she said, "You're bluffing."One of the big dog's huge, clawed paws dug at the ground, as if bracing him for a leap, and his growl seemed to . . . I looked down and checked. It didn't seem to shake the ground. The ground was actually shaking for several feet in every direction of the dog. Motes of blue light began to fall from his jaws, thickly enough that it looked quite a bit like he was foaming at the mouth. "Try me."The Leanansidhe shook her head slowly. Then she said, "How did Dresden ever win you?"He didn't," Mouse said. "I won him.
— Jim Butcher, Changes
I've loved him my whole life, and somewhere along the way, that love didn't change but grew. It grew to fill the parts of me that I did not have when I was a child. It grew with every new longing of my body and desire until there was not a piece of me that did not love him. And when I look at him, there is no other feeling in me.
— Laura Nowlin, If He Had Been with Me
It’s never the value of water but thirst, it’s never the value of life but death and it’s never about the friendship but trust.
— Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib A.S
If someone listens, or stretches out a hand, or whispers a kind word of encouragement, or attempts to understand a lonely person, extraordinary things begin to happen.
— Loretta Girzaitis
Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way.
— Charles Kingsley
The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child.
— Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Murphy watched me thoughtfully for several empty seconds. Then she said, very gently, "You're a good man, Harry."I swallowed and bowed my head, made humble by the tone of her voice and the expression on her face, more than the words themselves.Not always rational," she said, smiling. "But you're the best kind of crazy.
— Jim Butcher, Changes
I sew his ears on from time to time, sure.
— Patrick O'Brian, Post Captain
There comes that mysterious meeting in life when someone acknowledges who we are and what we can be, igniting the circuits of our highest potential.
— Rusty Berkus
Females and males watched Rhysand throughout the hall—and the shadowsinger and I made a game of betting on who, exactly, would work up the nerve to invite the High Lord home.
— Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury
I was remembering the things we had done together, the times we had had. It would have been pleasant to preserve that comradeship in the days that came after. Pleasant, but alas, impossible. That which had brought us together had gone, and now our paths diverged, according to our natures and needs. We would meet again, from time to time, but always a little more as strangers; until perhaps at last, as old men with only memories left, we could sit together and try to share them.
— John Christopher, The Pool of Fire
You and me-we've whored together. We've fought together.And I still dunna understand how ye always seems to know where the money is hidden and the liquor is stored and the scandals are richest.'It's a gift.
— Christina Dodd, Into The Shadow
It is possible to cause seemingly biochemical changes through human emotional involvement. You literally have changed his chemistry by being his friend.
— Steve López, The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
I’m never sad when a friend goes far away, because whichever city or country that friend goes to, they turn the place friendly. They turn a suspicious-looking name on the map into a place where a welcome can be found. Maybe the friend will talk about you sometimes, to other friends that live around him, and then that’s almost as good as being there yourself. You’re in several places at once! In fact, my daughter, I would even go so far as to say that the further away your friends, and the more spread out they are the better your chances of going safely through the world…
— Helen Oyeyemi, Mr. Fox
Wherever I am, there's always Pooh,There's always Pooh and Me.Whatever I do, he wants to do,"Where are you going today?" says Pooh:"Well, that's very odd 'cos I was too.Let's go together," says Pooh, says he."Let's go together," says Pooh.
— A.A. Milne, Now We Are Six
But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
— Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, A Life for a Life
He looked at his friend, perhaps for the last time, and said what he had always known, from the moment they’d met, when he’d understood that the prince was his brother in soul. “I love you.
— Sarah J. Maas, Heir of Fire
People who bore one another should meet seldom; people who interest one another, often.
— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
I wish I could draw you how I see you. I'd draw a boy with the most magnetic smile, and the kindest hands, and eyes that are gloomy, but can sometimes be bright. I'd draw a boy who deserves to see the ocean.
— Jasmine Warga, My Heart and Other Black Holes
This pause in time, within time ... When did I first experience the exquisite sense of surrender that is only possible with another person? The peace of mind one experiences on one's own, one's certainty of self in the serenity of solitude, are nothing in comparison to the release and openness and fluency one shares with another, in close companionship ...
— Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog
May I a small house and large garden have;And a few friends,And many books, both true.
— Abraham Cowley
Once a friend, always a friend. Why should borders stop that?
— Erin Hunter, Fading Echoes
A friend is someone that asks, 'how are you,' and really wants to hear the truth.
— Tonny K. Brown
Some friends gladly stay, some move away. Some come and go, but their affections grow. While some, I recall, are not friends at all.
— Primadonna Angela
Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no friendship that cares about an overheard secret.
— Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
Somewhere in the crowd was at least one potential friend who'd understand the fundamental value of goofing off.Because if not, how boring would that be?
— Alyson Noel, Radiance
Please don’t think so lightly of liking someone. It’s terribly important. It is a kind of loving, you know, and one that frequently lasts a lot longer than romance. You can fall out of love, as well in. Most of us do, especially if you don’t actually like the person as well. It doesn’t always grow into love by any means, but sometimes it does.
— Anne Perry, Pentecost Alley
How about "diamonds are a girl's best friends"? Nope. It should be switched around and pointed out, instead, that your best friends are diamonds.
— Gina Barreca, It's Not That I'm Bitter . . .: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World
So I guess you could say Neel owes me a few favors, except that so many favors have passed between us now that they are no longer distinguishable as individual acts, just a bright haze of loyalty. Our friendship is a nebula.
— Robin Sloan, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
I'm through accepting limits''cause someone says they're soSome things I cannot changeBut till I try, I'll never know!Too long I've been afraid ofLosing love I guess I've lostWell, if that's loveIt comes at much too high a cost!
— Stephen Schwartz, Wicked [With CD (Audio)]
Friendship is a precious thing, Sayuri. One mustn't throw it away.
— Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
I am officially turning him over to you. He's your problem now. You'll have to watch out for him and that won't be easy. He's naive, gullible, immature, horribly unsophisticated, ignorant about anything worth knowing, and idealistic to a fault." He paused to make a show of thinking harder. "He's also indecisive, pathetically honest, a horrible liar, and too virtuous for words. He gets up twice each night to relieve himself, wads his clothes rather than folds them, chews with his mouth open, and talks with his mouth full. He has a nasty habit of cracking his knuckles every morning at breakfast, and, of course, he snores. To remedy that, just put a rock under his blanket.
— Michael J. Sullivan, Heir of Novron
I ain't got no people. I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain't no good. They don't have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin' to fight all the time. . . 'Course Lennie's a God damn nuisance most of the time, but you get used to goin' around with a guy an' you can't get rid of him.
— John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
Some guys step on a rake in the dark, and get mad and go punch somebody. Others step on a rake in the dark and fall down laughing at themselves. I know which kind of guy I'd rather be. So do my friends.
— Spider Robinson, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
Be a friend to thyself, and others will be so too.
— Thomas Fuller
A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.
— Emily Dickinson
Was it you or I who stumbled first? It does not matter. The one of us who finds the strength to get up first, must help the other.
— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
I can never think of you as a friend. You can do without a friend.
— Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
In every friendship hearts grow and entwine themselves together, so that the two hearts seem to make only one heart with only a common thought. That is why separation is so painful; it is not so much two hearts separating, but one being torn asunder.
— Fulton J. Sheen
Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.
— William T. Sherman
Perhaps he does not want to be friends with you until he knows what you are like. With owls, it is never easy-come-easy-go.
— T.H. White, The Sword in the Stone
For I do not want any one to read my book carelessly. I have suffered too much grief in setting down these memories. Six years have already passed since my friend went away from me, with his sheep. If I try to describe him here, it is to make sure that I shall not forget him. To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend. And if I forget him, I may become like the grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything but figures.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
We were each other's rock. But did it make us each other's destiny?
— Rachel Hawthorne, Full Moon
Free your life from the fangs of gossips by not associating yourself with them. Anyone who helps you to gossip about someone can also help someone to gossip about you.
— Israelmore Ayivor
When you move as much as I have...you know how it ends. You promise to stay in touch with people, but it doesn't work out. It never does. And you forgot about what the friendship used to be like, why you liked that person. And I hated it. And I just didn't want to do it again. Not with you.
— Morgan Matson, Since You've Been Gone
Once when I had remarked on the affection quite often found between cat and dog, my friend replied, "Yes. But I bet no dog would ever confess it to the other dogs.
— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Their love for me was both a myth and a torture and so I wrecked everything. I hurt them, and I left them hurting.
— Robert Goolrick, The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life
We are friends for life. When we’re together the years fall away. Isn’t that what matters? To have someone who can remember with you? To have someone who remembers how far you’ve come?
— Judy Blume
Friendship, then, like the other natural loves, is unable to save itself. In reality, because it is spiritual and therefore faces a subtler enemy, it must, even more wholeheartedly than they, invoke the divine protection if it hopes to remain sweet. For consider how narrow its true path is. Is must not become what the people call a "mutual admiration society"; yet if it is not full of mutual admiration, of Appreciative love, it is not Friendship at all.
— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
I think that real friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitude, because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds.
— Stephen King, The Eyes of the Dragon
It’s not mind-reading,’ she said. ‘Not even an empathy link. Just … a temporary wave of exhaustion. Primal emotions. Your pain washes over me. I take on some of your burden.’Nico’s expression became guarded. He twisted the silver skull ring on his finger, the same way Reyna did with her silver ring when she was thinking. Sharing a habit with the son of Hades made her uneasy.
— Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus
But, I believe," I continue, "I know what true love is - or what it should be." "What should it be?" Tristan asks, his voice soft now. "It should be a friendship and truly knowing who a person is, knowing his flaws and hopes and strengths and fears, knowing all of it. And admiring and caring for - loving the person because of those things.
— Lisa Ann Sandell, Song of the Sparrow
I don’t want to beone of those easily forgotten people, so important at the time, so special, soinfluential, and so treasured, yet years later just a vague face and a distantmemory.
— Cecelia Ahern
Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue - perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one.
— Milan Kundera, Encounter
With the world's fate resting on your shoulder - you're gonna need someone on your side.You can't do it by yourself any longer - you're gonna need someone on your side.
— Morrissey
Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness in another.
— Eustace Budgell
Friends aren’t forever. They’re not even for a while. They come into your lifeand they leave when something or someone changes. Nothing grounds them to you.Not blood or loyalty. They’re just…fleeting.-Daisy Calloway
— Krista Ritchie, Hothouse Flower
True friendhip is like sound health: the value of it is seldom know until it is lost.
— Charles Caleb Colton
This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea.
— Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye
So I ring Justine Kalinsky and I say, "It's Francesca Spinelli," and she says, "Francesca, you've got to stop using last names. How are you doing?" and I say "I feel like shit", and I don't know how it happens, but by eight o'clock that night I'm lying next to her on the couch with Siobhan and Tara and we're eating junk food and watching a Keanu movie. And I want to stay on that couch for the rest of my life.
— Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca
Like so many plain cups on the shelves. You can reach for them, use them without thinking. Most of them don't matter. Sometimes you lose your grip on one of them and it falls and smashes to piece, and you shrug and say to yourself, what a pity. Then you reach for the cup that you use every day, one that you love and use so often that as you stretch out your hand it is already making the shape that fits its curve. You are certain that yesterday it was in its proper place, but now there is nothing. Just air. You have lost something that was so familiar, so much a part of your life that you were not even looking for it. Just expecting it to be there, as always.
— Rosie Thomas, Iris & Ruby
And yeah, I know most people would think it weird that two guy friends touch as much as we do, but when you choose your family, you get to choose how it is between you, too. This is how we work. I hope you get to choose your family and I hope it means as much to you as mine does to me.
— Patrick Ness, The Rest of Us Just Live Here
He pulled the Carstairs family ring from his finger and held it out to Will. "Take it."Will let his eyes drift down toward it, and then up to Jem's face. A dozen awful things he could say, or do, went through his mind. One did not slough off a persona so quickly, he had found. He had pretended to be cruel for so many years that the pretense was still what he reached for first, as a man might absently turn his carriage toward the home he had lived in for all his life, despite the fact that he had recently moved. "You wish to marry me now?" he said, at last.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.
— Henry David Thoreau
Bein friends is like being soldiers in the army. You live together, you fight together; you die together.
— Ron Hall, Same Kind of Different as Me
Most of us don't need a psychiatric therapist as much as a friend to be silly with.
— Robert Brault
The kindest way of helping yourself is to find a friend
— Ann Kaiser Stearns
The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who have helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.
— Ulysses S. Grant
don't you think between here and now we will see each other once or twice?
— Richard Bach
My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges.
— Helen Keller
Alan," cried I, "what makes ye so good to me? What makes ye care for such a thankless fellow?"Deed, and I don't, know" said Alan. "For just precisely what I thought I liked about ye, was that ye never quarrelled:—and now I like ye better!
— Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, Fiction, Classics, Action & Adventure
Leeda knew friends never turned out to be what you expected. They came and went in waves, pulling away and coming back, leaving you feeling safe one minute and lost the next.
— Jodi Lynn Anderson, Peaches
Ten minutes with a genuine friend is better than years spent with anyone less.
— Crystal Woods, Write like no one is reading 2
A friend is someone who walks into a room when everyone else is walking out.
— Gary Moore, Playing With the Enemy: A Baseball Prodigy, a World at War, and a Field of Broken Dreams
If there’s one thing I learned, it is that blood families can sometimes be the pits; it’s the one you make for yourself that really gives you a home and people to love.
— Joss Stirling, Stealing Phoenix
Psyche you out?" I repeat. "I'm your FRIEND. I wouldn't do that." He doesn't say anything. I can tell he doesn't believe me-not quite.
— Veronica Roth
Phaedra looked across the water and her eyes met Lucian’s. Their needs came second. It came from the privilege of being tr
— Melina Marchetta, Quintana of Charyn
How do you bear it?" Finnick looks at me in disbelief. "I don't, Katniss! Obviously, I don't. I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there's no relief in waking up." Something in my expression stops him. "Better not give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.
— Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, but which will bloom most constantly?
— Emily Brontë, The Complete Poems
There is always the risk: something is good and good and good and good, and then all at once it gets awkward. All at once, she sees you looking at her, and then she doesn't want to joke around with you anymore, because she doesn't want to seem flirty, because she doesn't want you to think she likes you. It’s such a disaster, whenever, in the course of human relationships, someone begins to chisel away at the wall of separation between friendship and kissing. Breaking down that wall is the kind of story that might have a happy middle— oh, look, we broke down this wall, I’m going to look at you like a girl and you’re going to look at me like a boy and we’re going to play a fun game called Can I Put My Hand There What About There What About There. And sometimes that happy middle looks so great that you can convince yourself that it’s not the middle but will last forever.
— John Green, Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances
I finally faced the fact that it isn`t a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems.
— Whitney Houston
If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so many enemies.
— Teresa of Ávila
O friend, for the morrow let us not worryThis moment we have now, let us not hurryWhen our time comes, we shall not tarryWith seven thousand-year-olds, our burden carry
— Omar Khayyám, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Hello, companion," said Magnus.The monkey made a terrible sound, half snarl and half hiss."I begin to rather doubt the beauty of our friendship," said Magnus.
— Cassandra Clare, The Bane Chronicles
Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadn't realized was gone. With Lucy I was a native speaker.
— Ann Patchett, Truth and Beauty
...we can say we love each other if my life is better because you're in it and your life is better because I'm in it.
— Chris Crutcher, Deadline
What’s so phony nowadays is all this familiarity. Pretending there isn’t any difference between people —well, like you were saying about minorities, this morning. If you and I are no different, what do we have to give each other? How can we ever be friends?
— Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
Friendship is an obstetric art; it draws out our richest and deepest resources; it unfolds the wings of our dreams and hidden indeterminate thoughts; it serves as a check on our judgements, tries out our new ideas, keeps up our ardor, and inflames our enthusiasm.
— Antonin Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods
That was our friendship: equal parts irritation and cooperation.
— Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
As Isabel acted out her date, both of them laughing, I stayed in the kitchen, out of sight, and pretended she was telling me, too. And that, for once, I was part of this hidden language of laughter and silliness and girls that was, somehow, friendship.
— Sarah Dessen, Keeping the Moon
Each meeting occurs at the precise moment for which it was meant. Usually, when it will have the greatest impact on our lives.
— Nadia Scrieva, Fathoms of Forgiveness
Maybe you know the monsters, Martin," Murphy said quietly. "But I know the guy who stops them. And if they don't return the girl, we'll make them regret it." She nodded at me and said, "Let's go. We can watch Dresden kill the bitch.
— Jim Butcher, Changes
Together we shared a bond not even death would violate.
— Dee Remy, There Once Was A Boy
The cracks in old friendships are measured in awkward pauses.
— Darin Strauss
I had the feeling she was going to say something big. One of us had to say it. What happened to us? Where are we going? It was like this silence between us was frozen and we were both feeling our way around it. How is it that two people can need each other so absolutely and then, in moments, not even know how to be next to each other and just be quiet?
— Heather Duffy Stone, This Is What I Want to Tell You
Is that your reason for fighting?! We're different!!! We fight for the sake of our injured friends!!! No matter if our opponents are humans, demons, or even gods!!!
— Hiro Mashima
If it's easy to be friendly she will be. If the wind blows the other way her friendship will be gone. And I'm thinking the wind is blowing the other way. She has found some other way to be an important person in her own right by hating others.
— Charlaine Harris, All Together Dead
I came to realize that one single human being, comprehended in his depth, who gives generously from the treasures of his heart, bestows on us more riches than Caesar or Alexander could ever conquer. Here is our kingdom, the best of monarchies, the best republic. Here is our garden, our happiness.
— Ernst Jünger, The Glass Bees
A friend is more to be longed for than the light; I speak of a genuine one. And wonder not: for it were better for us that the sun should be extinguished, than that we should be deprived of friends; better to live in darkness, than to be without friends
— John Chrysostom
And like a favorite old movie, sometimes the sameness in a friend is what you like the most about her.
— Emily Giffin, Something Borrowed
As you go through life's rich tapestry, you realize that most people you meet aren't fit to shine your shoes. It's a sad fact, but it's true. A good friend is someone who'd hide you if you were on the run for murder. How many of them do you know?
— Lemmy Kilmister
But then I wondered if sometimes our friendships are a bit like clothes and when they start feeling uncomfortable it's not because we've done anything wrong. It just means that we've outgrown them.
— Zoe Sugg
I didn't care if he was a genius or a fucking idiot, he was rotting away, and it wasn't fun to watch.
— Anthony Kiedis, Scar Tissue
I have been a friend to Shadowhunters. I know many of your families, going back for hundreds of years.""There is nothing we can do to correct the questionable judgments of our ancestors," Lucian said.Magnus hated this guy.
— Cassandra Clare, The Last Stand of the New York Institute
It's my job as best friend to make sure he's not a serial killer. Or an English major, not sure which one's worse.
— Shelly Crane, Significance
I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future plusses.
— Katherine Mansfield
Comamandering is not a word.It has letters, doesn't it? Sounds like a word to me.
— Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me
It was a lesson most people learned much earlier; that even friendship could have an undisclosed shelf life. That loyalty and affection, so consuming and powerful, could dissipate like fog.
— Jennifer Haigh, The Condition
Friendship has splendors that love knows not. It grows stronger when crossed, whereas obstacles kill love. Friendship resists time, which wearies and severs couples. It has heights unknown to love.
— Mariama Bâ, So Long a Letter
Into the dark night Resignedly I go, I am not so afraid of the dark night As the friends I do not know,I do not fear the night aboveAs I fear the friends below.
— Stevie Smith, Selected Poems
You're lucky to have a friend who will kill for you."So. I once had a friend who died for me, and now one who killed for me. Why didn't I feel lucky?
— Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Takes a Holiday
Do you love him?"How would I know?"You'd know.
— Kristin Hannah, Firefly Lane
Great pals we've always been. In fact there was a time when I had an idea I was in love with Cynthia. However, it blew over. A dashed pretty and lively and attractive girl, mind you, but full of ideals and all that. I may be wronging her, but I have an idea that she's the sort of girl who would want a fellow to carve out a career and what not. I know I've heard her speak favourably of Napoleon. So what with one thing and another the jolly old frenzy sort of petered out, and now we're just pals. I think she's a topper, and she thinks me next door to a looney, so everything's nice and matey.
— P.G. Wodehouse
You know how some people, when they're together, they somehow make you feel more hopeful? Make you feel like the world is not the insane place it really is?
— Rebecca Wells, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
As much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation.
— Hans Selye
I choose my battles, Dresden. Not you." She looked up at me calmly. "Let me put this in terms that will get through your skull: My friend is going to save a child from monsters. I'm going with him. That's what friends do, Harry.
— Jim Butcher, Changes
It was a little weird that they were friends. But then, maybe freaks just tended to find each other.
— James Patterson, Angel
When we're all alone, it might be to frightening to bear... but we're all right beside each other. We've got our friends close by! Now, there's nothing to fear! Because we're not alone!!!
— Hiro Mashima
Contrary to popular belief, going shopping is really about stopping afterward for cheesecake.
— Bonnie Jensen
Where loyalty bound creatures together, they became something larger, something new and whole and inexplicable.
— Orson Scott Card
We watch her walk into the spotlight she’s been been hiding from most of her life. Sure, friendship is all about believing in someone so hard they believe it, too. Sure, it’s about trust. But if anyone hurts her tonight, it’s about ripping them apart with my bare hands and really enjoying it.
— Cath Crowley, A Little Wanting Song
Stop that Stuart," Patty said as Stuart struggled with the suitcases, which were too heavy for him, she thought. (Almost everything was way too heavy for Stuart.)" Just put those down. Besides," Patty said, "where will you go? You don't have anyplace to go." But Stuart took her hand and held it for a moment against his closed eyes, and despite the many occasions when Patty had wanted him to go, and the several occasions when she had tried to make him go, despite the fact that he was at his most enragingly pathetic, for once she could think of nothing, nothing at all that he could be trying to shame her into or shame her out of, and so it occurred to her that this he would really leave---that he was simply saying good-bye. All along, Patty had been unaware that time is as adhesive as love, and that the more time you spend with someone the greater the likelihood of finding yourself with a permanent sort of thing to deal with that people casually refer to as "friendship," as if that were the end of the matter,when the truth is that even if "your friend" does something annoying, or if you and "your friend" decided that you hate each other, or if "your friend" moves away and you lose each other's address, you still have a friendship, and although it can change shape, look different in different lights, become an embarrassment or an encumbrance or a sorrow, it can't simply cease to have existed, no matter how far into the past it sinks, so attempts to disavow or destroy it will not merely constitute betrayals of friendship but, more practically, are bound to be fruitless, causing damage only to the humans involved rather than to that gummy jungle(friendship)in which those humans have entrapped themselves, so if sometime in the future you're not going to want to have been a particular person's friend, or if you're not going to want to have had that particular friendship you and that person can make with one another, then don't be friends with that person at all, don't talk to that person, don't go anywhere near that person, because as soon as you start to see something from that person's point of view (which, inevitably, will be as soon as you stand next to that person) common ground is sure to slide under your feet.
— Deborah Eisenberg, The Stories
As I get older I find that the friendships that are the most certain, ultimately, are the ones where you and the other person have made substantial amounts of money for one another.
— Jonathan Lethem, Men and Cartoons: Stories
Jason’s heart lifted when he saw Nico di Angelo on the front lines with the Greeks, slashing his way through a crowd of two-headed men.
— Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus
I truly believed that the cost of success for us shouldn't be the cost of failure for a good friend.
— Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
Oh, September! It is so soon for you to lose your friends to good work and strange loves and high ambitions. The sadness of that is too grown-up for you. Like whiskey and voting, it is a dangerous and heady business, as heavy as years. If I could keep your little tribe together forever, I would. I do so want to be generous. But some stories sprout bright vines that tendril off beyond our sight, carrying the folk we love best with them, and if I knew how to accept that with grace, I would share the secret.
— Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There
Friends are a weird thing. It seems like they know all about you, but then they don’t understand you at all.
— Natsuo Kirino, Real World
Often people that criticise your life are usually the same people that don't know the price you paid to get where you are today. True friends see the full picture of your soul.
— Shannon L. Alder
it’s important to make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.
— Barack Obama
Is there some lesson on how to be friends?I think what it means is that central to livinga life that is good is a life that's forgiving.We're creatures of contact regardless of whetherwe kiss or we wound. Still, we must come together.Though it may spell destruction, we still ask for more--since it beats staying dry but so lonely on shore.So we make ourselves open while knowing full wellit's essentially saying "please, come pierce my shell.
— David Rakoff
I was so blinded by her talent that I didn't recognize the tremendous pain behind her work. She gave me hundreds of images, so many chances to see that she was in trouble. I failed her.
— Nina LaCour
Even though friends say they are interested in your life, they never really want to talk about you as much as you want them to. (68)
— Charise Mericle Harper, Flashcards of My Life
Friendship needs no words - it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.
— Dag Hammarskjöld
The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone.
— Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to "keep" by force of mere inertia.
— William James
But people need lift, too. People don't get moving, they don't soar, they don't achieve great heights, without someone buoying them up.
— Elizabeth Wein, Rose Under Fire
There is no hospitality like understanding.
— Vanna Bonta, Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel
Do you know what the difference is between Friendship and Love? Friendship is the photograph, Love is the oil painting.
— Frank Delaney, The Matchmaker of Kenmare
Yuuko, speaking to Fai: To all the young ones in your group, you are no longer someone who passes through their lives and is forgotten. You have become someone very important to them. Your hardships are their hardships too.
— CLAMP, Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE, Vol. 16
You're my friend, Danny. You understand? There's no debt between friends."Maybe it's just that the debt gets so high you stop counting it.
— Lilith Saintcrow
Everyone lives in two worlds,” Maggie said, speaking in an absentminded sort of way while she studied her letters. “There’s the real world, with all its annoying facts and rules. In the real world, there are things that are true and things that aren’t. Mostly the real world s-s-s-suh-sucks. But everyone also lives in the world inside their own head. An inscape, a world of thought. In a world made of thought—in an inscape—every idea is a fact. Emotions are as real as gravity. Dreams are as powerful as history. Creative people, like writers, and Henry Rollins, spend a lot of their time hanging out in their thoughtworld. S-s-strong creatives, though, can use a knife to cut the stitches between the two worlds, can bring them together. Your bike. My tiles. Those are our knives.
— Joe Hill, NOS4A2
I didn't mind that it was always about you, Darrow. That was what burned Tactus, but not me. I'm not in love with you like Mustang. I don't worship you like Sevro or the Howlers. I was a true friend. I was someone who saw your light and your dark and accepted both without judgement, without agenda...
— Pierce Brown, Golden Son
So furiously each other did assayle, As if their soules they would attonce haue rent Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent; That all the ground with purple bloud was sprent, And all their armours staynd with bloudie gore, Yet scarcely once to breath would they relent, So mortall was their malice and so sore,Become of fayned friendship which they vow'd afore.
— Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Books Three and Four
... we had once called out hello into the cauldron of the world and then run away before anyone could respond.
— Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You
How is Eric?''Very tightly wound. Plus, a lot of stuff happened that he'll tell you about.''Thanks for the warning. I'll go to the house now. You're my favorite breather.''Oh. Well ... great.'She hung up.
— Charlaine Harris, Dead in the Family
They’d welcomed him aboard their ship. Nico had never allowed himself the luxury of friends, but the crew of the Argo II was as close as he’d ever come. The idea of any of them dying made him feel empty – like he was back in the giants’ bronze jar, alone in the dark, subsisting only on sour pomegranate seeds.
— Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus
Nothing firms up a friendship like a good-natured argument.
— Lemony Snicket, Who Could That Be at This Hour?
How it's so easy for her to not feel anything at all, to be just completely gone, to not be around to see how fucked up she's made me. She got to disappear completely and I feel like I'm about to combust.
— Nina LaCour, Hold Still
That’s what happens to friends, eventually. They leave you. It’s practically what they’re for.
— Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core, in my heart of heart, as I do thee.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
That what?" "That I knew i misjudged you. That you love him. I'm not saying In what way. Maybe you don't know yourself. But anyone paying attention could see how much you care about him," he says gently.
— Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one!
— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Friendship is not a gift, but is the result of hard work.
— Myles Munroe, Waiting and Dating
I want to learn how to speak to anyone at any time and make us both feel a little bit better, lighter, richer, with no commitments of ever meeting again. I want to learn how to stand wherever with whoever and still feel stable. I want to learn how to unlock the locks to our minds, my mind, so that when I hear opinions or views that don’t match up with mine, I can still listen and understand. I want to burn up lifeless habits of following maps and to-do lists, concentrated liquids to burn my mind and throatand I want to go back to the way nature shaped me. I want to learn to go on well with whatever I have in my hands at the momentin a natural state of mind,certain like the sea.I will find comfort in the rhythm of the sea.
— Charlotte Eriksson
It's hard to give up the being together with someone.
— Lois Lowry, A Summer to Die
Clary," he said. "You're Clary. You're my best friend.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire
[Friendship] is a relationship that has no formal shape, there are no rules or obligations or bonds as in marriage or the family, it is held together by neither law nor property nor blood, there is no glue in it but mutual liking. It is therefore rare.
— Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety
Do you want to hang out? At your place or something?" Hanging out with Jimmy Hailler will mean that I have to say hello to him every day. I'm not ready to say hello to him every day. Too much commitment. It's bad enough that I'm sharing chocolate brownies swith him. I shake my head. "Not today.
— Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca
If you can do nothing else, do whatever is in your power to make the people in your life feel completely unashamed of who they are.
— Sam Killermann
And in this curious state I had the realization, at the moment of seeing that stranger there, that I was a person like everybody else. That I was known by my actions and words, that my internal universe was unavailable for inspection by others. They didn't know. They didn't know, because I never told them.
— Kim Stanley Robinson, Icehenge
When we make friends then we change from being animals to being human.
— Stephen Richards
There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with
— Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Without a best friend to tell stories to, it almost didn't matter if they even happened.
— Leila Howland, Nantucket Blue
True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island... To find one real friend in a lifetime is a good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.
— Baltasar Gracián
When Nico had woken up at Barrachina and found the Hunters’ note about kidnapping Reyna, he’d torn apart the courtyard in rage. He didn’t want the Hunters stealing another important person from him. Fortunately, he’d got Reyna back, but he didn’t like how brooding she had become. Every time he tried to ask her about the incident on the Calle San Jose – those ghosts on the balcony, all staring at her, whispering accusations – Reyna shut him down.
— Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus
Mandy would much rather have imaginary friends who were real than real friends who were imaginary.
— Rebecca McNutt, Smog City
I thought how you can never tell just by looking at them what they were thinking or what was happening In their lives. Even when you got daft people or drunk people on buses, people that went on stupid and shouted rubbish or tried to tell you all about themselves, you could never really tell about them either... I knew if somebody looked at me, they'd know nothing about me, either.
— David Almond, Skellig
I want someone to sit beside after the day's pursuit and all its anguish, after its listening, and its waitings, and its suspicions. After quarrelling and reconciliation I need privacy - to be alone with you, to set this hubbub in order. For I am as neat as a cat in my habits.
— Virginia Woolf, The Waves
I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?
— Maya Angelou
If you're my friend I should be able to talk to you but I can't, and if I can't talk to you, well, what is the point of you? Of us?
— David Nicholls, One Day
Who are you anyway? What are you even doing here?”“Haven,” she said quietly, peeking at him.He gazed at her peculiarly. “Heaven? No, this definitely isn't Heaven. But I get why you’re confused, since I'm standing in front of you.” She stared at him, and hecracked a smile. “I'm kidding. Well, kinda… I have been told I've taken a girl to Heaven a time or two.”“Haven, not Heaven,” she said, louder than before. Nothing about the conversation made sense to her. “My name’s Haven.
— J.M. Darhower, Sempre
Friendship isn't a science mudboy. Just do what you think is right.
— Eoin Colfer, The Opal Deception
Only by binding together as a single force will we remain strong and unconquerable.
— Chris Bradford, The Way of the Dragon
Friend, when you speak this carefully I know it is because you don't know what to say.
— Leonard Cohen
If you can eat with mates or friends or family, I mean, it's such a brilliant thing isn't it? If you feel really rubbish and you have a nice bit of food it makes you feel good, you know?
— Jamie Oliver
A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship
— John D. Rockefeller
These were the companions who justified my principles, who gave me the strength to continue against any foe, real or imagined. These were the companions who fought the helplessness, the rage, and frustration.These were the friends who gave me my life.
— R.A. Salvatore
Em didn't truly understand about my panic attacks - no one did. But she'd never pushed me to explain, never tried to ditch me when things got weird, and never once looked at me like I was a freak.
— Rachel Vincent, My Soul to Lose
Get over it, Roo. If you have friends who actually like you, you’re popular enough.
— E. Lockhart, Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver
It is as easy to find a lover as to keep a friend, but as hard to find a friend as to keep a lover.
— Emma Frances Dawson, An Itinerant House, And Other Ghost Stories
His leaving had been like snipping off the end of a rope - leaving two unraveling strands.
— Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, Red Riding Hood
But it was hard to keep his hands still. He could almost feel them twitching emphatically with his strong desire to reach out and stroke the dog's head. He had such a terrible yearning to love something again, and the dog was such a beautiful ugly dog.
— Richard Matheson, I Am Legend and Other Stories
I never say the things I really want to. If I did, I'd have no friends.
— Chelsea Handler, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands
Sometimes it was worth all the disadvantages of marriage just to have that: one friend in an indifferent world.
— Erica Jong
Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family
—  but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything.