Love But Only Friends Quotes & Sayings

She certainly didn't have the ability to share her ability with the envious ones - she could only share the products of her ability. They gladly took those, and then resented her for being able to produce them. Most human beings, she concluded long ago, love to worship from afar people with extraordinary ability, but prefer to have their friends be genial incompetents. And, of course, most of them get their preference. — Orson Scott Card

Anyone that has a job that takes them away from home, I think, can understand the difficulties in maintaining consistency, not only with your family and those you love but with your friends. — Heath Ledger

It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer ... and everything collapses. — Colette

DeathWish: You spent some time working with Courtney Love and Billy Corgan on a creative level, how did this experience help your growth as an artist?
EA: It didn't
it stunted it entirely. I gave up over a year of my life and career helping Billy with his flop of an album and designing and building all of the costumes for his music video. With Courtney, we were friends, but I spent years working to record and promote her flop of an album only to find that my value increased every time I peed in an orange juice bottle so that she could fake her way through a drug test. Not exactly a haven for artistic growth. — Emilie Autumn

Close friendships are one of life's miracles
that a few people get to know you deeply, all your messy or shadowy stuff along with the beauty and sweetness, and they still love you. Not only still love you, but love you more and more deeply. I would do anything for my closest friends, and they would do almost anything for me, and that is about as spiritual a truth as you can get. — Anne Lamott

This really drove home to me that Hugh Everett was no exception: studying the foundations of physics isn't a recipe for glamour and fame. It's more like art: the best reason to do it is because you love it. Only a small minority of my physics colleagues choose to work on the really big questions, and when I meet them, I feel a real kinship. I imagine that a group of friends who've passed up on lucrative career options to become poets might fell a similar bond, knowing that they're all in it not for the money but for the intellectual adventure. — Max Tegmark

To be chosen as the Beloved of God is something radically different. Instead of excluding others, it includes others. Instead of rejecting others as less valuable, it accepts others in their own uniqueness. It is not a competitive, but a compassionate choice. Our minds have great difficulty in coming to grips with such a reality. Maybe our minds will never understand it. Perhaps it is only our hearts that can accomplish this. Every time we hear about 'chosen people', 'chosen talents', or 'chosen friends', we almost automatically start thinking about elites and find ourselves not far from feelings of jealousy, anger, or resentment. Not seldom has the perception of others as being chosen led to aggression, violence, and war. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

If Nick Broomfield never found anyone with affection for Courtney Love, it's only because he conspicuously avoided the countless friends, colleagues and fans who appreciate her talent and admire her as a person. But then, why would Broomfield have opened up his film to those of us who work with Courtney and are close to her when there are so many bitter left - behinds and desperate attention - seekers eager to validate his attack on her character? Inquisitors in every age, scared of forceful women, have used all kinds of half - baked testimony to whip up chants of 'Burn the witch!' — Edward Norton

I can understand where he's coming from ... I too was once secretly in love with you, and I could do nothing but watch from afar. Being close to you while pretending that we're nothing more than friends. The first time I touched you with sexual intention, it was like an electrical current flowing through my fingertips and it paralyzed me. I wanted to make your senses go numb with pleasure. Not only physical pleasure, but desire too, deep inside. — Yonezou Nekota

We can be, in some sense, friends to all men because there is no man on earth with whom we do not have something in common. But it would be false to treat too many men as intimate friends. It is not possible to be intimate with more than very few, because there are only very few in the world with whom we have practically everything in common. Love, then, must — Thomas Merton

But we can be nearly sure that those whose love for God has caused their pure loves here below to disappear are false friends of God. Our neighbour, our friends, religious ceremonies and the beauty of the world do not fall in rank to unreal things after direct contact between God and the soul. On the contrary, only then do these things become real. Previously, they were half-dreams. Previously, they had no reality. — Simone Weil

He stands apart with Patroclus, his beloved through all eternity, and Patroclus - who loves Achilles but not as much as he is loved - waits for Achilles to move. His deference to Achilles is different from that of others, They honour and respect him, keep a wise distance, because Achilles was better than the rest. Better at being human. Fighting, singing, speaking, raging (oh, he is good at that still). Killing. But Patroclus alone is humbled by Achilles' love. Only a fool thinks that to be more loved than loving gives you power. Only a fool vaunts it and displays his own littleness by bragging to his friends and making capricious demands of his lover. Patroclus isn't a fool. He knows that he is less than Achilles even in this. Humbled by the intensity of Achilles' love he loves him back with all his large, though lesser, heart. — Elizabeth Cook

Love not often, but forever. It's one of my mother's sayings, and all my life it has been the story of my heart ... Love for my mother; love for my friends; the dark and complex love of a woman for a man. But when Fleur was born, everything changed. A man who has never seen it may think he understands the ocean; but he thinks only of what he knows ... The reality, however, is beyond imagining: the scents, the sounds, the anguish, and the joy of it beyond any comparison with previous experience. That was Fleur. For the first instant, ... I knew that the world had changed. I had been alone and had never know it; had traveled, fought, suffered, danced, fornicated, loved, hated, grieved, and triumphed all alone, living like an animal from day to day, caring for nothing; desiring nothing; fearing nothing. Suddenly now everything was different ... I was a mother. — Joanne Harris

The Savior taught us to love not only our friends but also those who disagree with us- and even those who repudiate us. — Neil L. Andersen

When Jennifer was here in the summer, they were at the house most days. I would say generally that as they got older they became quieter, and though I enjoyed both, I sometimes missed the giggles and shouts. The quiet voices, just low enough for me not to hear from wherever I was, rising and failing in proportion to my distance from them, frightened me. Not that I believed they were planning or recounting anything really wicked, but there was a female seriousness about them, and it was secretive, and of course I thought: love, sex. But it was more than that: it was womanhood they were entering, the deep forest of it, and no matter how many women and men too are saying these days that there is little difference between us, the truth is that men find their way into that forest only on clearly marked trails, while women move about in it like birds. So hearing Jennifer and her friends talking so quietly, yet intensely, I wanted very much to have a wife. — Andre Dubus

Those who floated in the ark were weightless and had weightless thoughts. They were neither hungry nor satisfied. They had no happiness and no fear of losing it. Their heads were not filled with petty official calculations, intrigues, promotions, and their shoulders were not burdened with concerns about housing, fuel, bread, and clothes for the children. Love, which from time immemorial has been the delight and the torment of humanity, was powerless to communicate to them its thrill or its agony. Their prison terms were so long that no one even thought of the time when he would go out into freedom. Men with exceptional Intellect, education, and experience, but too devoted to their families to have much of themselves left over for their friends, here belonged only to friends. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

After dinner or lunch or whatever it was
with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what
I said, Look, baby, I'm sorry, but don't you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let's give it up. Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let's go to the zoo. Let's look at animals. Let's drive down and look at the ocean. It's only 45 minutes. Let's play games in the arcades. Let's go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let's have friends. Let's laugh. This kind of life like everybody else's kind of life: it's killing us. — Charles Bukowski

Whether it is the wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, family or friends, so often those closest to us are the ones who get the worst of us. It is as if we feel that they are the only ones we can be grumpy with, and we save our best for our guests or for work. But this is a recipe for struggle. The smart man and woman save the best for those they love. If we show our loved ones the most gratitude every day, then life will smile on us in return. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude: three words to help you thrive. Trust me. — Bear Grylls

In different degrees, in every part of the town, men and women had been yearning for a reunion, not of the same kind for all, but for all alike ruled out. Most of them had longed intensely for an absent one, for the warmth of a body, for love, or merely a life that habit had endeared. Some, often without knowing it, suffered from being deprived of the company of friends and from their inability to get in touch with them through the usual channels of friendship - letters, trains, and boats. Others, fewer these ... had desired a reunion with something they couldn't have defined, but which seemed to them the only desirable thing on earth. For want of a better name, they sometimes called it peace. — Albert Camus

One day, when I am a braver man, I will tell her these things, and then I will look her in the eye tell her I love her and ask her to be only mine. But until that day, we're just friends. — Charlie Huston

Inside each man, though he did not know it, nor ever considered it, was the image of the woman he someday must love. Whether she was composed of all the music he had ever heard or all the trees he had ever seen or all the friends of his childhood, certainly no one could tell. Whether the eyes were his mother's, and the chin that of a girl cousin swimming in a summer lake twenty-five years ago, this was unknowable also. But most men carried this image, like a locket, like a pearl-cameo, in their head a lifetime, taking it out only rarely, taking it never, after marriage, afraid then to compare it to the reality. And most men never saw the woman they would love anywhere, in the dark theatre, in a book, or passing on the street. They saw her only after midnight when the city was asleep and the pillow was cool under their heads. And she was a composite of all dreams and all women and every moonlit night since the calendar began. — Ray Bradbury

I think I really scored with my parents. All of my friends pretty much came from broken homes, and my parents are still together, but not only that, they're still in love and still write together. — Winona Ryder

Because it is useless, and I tell them so at once. If you had confessed your fears to me sooner, I would have reassured you. My dear friend, a man in love is not only foolish but dangerous. I cease all intercourse with people who love me or pretend to; firstly, because they bore me, and secondly, because I look upon them with dread, as I would upon a mad dog. I know that your love is only a kind of appetite; while with me it would be a communion of souls. Now, look me in the face - " she no longer smiled. "I will never be your sweetheart; it is therefore useless for you to persist in your efforts. And now that I have explained, shall we be friends? — Guy De Maupassant

Dogs are minor angels, and I don't mean that facetiously. They love unconditionally, forgive immediately, are the truest of friends, willing to do anything that makes us happy, etcetera. If we attributed some of those qualities to a person we would say they are special. If they had ALL of them, we would call them angelic. But because it's "only" a dog, we dismiss them as sweet or funny but little more. However when you think about it, what are the things that we most like in another human being? Many times those qualities are seen in our dogs every single day
we're just so used to them that we pay no attention. — Jonathan Carroll

You get your freedom by not being confined. You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom. You'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it ... So dont you run around here trying to make friends with somebody who's depriving you of your rights. They're not your friends. No, they're your enemies. Treat them like that and fight them, and you'll get your freedom. And after you get your freedom, your enemey will respect you. He will respect you. I say that with no hate. I have no hate in me. I don't have any hate, but I've got some sense ... I'm not going to let somebody who hates me to tell me to love him. I'm not that way out. — Malcolm X

I don't believe in things like that - fairies or brownies or magic or anything. It's old-fashioned.'
'Well, we must be jolly old-fashioned then,' said Bessie. 'Because we not only believe in the Faraway Tree and love our funny friends there, but we go to see them too - and we visit the lands at the top of the Tree as well! — Enid Blyton

Growing up, I came to love Egypt and respect Islam, but I never thought to go beyond the surface. Back in Canada, many of my father's Egyptian friends questioned his decision not to raise his only child more strictly in the faith. I was not taught salat, the Muslim ritual of prayer, nor did I study Arabic. — Shereen El Feki

Have you observed that only death awakens our feelings? How we love the friends who have just departed - don't you find? How we admire those of our masters who have been silenced, their mouths full of dirt! Then our tributes come naturally, tributes that they may have waited all their lives to hear. But do you know why we are always fairer and more generous towards the dead? The reason is simple! We have no obligation where they're concerned! They leave us free, we can take our time, fit the tribute into the interval between cocktails and a nice mistress, in other words, lost moments. If they did oblige us to do anything, it would be to remember, and our memories are short. No, what we like in our friends is fresh death, painful death, our own feelings, in short, ourselves! — Albert Camus

Most of Cecilia's friends were talkers. Their voices overlapped in their desperation to tell their stories. I've always hated vegetables . . . The only vegetable my child will eat is broccoli . . . My kid loves raw carrots . . . I love raw carrots! You had to jump right in without waiting for a pause in the conversation, because otherwise you'd never get your turn. But women like Tess didn't seem to have that need to share the ordinary facts of their lives, and that made Cecilia desperate to know them. Does her kid like broccoli? she'd — Liane Moriarty

I've made a dozen films in the English language. But then, for love, for my family and friends, I returned to Europe ... I annoyingly - looking back - turned down films like 007, 'For Your Eyes Only,' written specially for me. — Ornella Muti

When ladies as young, and good, and beautiful as you are," replied the girl steadily, "give away your hearts, love will carry you all lengths
even such as you, who have home, friends, other admireres, everything to fill them. When such as I, who have no certain roof but the coffin-lid, and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital nurse, set our rotten hearts on any man, and let him fill the place that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to cure us? Pity us, lady
pity us for having only one feeling of the woman left, and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment, from a comfort and a pride, into a new means of violence and suffering. — Charles Dickens

Many friends of mine told me that normally only guys like a kung fu movie and the girls would be turned off - they want to see a love story. But Ip Man is a family man, so the women see this and go: 'I want my husband to be like this man. He'll be a scholar, he'll be fighting, he'll care for the family.' So we had a bigger audience. — Donnie Yen

It's not only love which makes relation strong but it's the trust in each other that makes a relation stronger. — Debolina

Before your reach your destination, you'll find yourself going through the wilderness. There's some survival skills that you'll need master through the wilderness journey. While in the wilderness, your faith will be tried and tested. You'll become humble. Your vision for your life will get clearer. You're in training for your purpose. You'll lose some friends, because there's some folks who are only with you because of where they think your journey will lead THEM. Don't worry, they're a little confused ... but it was meant for them to get lost during this phase. Walk on. Continue on your journey. Soon, you'll be approaching the mountain. Get ready to climb! — Yvonne Pierre

I just can't believe you fucked that thing !" he retorted, voice rough with what I coud only assume was utter distain. "Why ... why would you do that ?"
( ... )
"Because I'm lonely ! " I exploded, standing and nearly tipping the stool over. "Because I've only ever had two boyfriends, and they were shitty in bed, and they never stayed very long anyway. I had this incredibly gorgeous guy wanting to kiss me and make love to me and I wanted it. I don't I have many friends. I mean, shit ! I know he was just trying to get something from me, but y'know what ? I wanted something from him too. I wanted to be touched and wanted and to feel - for a few fucking minutes - that I was sexy and desirable. And to feel - for a few fucking minutes - a way I knew I'd never felt before and would probably never feel again !". — Diana Rowland

I hope that wherever else I have failed, whatever harm I have caused to strangers and friends, that you may speak for me. Not before a pulpit or upon a stage. Not with words great or loud. But only to be, to persist, to live a life with pride and worth. In twenty years' time, thirty, or forty I hope that you may sit upon the porch of your home, look out upon a greening field that you have tilled, see your children surrounding you with love, and think for a moment upon me. That is all now that I truly wish for. To be for a moment in your thoughts, when I have long passed from this earth, and perhaps in a way I may find my redemption, an earthly redemption, not everlasting, but scared nonetheless. — Tara Conklin

Let me begin by telling you that I was in love. An ordinary statement, to be sure, but not an ordinary fact, for so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportian suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one has always to love a good many things which the beloved must come only to symbolize; the true beloveds of this world are in their lovers's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favourite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory. — Truman Capote

The pretense that the "abolition of slavery" was either a motive or justification for the war, is a fraud of the same character with that of "maintaining the national honor." Who, but such usurpers, robbers, and murderers as they, ever established slavery? Or what government, except one resting upon the sword, like the one we now have, was ever capable of maintaining slavery? And why did these men abolish slavery? Not from any love of liberty in general - not as an act of justice to the black man himself, but only "as a war measure," and because they wanted his assistance, and that of his friends, in carrying on the war they had undertaken for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial slavery, to which they have subjected the great body of the people, both black and white. — Lysander Spooner

Why were the flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless? Insects can sting, and even the meekest of beasts will fight when brought to bay. The birds whose plumage is sought to deck some bonnet can fly from its pursuer, the furred animal whose coat you covet for your own may hide at your approach. Alas! The only flower known to have wings is the butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer. If they shriek in their death agony their cry never reaches our hardened ears. We are ever brutal to those who love and serve us in silence, but the time may come when, for our cruelty, we shall be deserted by these best friends of ours. Have you not noticed that the wild flowers are becoming scarcer every year? It may be that their wise men have told them to depart till man becomes more human. Perhaps they have migrated to heaven. Much may be said in favor of him who — Okakura Kakuzo

A simple love-story,' said David piously, 'about a girl that loves a man frightfully and he is married, so she goes and lives with him, and then his wife is very ill and going to die, so the girl and the man both offer themselves for blood transfusion in a very noble way without each other knowing. But only one of them has the right kind of blood and I can't decide which. Do you think it would be more pathetic if the girl gave her blood and died, and then the man went off into the desert to be a monk, or if the man died and the wife and the girl made friends over his corpse and both became nuns? One might do good business with that, because in films no one much cares if the hero lives or dies so long as there are plenty of lovely heroines.' 'How — Angela Thirkell

The second call

The first call is frequently to follow Jesus or to prepare ourselves to do wonderful and noble things for the Kingdom. We are appreciated and admired by family, by friends or by the community. The second call comes later, when we accept that we cannot do big or heroic things for Jesus; it is a time of renunciation, humiliation and humility. We feel useless; we are no longer appreciated. If the first passage is made at high noon, under a shining sun, the second call is often made at night. We feel alone and are afraid because we are in a world of confusion. We begin to doubt the commitment we made in the light of day. We seem deeply broken in some way. But this suffering is not useless. Through the renunciation we can reach a new wisdom of love. It is only through the pain of the cross that we discover what the resurrection means. — Jean Vanier

That's what love is, Marissa. It's not magic or voodoo. It's real. You can explain it. I an tell you exactly why I love Sarah." I hold my hand out and, thank God, Sarah gently interlaces her fingers with mine. 'I had lots of friends when I was little but by the time I turned eight they were mostly gone. It turns out blind Parker with a dead mom wasn't nearly as much fun as she was before the accident. I couldn't run around and play and I cried all the time and knocked over everything and turned into a royal bitch and one by one my friends disappeared until there were only two left. I'm not saying they were the only one who understood me or were nice, just that they were the ones who didn't go off and find easier people to be friends with. I love Sarah because she's been my best fiend and stayed that way when it got really really hard to be my friend at all. — Eric Lindstrom

I grew up around a lot of boys - all my friends on my street were boys, so I was the only girl for a while hanging out with them. I have a little bit of a tomboy aspect; I love to be comfortable. But, I do have a sexy girly side as well - I just love sportswear. — LIZ

Shake hands, we shall never be friends; give over:
I only vex you the more I try.
All's wrong that ever I've done and said,
And nought to help it in this dull head:
Shake hands, goodnight, goodbye.
But if you come to a road where danger
Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,
Be good to the lad that loves you true
And the soul that was born to die for you,
And whistle and I'll be there. — A.E. Housman

There is now a distance,
pressing quite persistent,
May be only inches apart,
but as if an artery is blocked.

There now seem some secrets,
a word which was earlier so needless.
May be they now laugh so less,
and even in summers,
the air between them feels dense.

Who connects? Who neglects?
Barely matters when you are no more friends. — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

Booze makes you stupid and like it. It makes you fall around and not care. And eventually, stupid is the only way you know how to be. Cocaine makes you feel important, that life matters, that you matter. That the music is better than it really is. That every conversation
is profound and that all pretenses have been stripped away. Ecstasy makes you dance all night and love your friends so much, in a way that you've never been able to tell them about before. Acid makes you see pretty colours and makes things breathe. But Sadness, there is nothing like Sadness. — Pleasefindthis

Closeness,' he said, surveying the congregation. 'It's easy to be close, but almost impossible to stay close. Think about friends. Think about hobbies. Even ideas. They're close to us--sometimes so close we think they are part of us--and then, at some point, they aren't close anymore. They go away. Only one thing can keep something close over time: holding it there. Grappling with it. Wrestling it to the ground, as Jacob did with the angel, and refusing to let go. What we don't wrestle we let go of. Love isn't the absence of struggle. Love is struggle.'
That sounded like the person I wanted to be, but couldn't be. It sounded like Max. — Jonathan Safran Foer

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love
a scholar's parrot may talk Greek
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains. — C.S. Lewis

You didn't want to put in the work to make us happen.
It was true. I had been so captivated by Duncan, so enamored, so infatuated, that I let his life drown mine for two years. I went along, and when I got tired of it, tired of it just being easy and comfortable and convenient but not love, I ended it. And that was why I had the man in my lobby looking at me like there were still places for us to go.
I had let him believe that he was my whole world, let him be everything, and then one day just stopped loving him and walked away. It was something I did, something I had always done - poured on the charm, made myself into the ideal partner, lover, friend, indispensable and irreplaceable, and then, when I got bored or tired or tapped out, instead of fighting, I just quit. It was wildly unfair, and the only people I didn't do it with were my family. Even my friends complained that I was always around and then just gone.
Nathan Qells — Mary Calmes

If I were proud of anything in my life, it would be of our love. I feel we have to tell to each other as many things as we can, so we are not only lovers, but the closest of friends at the same time. — Simone De Beauvoir

If there is a single factor that spells out the difference between the cafeteria fringe headed for greatness and those doomed for low self-worth, even more than a caring teacher or a group of friends, it is supportive, accepting parents who not only love their children unconditionally, but also don't make them feel as if their idiosyncrasies qualify as "conditions" in the first place. — Alexandra Robbins

You cannot divide a child's heart in two" she had observed to Mma Makutsi, "and yet that is what some people wish to do. A child has only one heart."
"And the rest of us?" Mma Makutsi had asked. "Do we not have one heart too?"
Mma Ramotswe nodded. "Yes, we have only one heart, but as you grow older you heart grows bigger. A child loves only one or two things; we love so many things."
"Such as?"
Mma Ramotswe smiled. "Botswana. Rain. Cattle. Friends. Our children. Our late relatives. The smell of woodsmoke in the morning. Red bush tea ... — Alexander McCall Smith

I can't do small talk really, and that's fine. I've got old friends and family that love me, thank God. I'm grateful for what a city gives you access to, but I do feel that I'm only here until I figure out how to get out again. — Laura Marling

We are only human when we are part of a community ... I tried to isolate you, but it could not be done. I surrounded you with hostility; you took most of your enemies and rivals and made friends of them ... You were a part of them; they carried you inside them all their lives. — Orson Scott Card

In Friendship we only see those faults which may be prejudicial to our friends. In love we see no faults but those by which we suffer ourselves. — Jean De La Bruyere

Open the old cigar-box ... let me consider anew ... Old friends,
and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?
A million surplus Maggies are willing 'o bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke.
Light me another Cuba ... I hold to my first-sworn vows,
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse! — Rudyard Kipling

I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. — Ayn Rand

We wander in our thousands over the
face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond the
seas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me
that for each of us going home must be like going to render an account.
We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends
those whom we
obey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the most
free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties,
even those for whom
home holds no dear face, no familiar voice,
even they have to meet the
spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its
valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its trees
a
mute friend, judge, and inspirer. — Joseph Conrad

Dear friends, I want you to hear this: what is said of Jesus is said of you. I know this can be hard to affirm. You are the beloved daughter or son of God. Can you believe it? Can you hear it not only in your head through your physical ears but in your gut, hear it so that your whole life can be turned around? Go to the scriptures and read: "I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have written your name in the palm of my hand from all eternity. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you in your mother's womb. I love you. I embrace you. You are mine and I am yours and you belong to me." You have to hear this, because if you can hear this divine voice speak to you from all eternity, then your life will become more and more the life of the beloved, because that is who you are. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

In fact i only contemplated one thing - a happy marriage. About that i had complete self-assurance - as all my friends did. We were conscious of all the happiness that awaited us. We looked forward to love, to being looked after, cherished and admired, and we intended to get our own way in the thiggs which mattered to us while at the same time putting our husband's life, career and success before all, as was our proud duty. we didn't need pep pills or sedatives; we had belief and joy in life. We had our own personal disappointments - moments of unhappiness - but on the whole life was fun. — Agatha Christie

Those who love, friends and lovers, know that love is not only a blinding flash, but also a long and painful struggle in the darkness for the realization of definitive recognition and reconciliation. — Albert Camus

With you I feel like I'm already good enough; I only have to believe it. I can't lose you again." He needed to make the confession because he was realising that Lachlan meant as much to him now
as he always had.
"I know." Lachlan smiled at him and stopped in their walk to draw him into his arms.
Konnor went willingly, clinging onto him. This was exactly how they had said goodbye. It felt like the perfect way to make a promise to always be friends again.
"I love you, Konnor," Lachlan whispered in his ear.
"I love you too. If I ever try to hurt you again, lock me up, shoot me, do whatever you have to do ... but don't send me away," he begged him never to separate them again. — Elaine White

Invest in friendships but be aware of those who only love your public success for personal gain. People who really love you cover your private failures! — Chris Marvel

But what are friends? What is a husband, even, compared with one's Mother? Of her love, one is always so sure! It is the only love that nothing - not even misconduct on our part - can take away from us. — Jane Welsh Carlyle

What madness, to love a man as something more than human! I lived in a fever, convulsed with tears and sighs that allowed me neither rest nor peace of mind. My soul was a burden, bruised and bleeding. It was tired of the man who carried it, but I found no place to set it down to rest. Neither the charm of the countryside nor the sweet scents of a garden could soothe it. It found no peace in song or laughter, none in the company of friends at table or in the pleasures of love, none even in books or poetry. Everything that was not what my friend had been was dull and distasteful. I had heart only for sighs and tears, for in them alone I found some shred of consolation. — Augustine Of Hippo

Testimony in new age writing affirms the way in which embracing a love ethic transforms life for the good. Yet a lot of this information only reaches those of us who have class privilege. And often, individuals whose lives are rich in spiritual and material well-being, who have diverse friends from all walks of life who nurture their personal integrity, tell the rest of the world these things are impossible to come by. I am talking here about the many prophets of doom who tell us that racism will never end, sexism is here to stay the rich will never share their resources. We would all be surprised if we could enter their lives for a day. Much of what they are telling us cannot be had, they have. But in keeping with a capitalist-based notion of well-being, they really believe there is not enough to go around, that the good life can only be had by a few. — Bell Hooks

Our friends should be our incentives to right, but not only our guiding, but our prophetic, stars. To love by right is much, to love by faith is more; both are the entire love, without which heart, mind, and soul cannot be alike satisfied. We love and ought to love one another, not merely for the absolute worth of each, but on account of a mutual fitness of temporary character. — Margaret Fuller

You will not grow through guilt, but only shrivel and die. Awareness is what you seek. But awareness is not guilt, and love is not fear. Fear and guilt, I say again, are your only enemies. Love and awareness are your true friends. Yet do not confuse the one with the other, for one will kill you, while the other gives you life. — Neale Donald Walsch

You tell your friends your most personal secrets, and they use them against you." "Fake friends; those who only drill holes under your boat to get it leaking; those who discredit your ambitions and those who pretend they love you, but behind their backs they know they are in to destroy your legacies. — Muhammad Zeeshan Munir

True friends may only speak several times a year and visit even less. But when life's challenges leave one of them vulnerable and in need of compassion, time and distance are no obstacles. — Shane Eric Mathias

I sometimes wonder why I have spent more than fifty years in New York, when it was the West, and especially the Southwest, which so enthralled me. I now have many ties in New York - to my patients, my students, my friends, and my analyst - but I have never felt it move me the way California did. I suspect my nostalgia may be not only for the place itself but for youth, and a very different time, and being in love, and being able to say, "The future is before me. — Oliver Sacks

There is a twilight zone in our hearts that we ourselves cannot see. Even when we know quite a lot about ourselves-our gifts and weaknesses, our ambitions and aspirations, our motives and our drives-large parts of ourselves remain in the shadow of consciousness. This is a very good thing. We will always remain partially hidden to ourselves. Other people, especially those who love us, can often see our twilight zones better than we ourselves can. The way we are seen and understood by others is different from the way we see and understand ourselves. We will never fully know the significance of our presence in the lives of our friends. That's a grace, a grace that calls us not only to humility, but to a deep trust in those who love us. It is the twilight zones of our hearts where true friendships are born. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

For the information of these "friends" who consider themselves called to defend against us the role of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution, we give warning that our book teaches not how to love a victorious revolution after the event, in the person of the bureaucracy it has brought forward, but only how a revolution is prepared,
how it develops, and how it conquers. A party is not for us a machine whose
sinlessness is to be defended by state measures of repression, but a complicated organism that like all living things develops in contradictions. — Leon Trotsky

I knew love was a burden to her. But it was an agreeable burden. She was very delicate. Sometimes I wondered whether she realized to what extent love was an adventure. To her it seemed to be a refuge against the bitterness of the world; to me it wasn't a destination but a stop exposed to winds, to thunders, a stop exposed to storms, a stop among other stops between the first day and the last day in the life of every man and woman. I wished Therese could realize that we were only friends. — Mbella Sonne Dipoko

Heavenly Father, we thank You for preserving Jayden's life," Telford prayed. "Heal him physically and heal him spiritually as well. Jayden's a good child, but his heart is prone to wander. Even though he hasn't yet believed in You, we know that He's Yours. Help us as his friends and family to help him through his confusion and pain. However, we can't save him - only You can do that, and so we pray that You'll open his eyes and heart to Your love. Have him to — Juliette Duncan

While it only takes one spouse to be friendly, it takes both spouses to be friends. When both spouses are unfriendly, the marriage is marked by conflict and coldness. When one spouse is friendly and the other is unfriendly, the marriage is marked by selfishness and sadness. But when both spouses each make a deep, heartfelt covenant with God to continually seek to become a better friend, increasing love and laughter mark the marriage. — Mark Driscoll

We only live once, and how would you want to be remembered? I have kids. I have, due to my job, a probably higher responsibility to do good things in my life. But also, since I was a kid, I love doing things out of context, helping friends, being different, being a special kind of man is important for me. — Gilles Marini

The problem with sex
Is that it changes everything.
Brad and I are still friends.
But we're a different kind
of friends. More than pals.
More, even, than fuck buddies.
It's like we're stand-ins
for the true loves of our lives.
And the only way to be that
is to let ourselves love
each other. — Ellen Hopkins

You're a hopeless romantic," said Faber. "It would be funny if it were not serious. It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios, and televisors, but are not. No,no it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. Of course you couldn't know this, of course you still can't understand what I mean when i say all this. You are intuitively right, that's what counts. — Ray Bradbury

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. — Banana Yoshimoto

I promise not to step on you - I only look like a clodhopper," he was saying when Jo reached them. He winked at Ella, who glanced away and blinked, as if surprised that he'd come so close to guessing what she thought.
Jo slid up to the bar behind her sister, planted a stiff arm on the ledge, and raised an eyebrow at him.
He glanced up and saw her.
She expected him to blanche, or bristle, or pretend he'd just forgotten someplace else he had to be. A lot of men did that, when they realized that the girl they thought was alone had brought friends to look out for her.
But instead he only said, "Oh," softly, his smile so wide and earnest that crows'-feet appeared at the edges of his eyes; he smiled as though she was an old friend, as though he had been waiting for Jo a long time and was delighted to see her at last. — Genevieve Valentine

I didn't tell her, because I didn't think it would help, but all people are lost, to varying degrees. I suspected that it's only when we love others - through purpose, friendship, romance, or any combination thereof - that we become found. — Penny Reid

I feel what they feel: man-hating, that volatile admixture of pity, contempt, disgust, envy, alienation, fear, and rage at men. It is hatred not only for the anonymous man who makes sucking noises on the street, not only for the rapist or the judge who acquits him, but for what the Greeks called philo-aphilos, 'hate in love,' for the men women share their lives with-husbands, lovers, friends, fathers, brothers, sons, coworkers. — Judith Levine

Please-tame me!' he said.
'I want to, very much,' the little prince replied. 'But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand.'
'One only understands the things that one tames,' said the fox. 'Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me.'
'What must I do, to tame you?' asked the little prince.
'You must be very patient,' replied the fox. 'First you will sit down at a little distance from me-like that-in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day ... — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Family of friends, people she knows only by their voices. She especially likes Griswald, gruff old butler for wealthy Zack Givens. Meeting Griswald is a shock; he is neither gruff nor old, but a powerful, handsome man. In fact, he is Zack Givens, cold, heartless - and charmed by the artless young woman who brings him chicken soup, treats him like a friend ... and falls in love with the humble man she imagines him to be. Inevitably, she will face his betrayal. Then — Christina Dodd

Friends and relatives might be surprised that I think of myself as lonely. I'm married to a man I not only love but like, and we spend a lot of time together. If I feel like socializing, I can usually find someone to meet for coffee or a drink. — Robin Marantz Henig

But isn't being alone closer to the truest version of ourselves, when we're not linked to another, not diluted by their presence and judgments? We form relationships with others, friends, family. That's fine. Those relationships don't bind the way love does. We can still have lovers, short-term. But only when alone can we focus on ourselves, know ourselves. How can we know ourselves without this solitude? — Iain Reid

Persons under the shock of genuine affliction are not only upset mentally but are all unbalanced physically. No matter how calm and controlled they seemingly may be, no one can under such circumstances be normal. Their disturbed circulation makes them cold, their distress makes them unstrung, sleepless. Persons they normally like, they often turn from. No one should ever be forced upon those in grief, and all over-emotional people, no matter how near or dear, should be barred absolutely. Although the knowledge that their friends love them and sorrow for them is a great solace, the nearest afflicted must be protected from any one or anything which is likely to overstrain nerves already at the threatening point, and none have the right to feel hurt if they are told they can neither be of use or be received. At such a time, to some people companionship is a comfort, others shrink from their dearest friends. — Emily Post

People can have great riches, but without honesty, they never have true respect.
People can have abundant love, but without honesty, they never have real trust.
People can have many friends, but without honesty, they never have loyalty.
People can have sharp minds, but without honesty, they never have admiration.
People can have fame, but without honesty, they never have honor.
Without honesty, a person's light may flicker, but it will never truly shine.
Without honesty, people are left with only lies. — Donald L. Hicks

Hope is not dependent on peace in the land, justice in the world, and success in the business. Hope is willing to leave unanswered questions unanswered and unknown futures unknown. Hope makes you see God's guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness. No one can truly say with certainty where he or she will be ten or twenty years from now. You do not know if you will be free or in captivity, if you will be honored or despised, if you will have many friends or few, if you will be liked or rejected. But when you hold lightly these dreams and fears, you can be open to receive every day as a new day and to live your life as a unique expression of God's love for humankind. There is an old expression that says, "As long as there is life there is hope." As Christians we also say, "As long as there is hope there is life. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

I slowly became aware, but only in my head, of something about "the first love" and "the second love." Let me explain. I became more and more intellectually clear that the first love comes from the ultimate life force we call God, who has loved me unconditionally before others knew or loved me. "I have loved you with an everlasting love." And I saw that the second love, the love of parents, family, and friends, was only a modified expression of the first love. I reasoned that the source of my suffering was the fact that I expected from the second love what only the first love could give. When I hoped for total self- giving and unconditional love from another human being who was imperfect and limited in ability to love, I was asking for the impossible. I knew from experience that the more I demanded, the more others moved away, cut loose, got angry, or left me, and the more I experienced anguish and the pain of rejection. But I felt helpless to change my behavior. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Death come to all men.
It is only a matter of time.
But even if your flesh is gone,your immortal soul lives on.
Whether you live or die it's the same to me...
That's why i'm not worried.
I don't need to worry.
But...
For some reason,i don't know why,but...
I think she deserves more fun in her life.
I want her to make lots of friends,and have a lot of fun times,and fall in love...Just like everyone at home.
I am a Dullahan,one how guides souls to their resting place...i'm not allowed to change someone's fate
Even so...i still...
I still want to save her.
I...what should i do? — OKAYADO

My husband and I see each other only on weekends, and generally get along well. We're like good friends, life partners able to spend some pleasant time together. We talk about all sorts of things, and we trust each other implicitly. Where and how he has a sex life I don't know,and I don't really care. We never make love, though
never even touch each other. I feel bad about it, but I don't want to touch him. I just don't want to. — Haruki Murakami

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends. — Friedrich Nietzsche

It is this law of love and its recognition as a rule of conduct in all our relations with friends, enemies and offenders which must inevitably bring about the complete transformation of the existing order of things,
not only among Christian nations, but among all the peoples of the globe — Leo Tolstoy

Before drifting away entirely, he found himself reflecting
not for the first time
on the peculiarity of adults. Thet took laxatives, liquor, or sleeping pills to drive away their terrors so that sleep would come, and their terrors were so tame and domestic: the job, the money, what the teacher will think if I can't get Jennie nicer clothes, does my wife still love me, who are my friends. They were pallid compared to the fears every child lies cheek and jowl with in his dark bed, with no one to confess to in hope of perfect understanding but another child. There is no group therapy or psychiatry or community social services for the child who must cope with the thing under the bed or in the cellar every night, the thing which leers and capers and threatens just beyond the point where vision will reach. The same lonely battle must be fought night after night and the only cure is the eventual ossification of the imaginary faculties, and this is called adulthood. — Stephen King

My husband. No! A moment!" He was tearing himself apart from her. "We shall not be separated long. I feel that this will break my heart by-and-bye; but I will do my duty while I can, and when I leave her, God will raise up friends for her, as He did for me." Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his knees to both of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and seized him, crying: "No, no! What have you done, what have you done, that you should kneel to us! We know now, what a struggle you made of old. We know, now what you underwent when you suspected my descent, and when you knew it. We know now, the natural antipathy you strove against, and conquered, for her dear sake. We thank you with all our hearts, and all our love and duty. Heaven be with you!" Her father's only answer was to draw his hands through his white hair, and wring them with a shriek of anguish. — Charles Dickens

The importance of friends few people would be able to recognize some friend comes in our life readily and consequently they goes but life doesn't stop for anyone but only one thing remains that is their memories which cannot be wipe out as you guys always remain in my heart and we are the best — Avinash Advani

The last time I checked, the only difference between my gay friends and I is who we choose to love. I'm not sure how that warrants a loss of rights, but it needs to stop. What ever happened to liberty and justice for all? — Pink

My mother and father were married this way and are quite happy. I hope to find happiness, too. To find a woman that all of Illea can love, someone to be my companion and to help entertain the leaders of other nations. Someone who will befriend my friends and be my confidante. I'm ready to find my wife.
Something in his voice struck me. There wasn't a trace of sarcasm. This thing that seemed like little more than a game show to me was his only chance for happiness. He couldn't try with a second round of girls. Well, maybe he could, but how embarrassing. He was so desperate, so hopeful. I felt my distaste for him lessen. Marginally. — Kiera Cass