Once I Had A Friend Quotes & Sayings

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

So I spoke to my old friend Bruce and told him I was feeling it, his loss of Clarence. We talked for quite a while, and there is no need to go into what two old friends had to say to each other at this point, except to say that two old friends spoke to each other about their music, their muses, their partners in crime, their proof, their friendship, their souls and their lives. Ben Keith was my Clarence Clemons. Clarence Clemons was Bruce's Ben Keith. When he died last year it touched me to the core. I don't want to ever think of any one else playing his parts or occupying his space. No one could. I can't do those songs again unless it's solo. So I told Bruce, "Waylon once looked at me and said, 'There's very few of us left.'" He liked that. I told him when he looked to his right I would be there. That's enough. I'm not talking about that anymore. — Neil Young

I was not always that way, but perhaps the shadow Earth, where I spent so many years, mellowed me a bit, and maybe my hitch in the dungeons of Amber reminded me somewhat of the quality of human suffering. I do not know. I only know that I could not pass by the hurt I saw on the form of someone much like someone who had once been a friend. — Roger Zelazny

You had me at Hello
You had me at hello, but now it's time to say goodbye.
Whilst my lungs draw breath and my heart beats a steady beat,
beside me, for you there will always be a seat.
You my special friend brought laughter and smiles that knew no end.
Although physically you may be gone, my memories of you will live on and on.
I know within my soul once again that we shall meet and when we do,
that seat is still reserved especially for you.
You had me at hello, for now my friend I say goodbye. — Michael Tianias

A dear and long-time friend, ... asked me, "Jack, how long does it usually take you to write a book?" I replied, "Of course it depends on the project and its requirements, each book has its own rules. But for a statement to the world at large, once I've thought a book through and written it in my mind, it takes me around a week or so, depending on this and that, ordinarily at the rate of a chapter a day, but I've had some two-chapters day and some chapters have taken two days. And then of course there is revision, but around a week is about right." He seemed surprised, and I was surprised by his surprise, so I thought, maybe I'm wrong. I went home and wrote this book, at the perfectly normal pace of a chapter a day, as usual ... — Jacob Neusner

Not long ago, having expressed some disagreements in print with an old comrade of long standing, I was sent a response that he had published in an obscure newspaper. This riposte referred to my opinions as 'racist.' I would obviously scorn to deny such an allegation on my own behalf. I would, rather, prefer to repudiate it on behalf of my former friend. He had known me for many years and cooperated with me on numerous projects, and I am quite confident that he would never have as a collaborator anyone he suspected of racial prejudice. But it does remind me, and not for the first time, that quarrels on the left have a tendency to become miniature treason trials, replete with all kinds of denunciation. There's a general tendency - not by any means confined to radicals but in some way specially associated with them - to believe that once the lowest motive for a dissenting position has been found, it must in some way be the real one. — Christopher Hitchens

Liza made a sudden decision. "I'll be your friend," she announced. she had trouble speaking the words but was glad once she had spoken them. She did not really want to be friends with an enormous rat of questionable sanity, but it seemed the right thing to say. — Lauren Oliver

I had a bartender friend once tell me about a $14.00 shot of vodka, this was years ago it's probably more now. I thought that was crazy. From what I understand, vodka has no taste. I think people like the taste of their money. — Ian MacKaye

We lived only to dance. What was the true characteristic of a queen, I wondered later on; and you could argue that forever. "What do we all have in common in this group?" I once asked a friend seriously, when it occurred to me how slender, how immaterial, how ephemeral the bond was that joined us; and he responded, "We all have lips." Perhaps that is what we all had in common: no one was allowed to be serious, except about the importance of music, the glory of faces seen in the crowd. We had our songs, we had our faces! We had our web belts and painter's jeans, our dyed tank tops and haircuts, the plaid shirts, bomber jackets, jungle fatigues, the all-important shoes. — Andrew Holleran

Once I knew, then I forgot. It was as if I had fallen asleep in a field only to discover at waking that a grove of trees had grown up around me.
"Doubt nothing, believe everything," was my friend's idea of metaphysics, although his brother ran away with his wife. He still bought her a rose every day, sat in the empty house for the next twenty years talking to her about the weather.
I was already dozing off in the shade, dreaming that the rustling trees were my many selves explaining themselves all at the same time so that I could not make out a single word. My life was a beautiful mystery on the verge of understanding, always on the verge! Think of it!
My friend's empty house with every one of its windows lit. The dark trees multiplying all around it. — Charles Simic

If I had even been his friend, well and good: the artful indiscretion of the true friend is intelligible to everybody; but I only saw Pechorin once in my life - on the high-road - and, consequently, I cannot cherish towards him that inexplicable hatred, which, hiding its face under the mask of friendship, awaits but the death or misfortune of the beloved object to burst over its head in a storm of reproaches, admonitions, scoffs and regrets. — Mikhail Lermontov

Once, I was coming back from school, and there was this guy who was eve-teasing me and my friend. I had a Milton water bottle that I flung it at his face. My dad told me if you are in a crowded place and a guy eve-teases, you should make noise. I did exactly that and got people on the road to beat up the guy. — Anushka Sharma

I had a friend who was a plastic surgeon, so he would do little things. I never had, like, a full thing. So I would go in maybe once every two or three years, and he'd do a little here, a little there; tweak you, like you tweak your car. Then I became the plastic surgery poster girl. — Joan Rivers

My worse date ever?" I asked. "I don't know. I'm always amazed when the other person doesn't ask you anything about yourself. This one date - once the autobiography started, it wouldn't stop. I actually sat there, thinking, Wow, you're not going to ask me a single question, are you? And sure enough. Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour. Only one subject. And it wasn't me." "So, what did you do?" you asked. "I just started counting. Like sheep. And when the waiter asked if we wanted to have dessert, my date started to order, and I interrupted and said I had promised a friend to walk his dog. What about you? — David Levithan

I had a dog once. I thought so much of him that when he died I couldn't bear the thought of getting another in his place. He was a FRIEND - you understand, Mistress Blythe? Matey's only a pal. I'm fond of Matey - all the fonder on account of the spice of devilment that's in him - like there is in all cats. But I LOVED my dog. I always had a sneaking sympathy for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog. There isn't any devil in a good dog. That's why they're more lovable than cats, I reckon. — L.M. Montgomery

I agree with you," replied the stranger; "we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves
such a friend ought to be
do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I
I have lost everything, and cannot begin life anew. — Mary Shelley

Trull watched Cotillion walk through the archway, and the Tiste Edur's gaze fell once more on the body of Ahlrada Ahn. As Shadowthrone approached Quick Ben, Trull climbed to his feet and made his way to where his friend was lying. Ahlrada Ahn. I do not understand you - I have never understood you - but I thank you nonetheless. I thank you ...
He stepped to the entranceway, looked out, and saw Cotillion, the Patron of Assassins, the god, sitting on a shelf of stone that had slipped down from one wall, sitting, alone, with his head in his hands. — Steven Erikson

Shergahn and friend lay like poleaxed steers, and the Daranfelian's greasy hair was thick with potatoes, carrots, gravy, and chunks of beef. His companion had less stew in his hair, but an equally large lump was rising fast, and Brandark flipped his improvised club into the air, caught it in proper dipping position, and filled it once more from the pot without even glancing at them. He raised the ladle to his nose, inhaled deeply, and glanced at the cook with an impudent twitch of his ears.
"Smells delicious," he said while the laughter started up all around the fire. "I imagine a bellyful of this should help a hungry man sleep. Why, just look what a single ladle of it did for Shergahn! — David Weber

I had a musician friend once tell me that it's not in the orchestra that you get the true test of the musicians but in the little trios and quintets where you really get to see if they've got the stuff. And the composer. — Wes Craven

Once Upon A Time I began. We made it through three stories before she was in a deep sleep. In the end, she probably didn't have a better grasp on our legal system, racism, or social complexity. However, she now knew that sometimes the most loyal friend you could have was a mouse, that sometimes people weren't always who they seemed, even if their eyes were allegedly only bigger to see you with, and that everyone had the capacity to live happily ever after. It wasn't in her lesson plan, and maybe it wasn't all true, but it was important. — Jessica Fortunato

My friend George and I were walking on the beach in Norfolk, and there were thousands of [razor-clam] shells. They were so beautiful, I thought I had to do something with them. So, we decided to make [a dress] out of them ... The shells had outlived their usefulness on the beach, so we put them to another use on a dress. Then Erin [O'Conner] came out and trashed the dress, so their usefulness was over once again. Kind of like fashion, really. — Alexander McQueen

Uh, Miss Carlson," I said, standing at her desk after everybody else had gone on to their next class, "somebody told me you went to that guy's funeral the one the highway patrol shot."
"Yes," SHe said. "I did."
She didn't look like she was mad at me about it. She had real long eyelashes. I bet she was good-looking when she was young.
"Was he a relative or something?" That was what I was afraid of.
"No. Not even a friend really." She paused, like she was hunting for the right words. Finally she said, "I read a book once that ended with the words 'the incommunicable past' You can only share the past with someone who's shared it with you. So I can't explain to you what Mark was to me, exactly. I knew him a long time ago. — S.E. Hinton

When I was 17 me and my friend had mopeds. We used to play a game where we would close our eyes and drive while counting to the highest number we could. Once I got to eight, and that was pretty much the most stupid thing I've ever done in my life. I ended up on the other side of the road. — Jason Flemyng

Neil Leckman
I had a friend once that told me when we die and get to the pearly gates we are admitted based on our deeds.
1 good deed is a step forward
1 bad deed is two steps back.
By the time he's through with you I'm not sure you'll even be able to see the gates!! — Neil Leckman

I've known Prince for many years - I worked on the "Raspberry Beret" video - and Kirstie [Alley] and I used to fight about him.He once sent a card [saying] he had penned a song about me, called "Palomino Pleasure Ride." I remember bringing this card to work one time and showing Kirstie and saying: "See? Now who's the better friend?" It was so ridiculous. — Kirstie Alley

Tom Dancer's gift of a whitebark pine cone

You never know
What opportunity
Is going to travel to you,
Or through you.

Once a friend gave me
A small pine cone-
One of a few
He found in the scat

Of a grizzly
In Utah maybe,
Or Wyoming.
I took it home

And did what I supposed
He was sure I would do-
I ate it,
Thinking

How it had traveled
Through that rough
And holy body.
It was crisp and sweet.

It was almost a prayer
Without words.
My gratitude, Tom Dancer,
For this gift of the world
I adore so much
And want to belong to.
And thank you too, great bear — Mary Oliver

I believe in logic, the sequence of cause and effect, and in science its only begotten son our law, which was conceived by the ancient Greeks, thrived under Isaac Newton, suffered under Albert Einstein ...
That fragment of a 'creed for materialism' which a friend in college had once shown him rose through Donald's confused mind. — John The Apostle

The material comes from whenever you realize that you and someone else have something in common. So any conversation you've had more than once, anything you see happening to you that you see happening to a friend, you go, Hmmm, that's a situation I can make funny. — Chris Rock

One Saturday morning walking to the farmers' market with my lover she tells me she needs to look like a man on the street. She hates binding her breasts. Hates having breasts, hates not passing. I press her. I ask her, but what do you feel like when you're naked in bed with me? Do you like your body then? She is quiet. Later she tells me she had a dream. Her mother brought home a bottle of medicine from the hospital for her. The doctor says she has to take it. The medicine is testosterone.

On Shabbat I remember to pray for enough space inside of me to hold all the darkness of the night and all the sunlight of the day. I pray for enough space for transformations as miraculous as the shift from day to night.

Later when that lover has changed his name and an ex-boyfriend has come out to me as a lesbian I go to visit my best friend's sister-turned-brother-turned-sister-again and she tells me about the blessing of having many names and using them all at once. — M.J. Kaufman

Almost everyone in heaven has someone on Earth they watch, a loved one, a friend or even a stranger who was once kind, who offered warm food or a bright smile when one of us had needed it. And when I wasn't watching I could hear the others talking to those they loved on Earth: just as fruitlessly as me, I'm afraid. A one-sided card cajoling and coaching of the young, a one way loving and desiring of their mates, a single-sided card that could never get signed. — Alice Sebold

After receiving such a warm welcome, it sounded to me like the Directorate of Intelligence had placed me on the CIA's "don't screw with this guy list". This list was something of an urban legend throughout The Company. Once on it, you had it made. Everyone at the CIA would go out of his or her way to be helpful and red tape would magically vanish for you. It meant that you had a very powerful patron at the top levels of the Agency. I may have been hustled out of Headquarters but I apparently still had a very powerful friend in high places. — Michael Connick

I once asked my friends if they'd ever held things that gave them a spooky sense of history. Ancient pots with three-thousand-year-old thumbprints in the clay, said one. Antique keys, another. Clay pipes. Dancing shoes from WWII. Roman coins I found in a field. Old bus tickets in second-hand books. Everyone agreed that what these small things did was strangely intimate; they gave them the sense, as they picked them up and turned them in their fingers, of another person, an unknown person a long time ago, who had held that object in their hands. You don't know anything about them, but you feel the other person's there, one friend told me. It's like all the years between you and them disappear. Like you become them, somehow. — Helen Macdonald

J.P. Morgan once had a friend who was so worried about his stock holdings that he could not sleep at night. The friend asked, 'What should I do about my stocks?' Morgan replied, 'Sell down to your sleeping point' Every investor must decide the trade-off he or she is willing to make between eating well and sleeping well. High investment rewards can only be achieved at the cost of substantial risk-taking. So what is your sleeping point? Finding the answer to this question is one of the most important investment steps you must take. — Burton Malkiel

I continued, louder. "I miss my grandfather every day, but a very smart friend once told me that everything happens for a reason. If I hadn't lost him, well, I never would've found you. So I guess I had to lose one part of my family to find another. Anyway, that's how you make me feel. Like family. Like one of you. — Ransom Riggs

I have this recurring nightmare in which I have to move back in with my old college roommates. I'll admit, that's what I was expecting to find at Oneida. The 19th century equivalent of sharing a house with the friend who brought home a crazy drifter to sleep on our couch - a man who claimed the local car dealership was built out of 'needles nourishing the earth'. The week before I went to Oneida, I had that claustrophobic dream again - that I had to move back in with the girl who claimed to enjoy baking and always promised tomorrow was going to be 'Muffin Day!' even though tomorrow was never Muffin Day. It was Muffin Day maybe once. — Sarah Vowell

There are cultural and societal prejudices that make it hard for us to write. It has been my experience that for some men, the struggle to write involves the prejudice that it is not "manly" to reveal the inner life, the secrets of the heart and of the imagination. For many women, the struggle to write is at base a struggle against the idea that women's lives are not of interest as literature. I have a friend whose husband once said after her first book had been published, "You sit there writing as if your life had some significance. — Pat Schneider

Culloden, Scotland, April 1746
All around was the awful sound of moaning. It was not just mournful, but the sound of immense suffering, the cries of dying men. The battle had waged on, and the day was far spent. In dirt and blood, the soldiers waded on. Horizontal rain, snow, and wind made the normal battle conditions much worse.
Near the edge of the field I stood holding a gun, pointing it at the lad who had once been my best friend. He was dressed in the red coat of a government soldier; I was not. — David Holdsworth

You told me men don't do this."
"Do what?"
She walked around the counter, speaking animatedly. "Two years ago. We were at Firelight, having drinks. Cade and I had split up and you said that men don't mope around after a breakup. You said that men avoid issues, get drunk, and pick up a new girl to forget the old one - but that you don't brood."
Ford held out his hands in disbelief. "How do you remember that? And I'm not brooding."
She folded her arms across her chest and looked at him.
"I know you're my friend," he said. "But please, for once, can you just act like you have a penis?
Because I don't want to talk about this."
She shrugged. "Fine. We'll just sit here and listen to music." She reached for his phone again.
"Have you heard Taylor Swift's new song?"
"No."
"Well, you're going to - on endless repeat until you start talking. — Julie James

At this time I choseas friends two little girls of my own age; but how shallow are the hearts of creatures! Oneof them had to stay at home for some months; while she was away I thought about her veryoften, and on her return I showed how pleased I was. However, all I got was a glance of indifference-my friendship was not appreciated. I felt this very keenly, and I no longer soughtan affection which had proved so inconstant. Nevertheless I still love my little school friend,and continue to pray for her, for God has given me a faithful heart, and when once I love,I love for ever. — Therese Of Lisieux

I had a friend once who looked at his library and discovered that even if he completely stopped filmmaking (he was a filmmaker too) and just decided to read the books he had in his library, it would take him until he was 100 years old. He was a little bit panicked. But he was courageous. He went out of his house. He went to the bookstore. And he bought ten books. — Alain Resnais

Your mother brought a strange man to this house once, Katarina. I had hoped it might be a few years before history repeated itself."
Kat rolled her eyes at the mention of her father. "Uncle Eddie, I brought Hale home ages ago," she reminded him; but her uncle just shook his head.
"I've known my great-niece's friend. A boyfriend, on the other hand ... that is a most different matter."
"Yes, sir," Hale said. He stood up a little straighter, spoke a little louder.
"You have a powerful family, boy."
"Yes, sir," Hale said. "Please don't hold them against me."
Then Eddie gave a wry smile. "Who says I was talking about them? — Ally Carter

At this the last of my anger oozed all out of me; and I found myself only sick, and sorry, and blank, and wondering at myself. I would have given the world to take back what I had said; but a word once spoken, who can recapture it? I minded me of all Alan's kindness and courage in the past, how he had helped and cheered and borne with me in our evil days; and then recalled my own insults, and saw that I had lost for ever that doughty friend. At the same time, the sickness that hung upon me seemed to redouble, and the pang in my side was like a sword for sharpness. I thought I must have swooned where I stood. — Robert Louis Stevenson

My friend Dick Bass (now in his 70s) has travelled far and wide and had many adventures. His achievements include being the first person to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents, as well as being the oldest person (by five years) to climb Mount Everest (at the age of 55.) He once told me a story of a plane ride, on which he sat next to a nice man who listened to him go on about the treacherous peaks of Everest and McKinley, the time he almost died in the Himalayas, and his upcoming plan to reclimb Everest. Just before the plane landed, Bass turned to the man sitting next to him and said, 'After all this, I don't think I've introduced myself. My name is Dick Bass.' The man shook his hand, and responded, 'Hi, I'm Neil Armstrong. — Roger Horchow

I can't bury another friend."
"You won't."
"If anything ever happened to you, Rowan-"
"Don't" he breathed. "Don't even say it. We dealt with that enough the other night."
He lifted a hand - hesitated, and then brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. His callused fingers scrapped against her cheekbone, then caressed the shell of her ear.
It was foolish to even start down that road, when every other man she'd let in had left some wound, in one way or another, accidentally or not.
There was nothing tender in his face. Only a predator's glittering gaze. "When we get back," he said, "remind me to prove you wrong about every thought that just went through your head."
She lifted an eyebrow. "Oh?"
He gave her a sly smile that made thinking impossible. Exactly what he wanted - to distract her from the horrors of tomorrow. "I'll even let you decide how I tell you: with words"- his eyes flickered once to her mouth- "or with my teeth and tongue. — Sarah J. Maas

Winter Liar by Liam Doyle the Incubus
What come once here will never come again,
no matter monument nor memory;
all sunwarmed green succumbs to winter's wind.
And you, my love, were also my best friend,
and had your life to live. The tragedy
was not just my youth's recklessness, although
I trusted much to impulse, whim, freedom,
a destiny excluding doom. Frankly,
youth can be our insanity. But now I'm cured
of that fever, although the price was high;
and chilly April wind can only sigh
at my regrets, yet sun will brighten wind so,
one knows that soon green stirs, and wild bees hum.
And summer once more will make winter liar,
but I won't warm. You're all I'll ever desire. — Juliet Dark

I'm not a big drinker and I don't smoke either. I've only been drunk a few times, but I did moon my friend once. I had knickers on! I'll leave the real mooning to the boys. — Nikki Sanderson

Never once, during any of my bouts of depression, had I been inclined or able to pick up a telephone and ask a friend for help. It wasn't in me. — Kay Redfield Jamison

One must know something of the truth in order to lie convincingly." The president smiled. "Well, they've had enough time to play this game. I hope my belated reaction will not disappoint them." "No, sir. Alex must have half expected you to kick him out the door." "The thought's occurred to me more than once. His diplomatic charm has always been lost on me. That's the one thing about the Russians - they remind me so much of the mafia chieftains I used to prosecute. The same smattering of culture and good manners, and the same absence of morality." The president shook his head. He was talking like a hawk again. "Stay close, Jeff. I have George Farmer coming in here in a few minutes, but I want you around when our friend comes back." Pelt walked back to his office pondering the president's remark. It was, he admitted to himself, crudely accurate. The most wounding insult to an educated Russian was to be — Tom Clancy

I once asked a car-crash victim what it had felt like to be in a smashup. She said her eeriest memory was how one second the car was her friend, working for her, its contours designed to fit her body perfectly, everything smooth and sleek and luxurious, and then a blink of an eye later it had become a jagged weapon of torture- like she was inside an iron maiden. Her friend had become her worst enemy. — Jon Ronson

Eventually my father bought a vacation house for us in Port Saint Lucie, Florida. My dad's friend had died, so my father bought the house from his widow. We would go down there once a year, and my father believed that he had bought a good investment property. Twelve years later he would sell it at a loss. Almost immediately after the sale, Club Med built a resort there near where the New York Mets would set up their spring training camp soon after. I've tracked articles since then about how Port Saint Lucie has had the fastest growing home prices in the country. When I told my friends at Rye Country Day that we had bought a second home in Florida, they were unimpressed because it was not Palm Beach. When I told my friends in Tarrytown that we had bought a house in Florida, they were sad and asked me when my family was moving. Gosh, poor people can be really dumb sometimes. — Greg Fitzsimmons

Suffering. Take the fate of the sick - especially those who are incurable. I once read a letter written by a young invalid, in which he told a friend that he had just found out he would not live for long, that even an operation would be of no help. He wrote further that he remembered a film he had seen in which a man was portrayed who waited for death in a — Viktor E. Frankl

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

How long have you had that cough?" "Ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh!" My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes. "It is nothing," he said, at last. "Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi - " "Enough," he said; "the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough." "True - true, — Edgar Allan Poe

An American economist of two generations ago, H. J. Davenport, who was the best friend Thorstein Veblen ever had (Veblen actually lived for a time in Davenport's coal cellar) once said: "There is no reason why theoretical economics should be a monopoly of the reactionaries." All my life I have tried to take this warning to heart, and I dare call it to your favorable attention. — Paul Samuelson

Number 23 had plenty of redeeming qualities that made falling for him a justifiable accident. But our connection had nothing to do with our similarities, our differences, our aesthetic attractions, or our emotional and physical needs. When we spoke, he was truly with me. Our egos, our personas, expected social cues, the facades that everyone builds around them that are supposed to sculpt the way the world sees us, were stripped with Number 23 and I. He was immediately my best friend, familiar and safe - an epiphany that I had been spending my life alone in crowded rooms.
Our souls were naked. We initially curled into the warmth of that connection. But once we knew how real it was, we felt exposed, vulnerable, and raw. While his defense was his fearful recoil, mine was dictation. — Maggie Young

Well do I remember a friend of mine telling me once--he was then a labourer in the field of literature, who had not yet begun to earn his penny a day, though he worked hard--telling me how once, when a hope that had kept him active for months was suddenly quenched--a book refused on which he had spent a passion of labour--the weight of money that must be paid and could not be had, pressing him down like the coffin-lid that had lately covered the ONLY friend to whom he could have applied confidently for aid--telling me, I say, how he stood at the corner of a London street, with the rain, dripping black from the brim of his hat, the dreariest of atmospheres about him in the closing afternoon of the City, when the rich men were going home, and the poor men who worked for them were longing to follow; and how across this waste came energy and hope into his bosom, swelling thenceforth with courage to fight, and yield no ear to suggested failure. And — George MacDonald

After reading some of my stories, I once had a friend say to me, "I'd love to spend five minutes in your head to see what's going on in there." I warned them, "If you spent five seconds in my mind you'd probably run out screaming and never speak to me again. — Mark W. Boyer

He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and massaged gently. Listen to me, Cat, because I'll only say this once. You're the finest Lady I've ever met and the dearest friend I've ever had. Besides that, I love you like a brother, and any bastard who hurts my little sister is going to answer to me. — Anne Bishop

Gon be hard from here on, Handful. Since that day a year past, I'd got myself a friend in Miss Sarah and found how to read and write, but it'd been a heartless road like mauma said, and I didn't know what would come of us. We might stay here the rest of our lives with the sky slammed shut, but mauma had found the part of herself that refused to bow and scrape, and once you find that, you got trouble breathing on your neck. — Sue Monk Kidd

I leaned back to look at her, seeing only her, this girl who was Ally but also Alona, and who bore a resemblance to a friend i'd once had but was someone new. Someone i could live without, but didn't want to — Stacey Kade

A friend of mine had his own theater company, and he jumped me in like I was in a gang. And once I came in, it was just that simple. For the first time in my life, I felt, 'This is a career, this is a life that I think I can grow old doing.' It was love at first sight. I loved being on stage and reading these plays. It was great. — David Alan Grier

Who needs a dream? Who needs ambition? Who'd be the fool in my position? Once I had dreams, now they're obsessions. Hopes became needs, lovers possessions. Then they move in, oh so discretely. Slowly at first, smiling too sweetly. I opened doors, they walked right through them. Called me their friend, I hardly knew them ... Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Times have been good, fast, entertaining. But what's the point if I'm concealing not only love, all other feeling. — Tim Rice

I once choked on a chip at a friend's birthday when I was seven and had to be sent home, as I'd broken my collarbone coughing. — Stella Young

A friend of mine once saw Mandela in a South African airport and told me this story. The president had noticed a lady who was walking by with her daughter, a beautiful five- or six-year-old girl, with blond hair and blue eyes. Mandela walked up to this little girl and leaned down and shook her hand, and he said, "Do you know who I am?" And the child smiled and said, "Yes, you are President Mandela." Mandela said, "Yes, I am your president. And if you work very hard in school and you learn a lot and you are nice to everybody, you too could grow up to be President of South Africa." Just — Nelson Mandela

She's stronger than you are, Sam. It's like fighting yourself and Caine and Jack and Dekka, all at once."
"Yeah."
"Talk to Astrid about it."
"I already talked to Astrid."
"And she's okay with a suicide mission? Because I'm not. You go out there, go to win, huh? Don't go out there thinking you're doing us a favor by getting killed."
Sam sighed. "It's the endgame, my friend."
"Sam . . .," Edilio began, but that was all he had, that one word, that one-word plea for a different solution.
"Take care of Astrid for me. Try to keep her safe and don't let her follow me. — Michael Grant

We'd walk home together in the foggy summer night and I'd tell her about sex; the good stuff, like how it could be warm and exciting
it took you away
and the not-so-good things, like how once you showed someone that part of yourself, you had to trust them one thousand percent and anything could happen. Someone you thought you knew could change and suddenly not want you, suddenly decide you made a better story than a girlfriend. Or how sometimes you might think you wanted to do it and then halfway through or afterward realize no, you just wanted the company, really; you wanted someone to choose you, and the sex part itself was like a trade-off, something you felt like you had to give to get the other part. I'd tell her that and help her decide. I'd be a friend. — Sara Zarr

Believe that when I am at once a man's friend I am always so-nor is it so very hard to bring me to it. And though a man may enjoy himself in being my enemy, he cannot make me HIS for longer than I wish. Good afternoon." Lowell had a way of leaving a conversation with the other person needing more from him. — Matthew Pearl

Shall I tell you the secret of true love? her father once asked her. A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother's porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums. That's Mama! Inej had cried. Yes, Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same color, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart. That — Leigh Bardugo

Aurora once told me that she knew I was different within the first few months after I was born, because as a baby, I never cried. She had no way of knowing if I was hungry or if my stomach hurt until I was old enough to point and talk. Even when I fell and it was obvious that I had hurt myself, I did not cry. When I didn't get my way, I would go off by myself and sulk or have a tantrum. But I never cried. Later, when I was eleven and Abba died, I didn't cry. When Joseph, my best friend at St. Elizabeth's, died, I didn't cry. Maybe I don't feel what others feel. I have no way of knowing. But I do feel. It's just that what I feel does not elicit tears. What I feel when others cry is more like a dry, empty aloneness, like I'm the only person left in the world.
So it is very strange to feel my eyes well with tears as I read Jasmine's list. — Francisco X Stork

We ordered food a few hours ago and worked through dinner. I had pasta with chicken, while
Kate preferred a turkey club with fries on the side. Much as I hate to admit it, I'm impressed.
Obviously, she doesn't subscribe to the "I can only eat salads in front of the opposite sex" rule of
thumb a lot of chicks swear by. Who gave women that idea? Like a guy's going to say to his friend,
"Dude, she was one fugly chick, but once I saw her chomping that romaine, I just had to nail her. — Emma Chase

I had a couple of really cool friends when I was a kid, and we'd find cool music and movies and show them to each other. My friend Dennis had a copy of 'A Clockwork Orange' and he'd already seen it once, and he was like, 'We need to watch this.' I was sleeping over his house - and I think we were literally 15 - and we watched it. — Gerard Way

(Note curtailment. Not conclusion.) 7. Dementing boredom. (I found small children brutally dull. I did, even at the outset, admit this to myself.) 8. Worthless social life. (I had never had a decent conversation with a friend's five-year-old in the room.) 9. Social demotion. (I was a respected entrepreneur. Once I had a toddler in tow, every man I knew - every woman, too, which is depressing - would — Lionel Shriver

For once, I wished I wasn't so broken, so Rhian had a best friend who was strong and not afraid to love, to hold up as an example of what was possible. Instead, I was her excuse that she wasn't being irrational. I was her enabler. — Samantha Young

Her bedroom window overlooked the garden, and now and then, usually when she was "having a bad spell," Mr. Helm had seen her stand long hours gazing into the garden, as though what she saw bewitched her. ("When I was a girl," she had once told a friend, "I was terribly sure trees and flowers were the same as birds or people. That they thought things, and talked among themselves. And we could hear them if we really tried. It was just a matter of emptying your head of all other sounds. Being very quiet and listening very hard. Sometimes I still believe that. But one can never get quiet enough ... ") — Truman Capote

A friend of ours, the wife of a pastor at a church in Colorado, had once told me about something her daughter, Hannah, said when she was three years old. After the morning service was over one Sunday, Hannah tugged on her mom's skirt and asked. "Mommy, why do some people in church have lights over their heads and some don't?" At the time, I remember thinking two things: First, I would've knelt down and asked Hannah, "Did I have a light over my head? Please say yes!" I also wondered what Hannah had seen, and whether she had seen it because, like my son, she had a childlike faith. — Todd Burpo

Nothing is so sad, in my opinion, as the devastation wrought by age.
My poor friend. I have described him many times. Now to convey to you the difference. Crippled with arthritis, he propelled himself about in a wheelchair. His once plump frame had fallen in. He was a thin little man now. His face was lined and wrinkled. His moustache and hair, and hair, it is true, were still of a jet black colour, but candidly, though I would not for the world have hurt his feelings by saying so to him, this was a mistake. There comes a moment when hair dye is only too painfully obvious. There had been a time when I had been surprised to learn that the blackness of Poirot's hair came out of a bottle. But now the theatricality was apparent and merely created the impression that he wore a wig and had adorned his upper lip to amuse children! — Agatha Christie

Once there lived a man who had a valley-full of needles. And one day the mother of Jesus came to him and said: "Friend, my son's garment is torn and I must needs mend it before he goeth to the temple. Wouldst thou not give me a needle?" And he gave her not a needle, but he gave her a learned discourse on Giving and Taking to carry to her son before he should go to the temple. — Kahlil Gibran

I once had a friend who did the hair for sci-fi movies, and after a particularly bad break-up I stupidly went to her salon and told her she could do anything she liked. She dyed the bottom cherry red and the top peroxide blonde. — Sally Phillips

We didn't talk about problems, or parents, or automobiles, or ambitions. We talked about life ... And the sea was there, forty feet away and getting closer, and the sky over the sea, and the sun going down the sky. And it was cold, and it was the high point of my life.
I'd had high points before.
Once at night walking in the park in the rain in autumn.
Once out in the desert, under the stars, when I turned into the earth turning on its axis. Sometimes thinking, just thinking things through.
But always alone. By myself.
This time I was not alone.
I was on the high mountain with a friend. There is nothing, there is nothing that beats that. If it never happens again in my life, still I can say I was there once. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Miserable! That was the only word I could find to describe how I felt. And I thought once more of the friends I had left behind in the country, the place I had come to call home. I knew I should give my best friend, Cassie, a call. We had promised to phone each other regularly, but my last conversation with her had left me sadder than ever. She'd — Katrina Kahler

John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall.
But I don't want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!
Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far.
I don't feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.
I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.
Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I remember once seeing a guy in the grocery store who looked so much like my character the Archangel Gabriel, I wanted to go up to him and say, 'Hey, put that Red Bull down. You've already got wings.' My friend had to sternly remind me that he was a stranger and I did not, in fact, create him. — Alexandra Adornetto

Deryn had been there every step of the way.
"We are connected, aren't we?"
"Aye," she said, still chewing. "And for us to meet at all, I had to pretend to be a boy. Fancy that."
"Barking destiny," Bovril said, then burped.
Alek put his hands up in surrender. There were worse things than being connected to Deryn Sharp. In fact, the simple fact that she was smiling sent a wave of relief through him - she was his ally again, his friend. Providence seemed to be saying that she always would be.
All at once a fist around his heart loosened its grip.
"It was awful, being at war with you."
Deryn laughed. "I missed you, too, daft prince. — Scott Westerfeld

One of the most common truths of life is that we all take for granted things that simply are. Whether a spouse, a friend, a family, or a home, after enough time has passed, that person, place, or situation becomes the accepted norm of our lives. It is not until we confront the unexpected, not until the normal is no more, that we truly come to appreciate what once we had. I — R.A. Salvatore

(Although I tried to always keep in mind something a friend had once told me: "Your demons may have been ejected from the building, but they're out in the parking lot, doing push-ups.") At — Dan Harris

His rancor doesn't change the fact I had to close the breach no matter the cost." Brishen gazed at the human who once saved his life and called him friend. "You understand I wouldn't have altered anything had that been you instead of Megiddo?"

Serovek chuckled and batted away a demon with the back of his hand. 'I'd hope not. I didn't much relish the idea of being skewered, resurrected and thrown on a sham horse so I can chase demons all over the place. You ruining the entire plan because you had a fit of the vapors about sacrificing me wouldn't endear you to me. — Grace Draven

He's visitin' an old friend," supplied Eragon, dropping his voice into a thick accent. "I'm along t' make sure he don't get lost, if y' get m'meaning. He ain't as young as he used to be - had a bit too much sun when he was young'r. Touch o' the brain fever, y' know." Brom bobbed his head pleasantly. "Right. Go on through," said the guard, waving his hand and dropping the pike. "Just make sure he doesn't cause any trouble." "Oh, he won't," promised Eragon. He urged Cadoc forward, and they rode into Teirm. The cobblestone street clacked under the horses' hooves. Once they were away from the guards, Brom sat up and growled, "Touch of brain fever, eh?" "I couldn't let you have all the fun," teased Eragon. Brom harrumphed and looked away. — Christopher Paolini

I had a vision of the afterlife of Homo sapiens: I saw a galactic ice sheet so vast and barren that, stumbling through the cold, you might only encounter another soul once in a lifetime. But this is eternity, a billion lifetimes, and though you walk endlessly alone, eventually you'll cross paths with everyone you lost touch with, every person who stood beside you in a grocery line, every distant uncle and forgotten friend, every human that's ever been. You walk and walk and fall and walk again, and when, at last, you near the warmth of another human heart, regardless of their race or language, age or appearance, you clutch them for all you're worth. The — Adam Johnson

On the other hand, men are sometimes wildly inappropriate in the way they share with women. By a show of hands, how many of you have seen a strange penis on the street? On the subway? At a sleepover? I was once walking with my friend Keri in the middle of the day and some guy asked us for the time. When we looked down at our watches, his dick was in his hands. We giggled and screamed and ran away. We were probably ten. I have been really drunk in high school and had a guy try to fool around with me. I have been called a bitch and a lesbian when I rejected a guy in college. I have locked eyes with various subway masturbators. I have been mugged but not raped, pushed and spit on by someone I knew, and forced to pull over in a road-rage incident where a man stuck his head into my car and told me he was going to "cum in my face." And I count myself very lucky. That is what "very lucky" feels like. Oof. — Amy Poehler