That One Good Friend Quotes & Sayings

For me, there are distinct levels of friendship:
BEST FRIEND: An extremely close individual you can do anything with, talk about everything with, confide in, and be comfortable with sitting in silence on car journeys; those people you consider to be part of your family
GOOD FRIEND: A person you are comfortable hanging out with one-on-one for an extended period of time and see semiregularly; someone who shares experiences with you but not your deepest troubles and secrets
FRIEND: Someone you hang out with in a group setting occasionally
Acquaintance: Someone you know on a first-name basis and say "hi" to but that's pretty much the extent of it
STRANGERS: The rest of the world (and all your potential best friends in the future) — Connor Franta

Friendship is the bestiest thing that comes to life . Friends will always be there for you don't worry about the fakes worry about the people who had your back from the start and never treated you wrong always remember they are your real friends don't never take them as granted because one day your going to lose a good friend by the way your action's are when you see a good friend stick to that person . — Marilyn Monroe

Without really intending to, without really thinking about where it might lead, I said, "How does one get one's mind clean?"
That is the very best question, my friend. The answer is a simple answer, but very hard also: Live a good life. Help people. Meditate. Live another good life. Meditate some more. Don't hurt. Don't hurt. Don't hurt. — Roland Merullo

But Moses could be hard too. And God can be hard." "Oh yes. God is good and just. He chastises us as we would chastise a child, for our own good." Ardon listened, but it was clear to Phinehas that he had shut his heart. "One of these days," he said, "you're going to grow up. Until you do, you're just a spoiled boy." Ardon was angry at his friend's words, but he did not argue, for he respected Phinehas, as did everyone. — Gilbert Morris

Now having Brynhildic fantasies about her was nothing
I have all sorts of extraordinary fantasies which I don't take seriously
but bringing my fantasies into the real world frightened me very much. It's not that they were bad in themselves, but they were Unreal and therefore culpable; to try to make Real what was Unreal was to mistake the very nature of things; it was a sin not against conscience (which remained genuinely indifferent during the whole affair) but against Reality, and of the two the latter is far more blasphemous. It's the crime of creating one's own Reality, of "preferring oneself" as a good friend of mine says. — Joanna Russ

Always remember, my good friends, that there is one sin we must never commit, and it is to humiliate another person or to allow another person to be humiliated in our presence without us screaming and shouting and protesting. — Elie Wiesel

Quote of the Day The late Dr. Adrian Rogers (1931-2005) offered the following observation several years ago and it bears poignant significance today: You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the rich out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply the wealth by dividing it. — Adrian Rogers

After a couple of kids, there might be one good friend left. And that friend is never available because she has too many kids herself. I'm amazed mothers have anyone to talk to. When a man finds out he's going to be a father, it barely covers more than twenty seconds of a conversation with his male friends. I heard you two are expecting! Congratu ... Who do you think is the best quarterback in the fourth quarter? — Jim Gaffigan

How can life be worth living, to use the words of Ennius, which lacks that repose which is to be found in the mutual good-will of a friend? What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself? Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy? On the other hand, misfortunes would be hard to bear if there were not some one to feel them even more acutely than yourself. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Serena's not worried her friend is gonna feel bad she's not as good at tennis as Serena is. You know why? Because in order to be as good as Serena, you have to decide that your goal is that NO ONE is going to be as good as you are at tennis.
Then you have to make it true. — Shonda Rhimes

You met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my good looks. One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who explained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me that revealed to me the wonder of beauty. In a mad moment that, even now, I don't know whether I regret or not, I made a wish, perhaps you would call it a prayer ... . — Oscar Wilde

It's been said that happiness writes white. It doesn't show up on the page. When you're on holiday and writing a letter home to a friend, no one wants a letter that says the food is good and the weather is charming and the accommodations comfortable. You want to hear about lost passports and rat-filled shacks. — Martin Amis

I would sink into the relief I felt from having friends like these girls. Smart. Patient. Good daughters and sisters. That's who I ran with. That being said, I still went through the young-girl rites of passage, including being kicked out of the group. Almost every girl goes through this weird living nightmare, where you show up at school and realize people have grown to hate you overnight. It's a Twilight Zone moment when you can't figure out what is real. It is a group mind-fuck of the highest kind, and it makes or breaks you. I got through it by keeping my head down, and a few weeks passed and all the girls liked me again. We all pretended it never happened. There should be manuals passed out to teach girls how to handle that inevitable one-week stretch when up is down and the best friend who just slept over at your house suddenly pulls your hair in front of everyone and laughs. — Amy Poehler

For Jefferson, there was one step crucial to creating a genuine natural aristocracy. The poor and rich had to have equal access to a good education. That's why, despite being soemthing of a liberatarian, he repeatedly proposed that the state pay for universal primary education as well as fund education at later stages. He was met with opposition from many quarters, mostly those wary of big government or highter taxes. Yet interestingly, one of this most ardent supporters was an old friend and political opponent, the conservative John Adams. "The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it," Adams wrote. "There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people. — Fareed Zakaria

Guy talk doesn't mean you have to be disrespectful to women," Bernie states. "It will do you both some good to remember that. Women weren't put on this earth to please us nor serve us. Women were formed to be companions, partners in crime, and compasses to guide us through right and wrong. They are here to be our rock, our best friend and the one person we turn to in good times and bad. — Meghan Quinn

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

He used to say that it was better to have one friend of great value than many friends who were good for nothing. — Diogenes Laertius

With the persistence of data, there is, too, the persistence of people. If you friend someone as a ten-year-old, it takes positive action to unfriend that person. In principle, everyone wants to stay in touch with the people they grew up with but social networking makes the idea of "people from one's past" close to an anachronism. Corbin reaches for a way to express his discomfort. he says "For the first time, people will stay your friends. It makes it harder to let go of your life and move on." Sanjay, sixteen, who wonders if he will be "writing on my friends' walls when I'm a grown-up," sums up his misgivings: "For the first time people can stay in touch with people all of their lives. But it used to be good that people could leave their high school friends behind and take on new identities. — Sherry Turkle

It was all a mistake," he pleaded, standing out of his ship, his wife slumped behind him in the deeps of the hold, like a dead woman. "I came to Mars like any honest enterprising businessman. I took some surplus material from a rocket that crashed and I built me the finest little stand you ever saw right there on that land by the crossroads - you know where it is. You've got to admit it's a good job of building." Sam laughed, staring around. "And that Martian - I know he was a friend of yours - came. His death was an accident, I assure you. All I wanted to do was have a hot-dog stand, the only one on Mars, the first and most important one. You understand how it is? I was going to serve the best darned hot dogs there, with chili and onions and orange juice." The — Ray Bradbury

We need to call what is happening out of Washington, D.C., what it is: Bureaucratic terrorism: If you want a list of stories, I could go through a bunch of them, and I could highlight a few: One of them was the IRS audit of my good friend Phil Hart, he's sitting in the audience today. That was bureaucratic terrorism. — Matt Shea

My good friend the Governor said I could settle down at Port Stanley and take things quietly for a few weeks. The street of that port is about a mile and a half long. It has the slaughterhouse at one end and the graveyard at the other. The chief distraction is to walk from the slaughterhouse to the graveyard. For a change one may walk from the graveyard to the slaughterhouse. — Ernest Shackleton

I have plenty of good friends that I think the world of - and Bob [Dylan] is one of them, and I like his music - but with some others ... their music I just don't care too much about all of it. Some of it I like. — Ralph Stanley

Dave watched him standing up at the bar, chatting with one of the old dockworkers as he waited for his drinks, Dave thinking the guys in here knew what it was to be men. Men without doubts, men who never questioned the rightness of their own actions, men who weren't confused by the world or what was expected of them in it.
It was fear, he guessed. That's what he'd always had that they didn't. Fear had settled into him at such an early age - permanently, the way Val's prison friend had claimed sadness did. Fear had founda place in Dave and never left, and so he feared doing wrong and he feared fucking up and he feared not being intelligent and he feared not being a good husband or a good father or much of a man. Fear had been in him so long he wasn't sure he could remember what it had felt like to live without it. — Dennis Lehane

The thing about having one really good friend, one person you talk to all the time about everything, is that you stop really talking to anyone else. You sort of talk to other people, but mostly you have your one person and that's enough.

And then one day, maybe for a good reason or maybe out of nowhere, you can't talk to that friend anymore, and you suddenly realize you can't talk to anyone else. Like, it's physically impossible. No one understands you except that person. it's like you speak another language, and the other person who also speaks it is gone. — Amanda Maciel

One really important thing is to have good friends and family that will be there to help you when the hard times come. Because bad times do come, for everyone, at some point. The good part is, the bad times don't last forever. — Dave Smalley

it takes just as much training to get along with people. Only, training by yourself in the mountains won't do you any good. You need to surround yourself with others. As you get to know them, of course you take the chance that you'll end up hurting them, or they'll end up hurting you. One of those things might very well happen. That's the only way we learn... about others, and about ourselves. You're a black-belt in martial arts, but I'd guess you still a white-belt in social skills. Someday, you're going to meet someone that truly wants to be your friend, and you, theirs. But it if you don't keep training, you won't be ready when that happens." ~Shigure Sohma — Natsuki Takaya

We could scrub the floor for a tired friend, or dress a wound for a patient in a hospital, or lay the table and wash up for the family; but we shall not do it in martyr spirit or with that worse spirit of self-congratulation, of feeling that we are making ourselves more perfect, more unselfish, more positively kind.

We shall do it just for one thing, that our hands make Christ's hands in our life, that our service may let Christ serve through us, that our patience may bring Christ's patience back to the world. — Caryll Houselander

13
NOTES
She hesitated. For two years she had kept as far away from Mikael Blomkvist as she could. And yet he kept sticking to her life like gum on the sole of her shoe, either on the Net or in real life. On the Net it was O.K. There he was no more than electrons and words. In real life, standing on her doorstep, he was still fucking attractive. And he knew her secrets just as she knew all of his. She looked at him for a moment and realized that she now had no feelings for him. At least not those kinds of feelings. He had in fact been a good friend to her over the past year. She trusted him. Maybe. It was troubling that one of the few people she trusted was a man she spent so much time avoiding. Then she made up her mind. It was absurd to pretend that he did not exist. It no longer hurt her to see him. She opened the door wide and let him into her life again. — Stieg Larsson

Here's a stanza from page 68 where the heel of a narrator makes the following observations regarding his "girl-friend" during a post-tryst afterglow:

Several hours later we were lying in her bed, exhausted...
After that one, in the dim lamplight of her bedroom, diffused through the sheets as if through a scrim, I took a good look at her and tried to figure out how she got to me the way she did.

Her face was long enough to qualify as horsy, with a nose to proportion, ever so slightly bulbous & two or three degrees off-true to the left; her teeth were a little too prominent, her lower incisors an ivory jumble, and with her hair up her ears looked like saucers.
There was no denying, though, that she got me going in a way few others ever had.

"Jesus, it's still freezing in here," she said.
— Scott Phillips

It has been jestingly said that the works of John Paul Richter are almost unintelligible to any but the Germans, and even to some of them. A worthy German, just before Richter's death, edited a complete edition of his works, in which one particular passage fairly puzzled him. Determined to have it explained at the source, he went to John Paul himself. The author's reply was very characteristic: "My good friend, when I wrote that passage, God and I knew what it meant; it is possible that God knows it still; but as for me, I have totally forgotten." — Jean Paul

No matter what happens, to either of us," says Sigrud, "you have always been a very good friend to m, Shara Komayd. I have known very few good people. But I think that you are one of them. — Robert Jackson Bennett

Every man's his own friend, my dear," replied Fagin, with his most insinuating grin. "He hasn't as good a one as himself anywhere."
Except sometimes," replied Morris Bolter, assuming the air of a man of the world. "Some people are nobody's enemies but their own, yer know."
Don't believe that!" said the Jew. "When a man's his own enemy, it's only because he's too much his own friend; not because he's careful for everybody but himself. Pooh! Pooh! There ain't such a thing in nature. — Charles Dickens

All men have one refuge, a good friend, with whom you can weep and know that he does not smile. — Menander

I'm essentially a humorist and, I think, a pretty good one. I've known all along that 'My Friend Dahmer' is the one book I'll be most known for, and in a way, that's a drag, as it's nothing like the rest of the work I've done or will do moving forward. But the way I figure, it's better to have a best-known work than not to have one at all. — Derf

[It is hard to know what is good luck and what isn't and therefore whether we should be happy or sad about it. Only time will tell. For example ... ] The Talmud relates a story about two people who wanted to travel by boat. One broke his foot and was unable to make the trip, while his friend got on the boat. The one who missed the boat cursed his misfortune. A few days later, however, he heard that the boat sank and all the passengers drowned. — Zelig Pliskin

No, thanks." Rhage laughed. "I'm a good little sewer, as you know firsthand. Now who's your friend?"
"Beth Randall, this is Rhage. An associate of mine. Rhage, this is Beth, and she doesn't do movie stars, got it?"
"Loud and clear." Rhage leaned to one side, trying to see around Wrath. "Nice to meet you, Beth."
"Are you sure you don't want to go to a hospital?" she said weakly.
"Nah. This one's just messy. When you can use your large intestine as a belt loop, that's when you hit the pros. — J.R. Ward

So we did the only thing we knew to do. We got in the car and drove to Dallas to be at the funeral with Jen. As she and her family walked down the center aisle behind her dad's casket, she smiled at us despite the big tears that were rolling down her cheeks. And that's when I learned one of the most important lessons I've ever learned about what it means to be a good friend: you show up for your people. You don't wait for your friend to ask you to come; you get in your car and go. You don't have to know the right words to say, you don't have to offer sage wisdom about loss and love; you just show up. You hold her hand and hug her neck and wipe her tears. You let her know that you hurt because she is in pain, and you'd do anything to take it from her if you could. You listen.... You show up for your friend, in the good times and the bad times. — Melanie Shankle

Video store arguments really bother me. Let's say it's a slow night on campus so you decide to stay in and rent a movie. You're in the video store and finally pick one out and your friend says, 'Oh, don't get that, it was on TV last week.' I hate when people say that. Who cares? Is it on TV right now? No? Good, then let's rent it. — Aaron Karo

Everything, my good friend, is relative, from the king who stands in the way of his designated successor to the employee who impedes the supernumerary: if the king dies, the successor inherits a crown; if the employee dies, the supernumerary inherits a salary of twelve hundred livres. These twelve hundred livres are his civil list: they are as necessary to his survival as the king's twelve million. Every individual, from the lowest to the highest on the social scale, is at the centre of a little network of interests, with its storms and its hooked atoms, like the worlds of Descartes;2 except that these worlds get larger as one goes up: it is a reverse spiral balanced on a single point. — Alexandre Dumas

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. — Adrian Rogers

We are pretty sure that we and our pets share the same reality, until one day we come home to find that our wistful, intelligent friend who reminds us of our better self has decided a good way to spend the day is to open a box of Brillo pads, unravel a few, distribute some throughout the house, and eat or wear all the rest. And we shake our heads in an inability to comprehend what went wrong here. — Merrill Markoe

43. To his friend a man should bear him as friend,
to him and a friend of his;
but let him beware that he be not the friend
of one who is friend to his foe.
44. Hast thou a friend whom thou trustest well,
from whom thou cravest good?
Share thy mind with him, gifts exchange with him,
fare to find him oft.
45. But hast thou one whom thou trusbut falsely think,
and leasing pay for a lie.
47. Young was I once, I walked alone,
and bewildered seemed in the way;
then I found me another and rich I thought me,
for man is the joy of man.
50. The pine tree wastes which is perched on the hill,
nor bark nor needles shelter it;
such is the man whom none doth love;
for what should he longer live? — Havamal - The Sayings Of The High One

We can make these three dynamic words - "reverence for life" - a part of our lives by becoming aware that God is the source of all life and that we are one with life. "The good person," said Schweitzer, "is the friend of all living things." — Wilferd Peterson

Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes. It is an entirely "neighbor-regarding concern for others," which discovers the neighbor in every man it meets. Therefore, agape makes no distinction between friend and enemy; it is directed toward both. If one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained from the friendship, rather than for the friend's own sake. Consequently, the best way to assure oneself that love is disinterested is to have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution. — Martin Luther King Jr.

At risk of being one of those annoying quote folks, a good friend balked at the idea of putting a steroid needle into this one. She said that I should never risk the story for word counts. I have to admit that she had a damned good point and I'm following her advice on this one. Thanks Lee! So — Wayne Lemmons

You know the more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best. My only solution would be to keep em both out one term and hire my good friend Henry Ford to run the whole thing, and give him a commission on what he saves us. — Will Rogers

Certain it is that scandal is good brisk talk, whereas praise of one's neighbor is by no means lively hearing. An acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and served with mustard and cayenne pepper excites the appetite; whereas a slice of cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Heavy is the head that holds the pen of creation. We construct these characters from nothing, molding them from our imaginations. We give them hopes and dreams and unique personalities until they feel so real you're mind believes it must be so. We watch them grow by our hands, not always knowing the paths they will choose with the obstacles we throw at them. They take on a life of their own and often surprise even us by their actions we couldn't have imagined before it poured out of us onto the paper. We could change it if we really wanted to, but it would be forced and not be true to the characters. And when something tragic happens and one is lost, we feel that loss even though we know they were not a friend, a family member or even ourselves. It can be a hard thing to voice sometimes, to give tribute to the one's left behind with the real sadness over something not so real. But we find the words and press on to the next challenge, because that's what good writers do. — Jennifer A. Marsh

First of all, it's friendship with God that makes possible friendship with one another in a manner that is not that we just like one another, but that were are joined by common judgments, by God, for the good of God's church. Such friendship occurs not by trying to be each other's friend, but by discovering you were engaged in common good work that is so determinative, you cannot live without one another. Now, if the church is that, it will talk about friendship in a way that avoids the superficiality of the language of relationship. Because relationships are meant to be spontaneous and short. Friendship, if it is the friendship of God, is to be characterized by fidelity in which you are even willing to tell the friend the truth. Which may mean you will risk the friendship. You need to be in that kind of community to survive the loneliness that threatens all of our souls. — Stanley Hauerwas

I have always had a weakness for footnotes. For me a clever or a wicked footnote has redeemed many a text. And I see that I am now using a long footnote to open a serious subject - shifting in a quick move to Paris, to a penthouse in the Hotel Crillon. Early June. Breakfast time. The host is my good friend Professor Ravelstein, Abe Ravelstein. My wife and I, also staying at the Crillon, have a room below, on the sixth floor. She is still asleep. The entire floor below ours (this is not absolutely relevant but somehow I can't avoid mentioning it) is occupied just now by Michael Jackson and his entourage. He performs nightly in some vast Parisian auditorium. Very soon his French fans will arrive and a crowd of faces will be turned upward, shouting in unison, 'Miekell Jack-sown'. A police barrier holds the fans back. Inside, from the sixth floor, when you look down the marble stairwell you see Michael's bodyguards. One of them is doing the crossword puzzle in the 'Paris Herald'. — Saul Bellow

When I was a kid
10, 11, 12, 13
the thing I wanted most in the world was a best friend. I wanted to be important to people; to have people that understood me. I wanted to just be close to somebody. And back then, a thought would go through my head almost constantly: "There's never gonna be a room someplace where there's a group of people sitting around, having fun, hanging out, where one of them goes, 'You know what would be great? We should call Fiona. Yeah, that would be good.' That'll never happen. There's nothing interesting about me." I just felt like I was a sad little boring thing. — Fiona Apple

You know what your problem is, Justina? You're in desperate need of a good shag. "Not that I'm offering you one myself, mind. My days as a whore ended back in the seventeen hundreds."
The gin was abruptly sucked back into my lungs as I gasped. He did not just tell my mother about his former profession; sweet Jesus, let me have heard incorrectly!
I hadn't, and Bones went right on. " ... But I have a friend who owes me a favor and he could be persuaded to ... Kitten, are you all right?"
I'd stopped breathing as soon as he casually admitted to his prior occupation. Add that to the liquid stuck in my lungs, and no, I wasn't all right. — Jeaniene Frost

Lampaxa Vorheridine? My Latin was never very good. What does that Translate to?"

"Um, nothing. It wasn't named by an Earth scientist. According to the database it was named by a Cheblookan aboard a frieghter when it stopped here looking for fresh food. His friend was killed by one as they searched the swamp for Greppers. After the hunting party killed the creature and determined that it was safe to eat if processed properly, the Cheblookan reportedly named it after his mother-in-law, Lampaxa Vorheridine. he said it sort of reminded him of her, even though they look nothing alike. — Thomas DePrima

Julian was good at being in love. But he was clever enough to know that what he really liked about being in love was the state of unconsummated tension ... One had to believe that these lovely creatures were, in potentia, the longed for intimate friend from whom nothing need be hidden, by whom everything would be understood, forgiven and admired. But Julian was clever and observant enough to see that love was at its most intense before it was reciprocated. — A.S. Byatt

When it became obvious that the stranger was no longer a threat, Laeth said congenially, "She doesn't like it when men touch her without an invitation. You're lucky that she's in a good mood or she'd have just cut your hand off - that's what she did to the last man who tried it."
A friend of Laeth's leaned over from a nearby table and said sadly, "Poor Jard was never the same."
"Remember what she did to Lothar?" added another man, shaking his head.
"Took us three days to find all the pieces so that we could bury him," commented one of Laeth's fellow lieutenants, a stocky, bald man with a friendly face. He leaned closer and said softly, "But then, Lothar tried to kiss her. — Patricia Briggs

Let the awe [the teacher] has upon [children's] minds be so tempered with the constant marks of tenderness and good will, that affection may spur them to their duty, and make them find a pleasure in complying with his dictates. This will bring them with satisfaction to their tutor; make them hearken to him, as to one who is their friend, that cherishes them, and takes pains for their good; this will keep their thoughts easy and free, whilst they are with him, the only temper wherein the mind is capable of receiving new information, and of admitting into itself those impressions. — John Locke

What motivates Olympic athletes to train for years for one event - in some cases, for just seconds of actual competition? It's the same thing that kept my friend Pete nosing around old bookstores for years. It's the same thing that makes a person venture out of a comfortable job to start a new business. We see it in the artist who spends day after day in a studio chipping away at a block of stone. Look closely and you'll find it in the shopper who passes up the good deal in search of the best deal. It's one of the things that makes us most human. We consciously pursue what we value. It's not simply a matter of being driven by biology or genetics or environmental conditioning to satisfy instinctive cravings. Rather, we perceive something, prize it at a certain value, then pursue it according to that assigned value because we were created that way. This ability to perceive, prize, and pursue is part of our essential humanness, and it's the essence of ambition. — Dave Harvey

I missed my one true friend, my mother. She and I were close in a way I don't think many other mothers and daughters were. I slept beside her every night of my childhood: so near to her back, I could probably sketch the constellation of moles and freckles on her skin there. When I was a very little girl, every morning I would wake before her and arrange myself so that when she woke, we were eye-to-eye. I miss her, with a never-ending ache that I did not think was possible, that crowds out any other feeling and certainly all reason, and any good sense. — Kaitlyn Greenidge

I have a family, loving aunts, and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything except my one true friend. All I think about when I'm with friends is having a good time. I can't bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don't seem to be able to get any closer, and that's the problem. — Anne Frank

She's the one who sits in the back of the classroom.
The one who never raises her hand.
The one who might be the smartest girl you'll ever know.
But ever time she speaks some one speaks their opinion before her.
She's the one who cries herself to sleep.
Who you never see in the hallways.
Who is always late to class because she wants to avoid the wretched bitterness that halls expose.
Who never tells anyone her problems.
Who slices her wrists to get rid of pain.
She is the girl who will never be the same.
She is the girl who will never think she is ever good enough.
She's the one who is feeling like she has no purpose.
She is the one that can raise her voice and stop the bullying but will never choose to.
She might be your best friend.
She might be your daughter.
She might be your girlfriend.
She might just be the girl in the back of you class.
And she will never live the same life she once did. — Sarah Mares

Brother, this is not a day on which hunger is to have any sway, thanks to the rich Camacho; get down and look about for a ladle and skim off a hen or two, and much good may they do you." "I don't see one," said Sancho. "Wait a bit," said the cook; "sinner that I am! how particular and bashful you are!" and so saying, he seized a bucket and plunging it into one of the half jars took up three hens and a couple of geese, and said to Sancho, "Fall to, friend, and take the edge off your appetite with these skimmings until dinner-time comes. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

You were great tonight, helping with Candice's wound and the funeral ceremony for Chaz ... such as it was."
"I only did what needed doing, and as for your friend's funeral, it was a beautiful good-bye you all gave him," she murmured. "Simple but pure. You honored him well, Kellan."
The phrase she used - one reserved for the solemnest occasions in Breed traditions - touched him in a way he couldn't express. Instead, he tipped her chin up on the edge of his hand and kissed her. Not the hungered kind of kiss that they'd been sharing each time they'd connected since her arrival back in his life a few days ago but a kiss shaped by tender caring and gratitude, by profound respect ... and, yes, love.
He loved this woman.
His woman. — Lara Adrian

Those who live with insomnia and who consider sleep both an enemy and a gift will understand the following. Some of us cannot comprehend how anyone except the very good or those who have no conscience at all can sleep from dark to dawn without dreaming or waking. We hear William Blake's tiger padding softly through a green jungle, his stripes glowing, his whiskers spotted with gore. Psychoanalysis does no good. Neither does a health regimen that induces physical exhaustion. The only solution that is guaranteed is the one provided by our old friend Morpheus, who requires our souls in the bargain. — James Lee Burke

For a long time, all the way through to the end of elementary school, Beans was my only friend. Because that's how I've always been. I only need one good friend to see me through. Most people aren't like that. Most people are always looking out for more people to know. In the end, Beans was like most people. After a while she had dozens of friends, and by fifth grade it was pretty obvious that even though she was my best friend, I wasn't hers. — Carol Rifka Brunt

I observed an eighteen-year-old friend of one of our daughters talking to his mother on the telephone. As he hung up the phone in frustration he said, "She makes me so angry, she's always telling me what to think and where to go and how to do things." He was obviously upset and filled with anger. I told him he had one of two choices. He could either continue to practice being right, or practice being kind. If you insist on being right you will argue, get frustrated, angry, and your problem will persist with your mom, I explained. If you simply practice being kind, you can remind yourself that this is your mom, she's always been that way, she will very likely stay that way, but you are going to send her love instead of anger when she starts in with her routine. A simple statement of kindness such as, "That's a good point, Mom, I'll think about it," and you have a spiritual solution to your problem. — Wayne W. Dyer

Writing is the dragon that lives underneath my floorboards. The one I incessantly feed for fear it may turn and devour my ass. Writing is the friend who doesn't return my phone calls; the itch I'm unable to scratch; a dinner invitation from a cannibal; elevator music for a narcoleptic. Writing is the hope of lifting all boats by pissing in the ocean. Writing isn't something that makes me happy like a good cup of coffee. It's just something I do because not writing, as I've found, is so much worse. — Quentin R. Bufogle

I know exactly who you are." I took a step forward, and another, until I was standing right in front of him. Then my words turned to ice. "You are the selfish, spineless son of a king who is too afraid to be his own man. You would rather hide behind your status than fight for something that could actually mean something." There, that felt good. "And it's a shame, really it is, because, according to you, I was the one true friend you had. — Rachel E. Carter

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

It was over Ed's shoulder that I really saw Milli for the first time. She was standing there just looking at me. Ed glanced at Milli and then, like a good friend, Ed walked away.
I have a few mental photographs I can see in my mind's eye. One of them is Milli, hands on her hips, looking me up and down as if the bike and I were one lean machine. Her body language, the gleam in her eyes, the tease in her smile, all combined into an erotic femme challenge. Milli set the action into irresistible motion by lifting on eyebrow. — Leslie Feinberg

St. Chrysostom, suffering under the Empress Eudoxia, tells his friend Cyriacus how he armed himself beforehand...."I thought, will she banish me? 'The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.' Take away my goods? 'Naked came I into the world, and naked must I return.' Will she stone me? I remembered Stephen. Behead me? John Baptist came into my mind," etc. Thus it should be with every one that intends to live and die comfortably: they must, as we say, lay up something for a rainy day; they must stock themselves with graces, store up promises, and furnish themselves with experiences of God's lovingkindness to others and themselves too, that so, when the evil day comes, they may have much good coming thereby. — John Spencer

A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want. — Jane Austen

There's one thing you need to understand," Larry said. "We love because God first loved us, even in the face of all our unloveliness." He paused. He seemed to want to give John time to think about that. Then he said, "Go home and love your wife John."
I'm afraid I can't find the strength in myself to do that, Larry."
Pastor Larry leaned forward, smiling tenderly. "That's good, my friend," he said. "Now we're getting somewhere. — Ann Tatlock

He knows I have a soft spot for RLS and not just because he was sick or because we have the same initials but because there's something impossibly romantic about him and because before he started writing Treasure Island he first drew a map of an unknown island and because he believed in invisible places and was one of the last writers to know what the word adventure means. I could give you a hundred reasons why RLS is The Man. Look in his The Art of Writing (Book 683, Chatto & Windus, London) where he says that no living people have had the influence on him as strong for good as Hamlet or Rosalind. Or when he says his greatest friend is D'Artagnan from The Three Musketeers (Book 5, Regent Classics, London). RLS said: 'When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge, I take them like opium.' And when you read Treasure Island you feel you are casting off. That's the thing. You are casting off and leaving behind the ordinary dullness of the world. — Niall Williams

I recognize the widest possible difference-so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. — Frederick Douglass

My friend Emma, who likes things to add up neatly, claims that this is because my parents died when I was too young to take it in: they were there one day and gone the next, crashing through that fence so hard and fast they left it splintered for good. When I was Lexie Madison for eight months she turned into a real person to me, a sister I lost or left behind on the way; a shadow somewhere inside me, like the shadows of vanishing twins that show up on people's X-rays once in a blue moon. Even before she came back to find me I knew I owed her something, for being the one who lived. — Tana French

There is no good way to confront a friend who is drinking too much, although doing it when you're not drunk is a good start. Anything you say will cause pain, because a woman who is drinking too much becomes terrified other people will notice. Every time I got an email like the one Charlotte sent, I felt like I'd been trailing toilet paper from my jeans. For, like, ten years. I also burned with anger, because I didn't like the fact that my closest friends had been murmuring behind cupped hands about me, and I told myself that if they loved me, they wouldn't care about this stuff. But that's the opposite of how friendships work. When someone loves you, they care enormously. — Sarah Hepola

As my good friend Will Shakespeare put it, the course of true love never did run smooth. You need not fear me, darling. I shall never again lift a hand to harm you. That would not bring me what I most desire, your love. Be forewarned, little one, that your life without me shall be a lonely one.


Farewell for now, sweet child.

All my love,

Lord Simon Baldevar, Earl of Lecarrow. — Trisha Baker

I was never a pretty girl, so I wasn't the one to get the boy. I used to cast myself as a good sport. Sometimes I wonder if I do that too much with roles I play, because if I'm absolutely truthful, I quite like being the best friend, or the supporting role, and actually I ought to gear-change and make myself the leading role. — Celia Imrie

Good friend, don't forget all I've taught you; take to heart my commands. They'll help you live a long, long time, a long life lived full and well. 3-4 Don't lose your grip on Love and Loyalty. Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart. Earn a reputation for living well in God's eyes and the eyes of the people. 5-12 Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for GOD's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. — Anonymous

Anyway, in the interim since I turned writer - a good thirty years - I have hobnobbed with all varieties of man, from the highest to the lowest. I have know intimately saints and seers as well as those whom we disdainfully refer to as "the dregs of humanity." I don't know to which group I am more indebted. But I do know this - if we were suddenly faced with an overwhelming calamity, if I had to choose just one man with whom I would share the rest of my life in the midst of chaos and destruction, I would pick that unknown Mexican peon whom my friend Doner brought one day to clear the weeds in our garden. I no longer remember his name, for he was truly without name. — Henry Miller

One of my big revelations was that nobody cares whether you write your novel or not. They want you to be happy. Your parents want you to have health insurance. Your friends want you to be a good friend. But everyone's thinking about their own problems and nobody wakes up in the morning thinking, 'Boy, I sure hope Sam finishes that chapter and gets one step closer to his dream of being a working writer.' Nobody does that. If you want to write, it has to come from you. If you don't want to write, that's great. Go do something else. That was a very liberating moment for me. — Sam Lipsyte

The wide receiver had a real taste for crime, and he indulged it with an erratic kind of vigor that made him an albatross for Madden and a natural soulmate for my old friend, Al Davis, who remains the ultimate Raider. They were serious people, and John Madden was definitely one of them, for good or ill. Living with the Oakland Raiders in those days was not much different than living with the Hell's Angels. I — Hunter S. Thompson

No doubt your sword is indeed a beautiful thing. It is a tribute to whoever forged it in bygone ages. There are very few such swords as this one left in the world, but remember, it is only a sword, Matthias! It contains no secret spell, nor holds within its blade any magical power. This sword is made for only one purpose, to kill. It will only be as good or evil as the one who wields it. I know that you intend to use it only for the good of your Abbey, Matthias; do so, but never allow yourself to be tempted into using it in a careless or idle way. It would inevitably cost you your life, or that of your dear ones. Martin the Warrior used the sword only for right and good. This is why it has become a symbol of power to Redwall. Knowledge is gained through wisdom, my friend. Use the sword wisely. — Brian Jacques

I think,' said the little Queen, smiling, 'that your friend must be the richest man in all the world.' 'I am,' returned the Scarecrow; 'but not on account of my money. For I consider brains to be far superior to money, in every way. You may have noticed that if one has money without brains, he cannot use it to advantage; but if one has brains without money, they will enable him to live comfortably to the end of days.' 'At the same time,' declared the Tin Woodman, 'you must acknowledge that a good heart is a thing that brains cannot create, and that money cannot buy. Perhaps, after all it is I who am the richest man in all the world.' 'You are both rich, my friends,' said Ozma gently; 'and your riches are the only riches worth having - the riches of content!' - The Marvellous Land Of Oz by L. Frank Baum pg 192 chapter 24 — L. Frank Baum

She eyed him uncertainly. "Very well. Nick wants me, but he's decided not to ... to ... " She floundered
to a halt and the tears that threatened in her eyes became reality. One, single drop slipped down her
cheek.
Bloody hell. Anthony raked a hand through his hair. "Do you mean to tell me that Bridgeton is not ... er,
fulfilling his husbandly duties?"
She nodded miserably. "Oh, Anthony, what am I to do?"
He closed his eyes. God above. He was a decent man, one who took his responsibilities seriously. He
was a good friend, an excellent landlord, and he never cheated at cards, unless it was with one of his own
brothers. What had he done to deserve this? — Karen Hawkins

There are two qualities that I've noticed in good directors: One is that they have their vision very strongly in place; and two is that they listen to everyone's opinion and still remember their vision. — Rupert Friend

Ivy hugs me tighter. "Wonderful, Rylan. This is good to know. And thank you for calling me...your friend. I love being called that."
Love. My cheeks catch fire and my heart races as we continue holding each other. That word has become so foreign in my house, ever since my dad started distancing himself. But here's my best friend using it in a way that makes me feel like everything's okay and I'm whole again.
It's the same one word - the only word - that could describe what I'm feeling for Ivy. — Colleen Boyd

I've found that the men worth fucking are far more good-natured about the female body in its varied forms than is generally acknowledged. 'Naked and smiling' is one male friend's only (physical) requirement for a lover. — Cheryl Strayed

You can't live with the idea that someone might leave. So instead of being happy for me, like any normal person, you're pissed off because ooh, oh no, Hassan doesn't like me anymore. You're such a sitzpinkler. You're so goddamned scared of the idea that someone might dump you that your whole fugging life is built around not gettting left behind. Well, it doesn't work, kafir. I just - it's not just dumb, it's ineffective. Because then you're not being a good friend or a good boyfriend or whatever, because you're only thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and guess what? When you act like that, no one likes you. There's your goddamned Theorem. — John Green

She knew now that no one could be neutral - not anymore - and as afraid as she was of risking Sophie's life, she was suddenly more afraid of letting her daughter grow up in a world where good people did nothing to stop evil, where a good woman could turn her back on a friend in need. — Kristin Hannah

I have one quote I very often read to myself, from a very good friend: 'Forget the people around you now; remember the little boy who was racing in go-karts, what you were dreaming of and what he wanted to achieve one day and what was his goal. Race for him.'. I fell in love with the sport, I love racing. The amount of satisfaction I get just going around in a Formula 1 car makes me smile. So if it is a bad day then you tend to come out and say it's horrible and you don't enjoy. But if you had to pick between that and doing nothing, you would always pick that. — Sebastian Vettel

Jacque leaned over and whispered in Sally's ear, "I give it two days before he lays one on her."
"You're being generous. I say less than twenty four hours."
"Is that a bet?" Jacque asked, eyebrows raised.
"Better believe it," Sally answered. Her lips eased into a crooked smile.
Jen leaned around Sally and glared at her two best friends. "What are you two betting on?"
"Good grief. What, does she have eagle ears or something?"
"No, you dork. Your whisper is just you talking in normal volume but making your voice raspy. Really, you sound more like a chick who's been smoking for thirty years."
Jen shrugged. "I'm just throwing that out there. You can take it and apply it at your leisure."
Fane was chuckling at Jen's words when Jacque elbowed him, causing him to cough."You don't get to laugh, wolf-man."
Jacque turned back to Jen. "Thank you for that observation, Sherlock."
"Always glad to help a friend in need, Watson." Jen grinned at Jacque's irritated look. — Quinn Loftis

Is that an invitation?"
"I suppose it is."
"Good." Cade's voice dropped lower, adding one last thing before hanging up. "And tell your friend in the striped shirt that he's in my seat. — Julie James

'm just going to be a good friend to my kid. One thing I definitely want to change is that whole 'I don't want you to make the same mistakes' mentality. My dad didn't have much money growing up; he didn't have much of an education. He forced that on me, and I didn't want it. — Channing Tatum

If I believed that the choice lay between a sacrifice of the completest order of biography and that of the inviolability of private epistolary correspondence, I could not hesitate for a moment. I would keep the old and precious privacy,-the inestimable right of every one who has a friend and can write to him, - I would keep our written confidence from being made biographical material, as anxiously as I would keep our spoken conversation from being noted down for the good of society. — Harriet Martineau

May I suggest a starting place as truth receivers? It is okay for someone else to struggle. Furthermore, it is okay to not fix it/solve it/answer it/discredit it. Another believer can experience tension, say something true that makes people uncomfortable, and God will not fall off His throne. It is not our responsibility to fix every mess. If someone steps onto the scary ledge of truth, it is enough to acknowledge her courage and make this promise: I am here with you as your friend, not your Savior. We are not good gods over one — Jen Hatmaker

You never believed in the meaning of this world, and you therefore deduced the idea that everything was equivalent and that good and evil could be defined according to one's wishes. You supposed that in the absence of any human or divine code the only values were those of the animal world - in other words, violence and cunning. Hence you concluded that man was negligible and that his soul could be killed, that in the maddest of histories the only pursuit for the individual was the adventure of power and his own morality, the realism of conquests. — Albert Camus

I have a good friend, Rudolf Serkin, the pianist, a very sensitive man. I was talking to him one day backstage after a concert and I told him that I thought he had played particularly sensitively that day. I said, "You know, many pianists are brilliant, they strike the keys so well, but somehow you are different." "Ah," he said, "I don't think you should ever strike a key. You should pull the keys with your fingers." — Andrew Wyeth

The world is going under, I thought, and this notion so little surprised me, it seemed as though I had been waiting a long time for just that to happen. But now, from amid the burning and collapsing city, I saw a boy come toward me. His hands were buried in his pockets and he hopped and skipped from one leg to another, resilient and light-hearted. Then he stopped and emitted an ingenious whistle
our signal from grade school days, and the boy was my friend who had shot himself when he was a student. Immediately I too became, like him, a boy of twelve, and the burning city and the distant thunder and the blustering storm of howling voices from all corners of the world sounded wondrously exquisite to our newly awakened ears. Now everything was good, and the dark nightmare in which I had lived for so many despairing years was gone forever. — Hermann Hesse

Wyatt was, in fact, finding the Christian system suspect. Memory of his fourth birthday party still weighted in his mind. It had been planned cautiously by Aunt May, to the exact number of hats and favors and portions of cake. One guest, no friend to Wyatt (from a family "less fortunate than we are"), showed up with a staunchly party-bent brother. (Not only no friend: a week before he had challenged Wyatt through the fence behind the carriage barn with - Nyaa nyaa, suckinyerma's ti-it-ty ... ) Wyatt was taken to a dark corner, where he later reckoned all Good works were conceived, and told that it was the Christian thing to surrender his portion. So he entered his fifth year hatless among crepe-paper festoons, silent amid snapping crackers, empty of Christian love for the uninvited who asked him why he wasn't having any cake. — William Gaddis