There's That One 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

There's always that one guy who gets a hold on you. Not like your best friend's brother who gets you in a headlock kind of hold. Or the little kid you're babysitting who attaches himself to your leg kind of hold.
I'm talking epic. Life changing. The "can't eat, can't sleep, can't do your homework, can't stop giggling, can't remember anything but his smile" kind of hold. Like, Wesley and Buttercup proportions. Harry and Sally. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. The kind of hold in all your favorite '80s songs, like the "Must Have Been Love"s, the "Take My Breath Away"s, the "Eternal Flame"s - the ones you sing into a hairbrush-microphone at the top of your lungs with your best friends on a Saturday night. — Jess Rothenberg

There's a certain man, an archetype, he's a model of dependability for his male friends, all the things a friend should be, an ally and confidant, lends money, gives advice, loyal and so on, but sheer hell on women. Living breathing hell. The closer a woman gets, the clearer it becomes to him that she is not one of his male friends. And the more awful it becomes for her. This is Keith. This is the man you're going to marry. — Don DeLillo

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

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

We just sent some footage to ABC Primetime, who is doing a segment that alleges to tell our side of the story, and in that, a week before she became ill, there's Eliza Jane at her friend's birthday party, blowing, over and over again, a party horn - the one with the long, curly thing that sticks out when you blow it and retracts when you breathe in - over and over and over again ... this child that, a few weeks later, would be said to have died of fatal pneumonia. — Christine Maggiore

The greatest religion gives suffering to nobody," reads a weather-beaten sign, quoting the Buddha, at Chele La pass, the highest motorable point in the country, near Paro. This maxim is everywhere evident. As a Bhutanese friend and I walked in the mountains one afternoon, he reflexively removed insects from the path and gently placed them in the verge, out of harm's way. Early one morning in Thimphu, I saw a group of young schoolboys, in their spotless white-sleeved ghos, crouching over a mouse on the street, gently offering it food. In Bhutan, the horses that trudge up the steep trail to the Tiger's Nest monastery are reserved for out-of-shape tourists; Bhutanese don't consider horses beasts of burden and prefer not to make them suffer under heavy loads. Even harvesting honey is considered a sign of disrespect for the industrious bees; my young guide, Kezang, admonished me for buying a bottle of Bhutanese honey to take home. (Chastened, I left it there.) In — Madeline Drexler

No path by chance but by plot, Further steps along the road of his father's ghost. The traitor to Lolth is sought By he who hates him most. The fall of a house, the fall of a spear, Puncture the Spider Queen's pride as a dart. And now a needle for Drizzt Do'Urden to wear 'Neath the folds of his cloak, so deep in his heart. A challenge, renegade of renegade's seed, A golden ring thee cannot resist! Reach, but only when the beast is freed From festering in the swirl of Abyss. Given to Lolth and by Lolth given That thee might seek the darkest of trails. Presented to one who is most unshriven And held out to thee, for thee shall fail! So seek, Drizzt Do'Urden, the one who hates thee most. A friend, and too, a foe, made in thine home that was first. There thee will find one feared a ghost Bonded by love and by battle's thirst. — R.A. Salvatore

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

Hello, old friend. And here we are. You and me, on the last page. By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone. So know that we lived well and were very happy. And above all else, know that we will love you always. Sometimes I do worry about you though. I think once we're gone you won't be coming back here for awhile. And you might be alone. Which you should never be. Don't be alone, Doctor. And do one more thing for me. There's a little girl waiting in a garden. She's going to wait a long while, so she's going to need a lot of hope. Go to her. Tell her a story. Tell her that if she's patient, the days are coming that she'll never forget. Tell her she'll go to see and fight pirates. She'll fall in love with a man who'll wait two thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her she'll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived. And save a whale in outer space. Tell her, this is the story of Amelia Pond. And this is how it ends. — Steven Moffat

At first we had so much to catch up on we were talking a hundred words a second, barely even listening to the ends of one another's sentences before moving onto the next. And there was laughing. Lots of laughing. Then the laughing stopped and there was this silence. What the hell was it?
It was like the world stopped turning in that instant. Like everyone around us had disappeared. Like everything at home was forgotten about. It was as if those few minutes on this world were created just for us and all we could do was look at each other. It was like he was seeing my face for the first time. He looked confused but kind of amused. Exactly how I felt. Because I was sitting on the grass with my best friend Alex, and that was my best friend Alex's face and nose and eyes and lips, but they seemed different. So I kissed him. I seized the moment and I kissed him, — Cecelia Ahern

Vienna, to me it was the tuning fork for the entire world. Saying the word Vienna was like striking a tuning fork and then listening to find what tone it called forth in the person I was talking to. It was how I tested people. If there was no response, this was not the kind of person I liked. Vienna wasn't just a city, it was a tone that either one carries forever in one's soul or one does not. It was the most beautiful thing in my life. I was poor, but I was not alone, because I had a friend. — Sandor Marai

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

Listen my friend, if one person doesn't want the relationship, then it's simply not a fit. No sense trying to figure out why they don't want it. No sense blaming it on their commitment issues. No sense waiting around for them to realize they wanted it after all. Because it doesn't matter why they don't want it. What matters is that you are met heart-on by a fully engaged partner. If they don't want it, then you don't want it, because you don't want to be with someone who isn't there for it fully.
That's the thing about love relationship - it's an agreement that has to be signed by both souls. If one doesn't sign, then nothing has been lost. If it's not a fit for them, it's not a fit for you either. — Jeff Brown

A ridiculous fear pursued me, in fact: one could not die without having confessed all one's lies. Not to God or to one of his representatives; I was above that, as you well imagine. No, it was a matter of confessing to men, to a friend, to a beloved woman, for example. Otherwise, were there but one lie hidden in life, death made it definitive. No one, ever again, would know the truth at this point, since the only one to know it was precisely the dead man sleeping on his secret. The absolute murder of truth used to make me dizzy. — Albert Camus

You see that girl over there? The one being picked on? Do you know whose fault it is that she's being picked on? Society. Just because she doesn't look and dress a certain way makes her different. Like how dare she be different?! No, how dare you pick on someone just because they aren't afraid to be different, just because they don't follow society's rules of what makes you 'perfect' and 'popular' It's pathetic because if she turned up to school tomorrow looking like a freaking super model straight from a magazine those people picking on her would be tripping over their f-ing feet to be her friend. Because that's just how society works. — Anonymous

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

And while he waited in the castle court,
The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang
Clear through the open casement of the hall,
Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird,
Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,
Moves him to think what kind of bird it is
That sings so delicately clear, and make
Conjecture of the plumage and the form;
So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint;
And made him like a man abroad at morn
When first the liquid note beloved of men
Comes flying over many a windy wave
To Britain, and in April suddenly
Breaks from a coppice gemmed with green and red,
And he suspends his converse with a friend,
Or it may be the labour of his hands,
To think or say, 'There is the nightingale;'
So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said,
'Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for me. — Alfred Tennyson

Oh, Ichigo. My darling Ichigo. There's so much that I owe you, too. But I'm never paying any of it back - not a smidgen. You're also the one who showed me that growing up might not be such a bad thing after all. Thank you, Ichigo. This is much too embarrassing for me to ever say out loud, but you're the best friend I could ever have. — Novala Takemoto

You know me better than anyone, and you're my best friend. I don't think there's anything you could say to me that would lead me to believe that you're doing it just to hurt me. If there's one thing I've come to know about you, it's that you're not even capable of something like that. Why do you think I like spending time with you so much? Because you're a good guy. A nice guy. — Nicholas Sparks

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

And I think one way or another it's evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody's there that's very anxious to get the movie made. — Robert Towne

Some women tell me they don't think what I do is important, but would like to travel the world with me. Others say they're not a slut, even though they slept with many strangers. And then many others claim to love me, even though disrespecting my beliefs and ridiculing my knowledge. And I wonder if there's the word idiot written in my forehead, or if some people are just purely addicted to suffering. They then say I'm not spiritual when I call them names and expel them from my life. One the contrary my friend, a spiritual person is very awake, not just spiritually, but mentally too. The real and most spiritual ones are not braindead. They will give you hell if you give them suffering. Hell is very real and they can show you that better than anyone. Otherwise, they're not spiritual, but pretending to be. Spirituality is reality, not cuckoo land full of unicorns and fairies. — Robin Sacredfire

He was drowning in depression and contemplating suicide. One day a friend noticed that his outlook had changed to hopeful serenity. The soldier attributed his transformation to reading Man's Search for Meaning. When he was told about the soldier, Frankl wondered whether "there may be such a thing as autobibliotherapy - healing through reading. — Viktor E. Frankl

Mine is the disaster, if disaster there be; and to be severely distressed at one's own misfortunes does not show that you love your friend, but that you love yourself. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Since one could virtually open the Bible to any page and likely find something that speaks to his particular situation, is it fair to attribute this to the voice of God? After all, the Bible is not the only relevant book in existence. There are other religions with other scriptural texts which could do the same job. In fact, the text need not even be "scriptural." I could select Sartre's "Existentialism and Humanism" off the shelf, randomly flip to any page, and likely find something applicable to my life. Does this mean God is speaking through the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, a man who was by no means considered a friend to Christian thought? If the answer is yes, then who really needs to read the Bible? If this God is capable of turning anything into his "word" at any time, then you could theoretically receive a message from him in your Alpha-Bits. — Michael Vito Tosto

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

A therapist friend of mine has worked with a number of different women who were at one point in their lives centerfolds for popular men's magazines. These women often had difficulty achieving sexual satisfaction. Though they seemed experienced in sexuality per se, they had almost no understanding of God-ordained sexual intimacy within marriage. As a result, there was a lot of spiritual and psychological healing that had to be accomplished in order for them to enter into a mutually satisfying relationship. — Gary L. Thomas

Eventually we discovered Bleeker Bob's in the West Village on 118 West Third Street. One time I was there I literally tried to rip the first Iron Maiden album out of the hands of a friend of mine. [...] I was having a tug-of-war with this guy over who was gonna buy it. [...] If I hadn't won, I would've gone home and gotten my shitty little tape recorder that you have to use two fingers to push play and record on, and I would've brought that to my friend's house and held it in front of a speaker to tape the record so I'd have something to listen to until I could find another copy. Yeah, it'd sound terrible but so what? We didn't know anything else. When I hear people say, 'I hate MP3s, they sound like shit,' I'm like, 'Fuck you, you hae no idea, you first-world-problem-having motherfucker. — Scott Ian

There was a quality of loneliness to her that comes when your only friend walks away and you don't know why and there's no one else and never will be. A left-behind look. — Robert Crais

I have only touched one other computer at my friend Marissa's house, and found the experience disconcerting. There was something sinister about the green letters and numbers that flashed on the screen as the computer booted up, and I hated the way Marissa stopped answering questions or noticing me the second it was turned on. — Lena Dunham

This one isn't just any old horse. There's a nobility in his eye, a regal serenity about him. Does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be? I tell you, my friend, there's divinity in a horse, and specially in a horse like this. God got it right the day he created them. And to find a horse like this in the middle of this filthy abomination of a war, is for me like finding a butterfly on a dung heap. We don't belong in the same universe as a creature like this. — Michael Morpurgo

Here's what you need to know: some cliches are true, and war is definitely hell. It's being afraid all the time, and when you're not afraid it's because you're pumped full of adrenaline you could literally burst. It's watching people who you love- really profoundly love- get blown to pieces right next to you. It's seeing a leg lying in the ditch and picking it up to put it in a bag because no man- or part of a man, your friend- can be left behind. It's the dark night of the soul. There's no front line over there. The war is all around them, every day, everywhere they go. Some handle it better than others. We don't know why, but we do know this: the human mind can't safely or healthily process that kind of carnage and uncertainty and horror. It just can't. No one comes back from war the same. — Kristin Hannah

I don't even know that I understand what just happened between us.
It seems impossible that Adam and I could fissure and break apart so abruptly. I care so deeply for him. He was there for me when no one else was; he gave me hope when I needed it most; he loved me when no one else would. He's not anyone I want to erase from my life.
I want him around. I want my friend back. — Tahereh Mafi

Vampires used to be the Dracula types, but in the last ten years most of them have become weak, brooding androgynes that only go after teenagers. A friend of mine took the opportunity to rid his whole city of them after the forth Mormon Vamps book hit and the sparkle meme was at its strongest."

"So does that make Ms. Mormon Sparkle Vamp a hero?"

"Of a sort. Before they started to sparkle, there were a lot of vamps who were tortured antiheroes, thanks to Rice and Whedon."

Ree grimaced. "Do you know if she was clued in?"

Eastwood shrugged. "She's very secretive, no one in the Underground has been able to say for sure. It's all rumor. My guess is she lost someone to a vampire and decided the greatest revenge she could inflict was to turn them into a laughing stock. — Michael R. Underwood

We do take pleasure in one thing that you probably won't be able to guess. Namely, making friends with nature ... nature is always there at hand to wrap us up, gently: glowing, swaying, bubbling, rustling.
Just by looking at nature, I feel as if I'm being swallowed up into it, and in that moment I get the sensation that my body's now a speck, a speck from long before I was born, a speck that is melting into nature herself. This sensation is so amazing that I forget that I'm a human being, and one with special needs to boot.
Nature calms me down when I'm furious, and laughs with me when I'm happy. You might think that it's not possible that nature could be a friend, not really. But human beings are part of the animal kingdom too, and perhaps us people with autism still have some left-over awareness of this, buried somewhere deep down. I'll always cherish that part of me that thinks of nature as a friend. — Naoki Higashida

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

Book readers are special people, and they will always turn to books as the ultimate pleasure. Those who do not read are the unfortunate ones. There's nothing wrong with them; but they are missing out on one of life's compensations and rewards. A great book is a friend that never lets you down. You can return to it again and again and the joy first derived from it will still be there. — Ruskin Bond

And that's how it was with Garrett. Because he understood me, the me I wanted so desperately to be. Think about your best friend - how you tell them everything, how they're the person who knows you best, all your deepest fears and insecurities. They're the one you call when something amazing happens or when everything falls apart and you need someone to come over and watch movies and tell you that everything's going to be OK. It's not like family, who are obligated to love you and even then sometimes fail to be everything they're supposed to be. Your true friend has chosen you, and you them, and that's a different kind of bond.
That's Garrett to me. I'm used to talking to him all the time, about the most meaningless stuff. To have him gone feels like a loss, an absence haunting me every day. Without him, there's just the empty space that used to be filled with laughter and friendship and comfort.
Can you really blame me for finding it so hard to let go? — Abby McDonald

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

I'm always smiling because I'm happy
I'm happy because the sunrise in the morning is a beautiful site to behold,
even if it's hidden by clouds and rain and snow, I know it's still there
I'm happy because of the person who just let me ahead,
even though ten others wouldn't, one person did, and that was all I needed
I'm happy because I have a friend
even though others have dozens or hundreds, one person who will be there for me is all I need
I'm happy because of the air filling my lungs
even though it may not be the cleanest, it means I'm alive
I'm happy because
While the sun rises and air fills my lungs, My dreams have a chance of one day coming to pass, and one person by my side to see that day with, makes everything else irrelevant.
And that, is why, I'm always smiling. — Omar Kiam

Put it this way. As long as Jeyaretnam [Workers' Party leader] stands for what he stands for -- a thoroughly destructive force for me -- we will knock him. There are two ways of playing this. One, a you attack the policies; two, you attack the system. Jeyaretnam was attacking the system, he brought the Chief Justice into it. If I want to fix you, do I need the Chief Justice to fix you? Everybody knows that in my bag I have a hatchet, and a very sharp one. You take me on, I take my hatchet, we meet in the cul-de-sac. That's the way I had to survive in the past. That's the way the communists tackled me. He brought the Chief Justice into the political arena. He brought my only friend in university into our quarrel. How dare he! — Lee Kuan Yew

Destiny gets compressed, you know, into just that small fraction of a second you have right in front of you at any one time. And there's nothing romantic about keeping your head down to avoid getting shot, or trying to save a friend who's been injured, or coming face to face with a creature who is as smart and mean and as terrified of dying as you are, and who wants to make sure that if someone is left on the ground there, it's you and not it. — John Scalzi

Look, it's true that I think there are a lot of people to blame for all of this, but I'm one of them." For a second, my mind flashed back to the party, to the last words I'd ever said to him. Fuck you, Hayden. Some kind of best friend I was. "And it's not my job to decide who should pay. — Michelle Falkoff

Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do. Go through his clothes and look for loose change. — Billy Crystal

If you make exercise your hobby instead of your enemy it becomes your friend; it's the one thing that will never let you down. It will always be there for you and it will always make you better than you were before. Remember: every time you go to the gym, every time you put the right supplement in your mouth, you're better than you were ten minutes ago. [ ... ] The irony is most people know what to do, they just don't do what they know. — Sylvester Stallone

It is well to remember that there are five reasons for drinking: the arrival of a friend, one's present or future thirst, the excellence of the cognac, or any other reason — W.C. Fields

What's the difference between a Spartan king and a mid-ranker? One man will lob this query to his mate as they prepare to bed down in the open in a cold driving rain. His friend considers mock-theatrically for a moment.'The king sleeps in that shithole over there' he replies. 'We sleep in this shithole over here. — Steven Pressfield

In Sri Lanka, when two strangers meet, they ask a series of questions that reveal family, ancestral village, and blood ties until they arrive at a common friend or relative. Then they say, "Those are our people, so you are our people." It's a small place. Everyone knows everyone.

"But in America, there are no such namings; it is possible to slip and slide here. It is possible to get lost in the nameless multitudes. There are no ropes binding one, holding one to the earth. Unbound by place or name, one is aware that it is possible to drift out into the atmosphere and beyond that, into the solitary darkness where there is no oxygen. — Nayomi Munaweera

And then we come to Jesus of Nazareth and the Christian claim that he was God and man, that there were two natures in that one Person. Well, we must spend at least a night on this. Let's have this out. Is that possible? Is it conceivable? Then there is this question of Jesus' death on a cross on Calvary's hill, the great doctrine about something called "atonement" - that one died for others, that he made himself a substitute, and so on. So we take this up. Is this even moral? Is it conceivable? Can it happen? We spend a whole night arguing about that. And the whole time we think we have been discussing Christianity. There is a sense, of course, in which we have, but there is another sense in which we have not, because, my friend, you can not only go to your grave but you can even go to hell just doing that. Christianity, primarily, is not a discussion about ideas. It is a discussion about you. — D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

It's all about the relationships; forming them and sustaining them, growing and building a back and forth that will be useful to both parties. Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of the practice so often seen today: a person decides that a particular God or Goddess is suitable for a one off ritual or occasion, calls them up, expects them to grant boons and favours and help out in whatever situation is being worked for, and then is never heard from again. If a complete stranger walked into your house and asked for a favour, however politely - would you be inclined to help? Possibly you would, and sometimes the Powers do too, if there is sufficient offering or perhaps bribery involved. They are not above being bought off. However, most people would be far more inclined to help out when a friend asks a favour, and this follows through with the Gods, in my experience. A give and take relationship is the most effective and respectful way I have found of working with them. — Lora O'Brien

My dear friend! what is there extraordinary in that? They are all in love with some other man. Who gets the first of a woman's heart? In all my experience I have never yet met with the man who was Number One. Number Two, sometimes. Number Three, Four, Five, often. Number One, never! He exists, of course - but, I have not met with him. — Wilkie Collins

It is a pity that the great dramatist did not select from Plutarch's works some hero who took the side of the people, some Agis or Cleomenes, or, better yet, one of the Gracchi. What a tragedy he might have based on the life of Tiberius, the friend of the people and the martyr in their cause! But the spirit which guided Schiller in the choice of William Tell for a hero was a stranger to Shakespeare's heart, and its promptings would have met with no response there. — William Shakespeare

Listen- my relationship with radio on a personal level is nothing but a one way love-a-thon ... I love radio, I grew up on radio. That's where I heard Buddy Holly, that's where I heard Chuck Berry. I couldn't believe it the first time I heard one of my records on the radio, and I STILL love hearing anything I'm involved with on radio, and some of my best friends were from radio. But we were on different sides of that argument, there's no question about that. — Bernie Finkelstein

Death is hard, and facing death is painful. But even more painful is the feeling that no one cares. To not have a friend in the world. Some of us died surrounded by loved ones. Some of us had loved ones who couldn't make it in time, who were too far away or just off getting some sleep. But there are also those us us who can tell you what it's like to have no one who you love, no one who loves you. It is very hard to stay alive just for your own sake. — David Levithan

Lady Linnea said,

"I don't think you understand the balance of relationships. They are give-and-take.Gemma is my best friend,Gemma has my loyalty because she's earned it, and I have Gemma's trust because I've earned it."

She tilted her head and studied Prince Toril with pursed lips.

"It takes work to build a lasting relationship, My Lord. You cannot expect someone to give you their everything just because."

"I don't think I understand," Prince Toril said.

Lady Linnea said, stopping their stroll down the hallway.

"Allow me to rephrase it. A friendship is filled only with as much love as YOU give. Gemma has my heart because I chose to give it to her. And my choice paid off, because there is no one in this horrible, tattered world that I trust more than Gemma Kielland. And so we are two best friends, walking together to achieve what neither of us could do alone. Do you understand it now? — K.M. Shea

He was talking animatedly to two senior ladies, dressed in enough finery to buy the average home, no doubt. He brought one of their hands to his mouth, and then her friend's. He was such a charmer. I was charmed from here.
"He gets that from me," Feragal growled into my ear, leaving me to Ciaran, now making his way towards me.
I watched him stride certainly all the way to where I waited for him.
"Wow," he said, placing his hand at my waist, grazing his thumb over the detailing of the sash there. I was going to kiss Martha again when I got home.
"I like your sporran." I grinned.
"I like your everything," he countered, leaning in to kiss my cheek. "You look beautiful, Holly."
And I was done for the night. I could spill food down myself, trip over, whatever. The look in Ciaran's eyes was what I'd most wanted from the evening, and I already had it. To tuck away and keep forever. — Anouska Knight

Dear Pighead, The reason I am so distant is because, well, there are two reasons actually. The first reason is my drinking. I require alcohol, nightly. And nothing can get in the way. The second reason is your disease. I can't stand the idea of getting close to you, or closer, only to have you up and die on me, pulling the carpet out from under my life. You're my best friend. The best friend I ever had. I have to protect that. I don't call you or see you much because I'm killing you off now, while it's easier. Because I can still talk to you. It makes sense to me to separate now, while you're still healthy, as opposed to having it just happen to me one night out of the blue. I'm trying to evenly distribute the pain of loss. As opposed to taking it in one lump sum. — Augusten Burroughs

There were three loyal, honest and prayerful friends behind the remarkable wisdom of Daniel. They stood in the gap when he was interpreting the king's dream and it came to pass. The stood in the gap when Daniel was in the lion's den and lions became powerless. Daniel too, was a loyal, honest and prayerful towards his three friends. He stood in the gap when his friends were thrown into the blazing fire and 'The Master Himself' turned up as a fourth man. Why don't you choose to be a loyal, honest and prayerful friend to someone today. Be supportive because you reap what you sow and no one can change that principle. — Euginia Herlihy

There is no such thing as false or real hope. Hope is the brain's natural mood stabilizer. And an illusory friend that gives hope and eases the struggle of one's daily life, is much better than all the living friends who just ain't bothered. — Abhijit Naskar

Of the four men in Preston Prichard's cabin, D-90, only one survived, his friend Arthur Gadsden. Prichard's body was never recovered, yet in the red volume that now contains the beautifully archived replies to Mrs. Prichard's letters there exists a surprisingly vivid sense of him, as though he resided still in the peripheral vision of the world. — Erik Larson

And then there was his love affair with my best friend, perhaps the only woman he'd ever seen drink several glasses of bai-jiu and smoke a half-pack of cigarettes in a single seating. Each dish that night had a special presentation, a colorful ring of carrots about the twice-fried eggplant, a garland of thinly-sliced chilies haloing the garlicky green beans, a well-placed broccoli head in the fish's open mouth. She smiled at him when he gave her one of his cigarettes, coyly lighting it with a subtle turn of the wrist, and after she took her first long drag, he motioned us up. Never to be repeated, he brought us back his narrow kitchen, a blackened wok bubbling over a powerful blue fire. Deftly splashing it with alcohol, he flipped the contents into the air and watched the flame dance across her eyes. — Megan Rich

Being a childless woman of childbearing age, I am a walking target for people's concerned analysis. No one looks at a single man with a Labrador retriever and says, "Will you look at the way he throws the tennis ball to that dog? Now there's a guy who wants to have a son." A dog, after all, is man's best friend, a comrade, a pal. But give a dog to a woman and people will say she is sublimating. If she says that she, in fact, doesn't want children, they will nod understandingly and say, "You just wait." For the record, I do not speak to my dog in baby talk, nor when calling her do I say, "Come to Mama. — Ann Patchett

Look, girls know when they're cute," he said. "You don't have to tell them. All they need to do is look in the mirror. I have one friend out in New York, an attorney. She moved out there after the school year to take the bar. She doesn't have a job. I was like, 'How are you going to get a job there in this market?' And she's like, 'I'll wink and I'll smile.' She's a pretty girl. Whether that works despite her poor grades is yet to be seen. — Daniel Amory

I wake up in the morning and I feel like I'm missing something. I know that there's something not right, and it takes me a while to remember what it is ... then I remember. My best friend is gone. My only friend. It was silly of me to rely so much on one person. — Cecelia Ahern

There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for all the sins of men. For indeed it is so, my friend, and the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so, that it is you who are guilty on behalf of all and for all. Whereas by shifting your own laziness and powerlessness onto others, you will end by sharing in Satan's pride and murmuring against God.
The Brothers Karamazov
Book VI - The Russian Monk, Chapter 3 - Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zosima. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Therefore, when Ziqi died, Boya, realizing that no one else would understand his music as well as his friend, smashed his qin at Ziqi's grave and sighed, "Why play the qin when there's no more zhiyin to understand my music!" From then on, the term zhiyin had been used to describe soul mates. "Precious Orchid," Qing Zhen looked at me intently while a solitary bird soared behind him in the vast sky, "you realize how lucky we are? Most people search all their life for a zhiyin but never find one. We're not only lovers; we're also zhiyin." Though I was used to compliments from men and usually did not take them seriously, this one from Qing Zhen touched a silk string in my heart. — Mingmei Yip

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

Such [communistic] legislation may have a specious appearance of benevolence; men readily listen to it, and are easily induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become everybody's friend, especially when some one is heard denouncing the evils now existing in states, suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which are said to arise out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are due to a very different cause - the wickedness of human nature. Indeed, we see that there is much more quarrelling among those who have all things in common, though there are not many of them when compared with the vast numbers who have private property. — Aristotle.

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

I don't know what game you and geek boy are playing, Gautier. But you get in my way as I leave and I'll wipe my boots on your balls. (Brett)
Before he realized what was happening, Simi had taken Brett's hand and squeezed it so hard Nick heard the bones break.)
Nick is a friend of the Simi's. You threaten him and you make the Simi really unhappy and want to eat your head. Trust me, not something you want me to think about. Now go away mean person or the Simi will tell akri she don't know what happened to you and your masticated form. Not that I like to lie, but there are deceptions to every rule. And you're about to become one. Now get in there and be quiet. (Simi) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

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

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

And Jazz snapped.
He didn't snap the way a normal person might snap. A normal person would fling his arms around and stomp his feet and rant at the top of his lungs, bellowing to the sky. There might be tears, from a normal person.
Jazz went quiet. He darted out one hand and grabbed the wrist of the paramedic who had been trying to cuff him and pulled the man close, holding his gaze.
In a moment, he channeled every last drop of (his father).
Who am I? I'll tell you. I'm the local psychopath, and if you don't save my best friend's life, I will hunt down everyone you've ever cared about in your life and make you watch while I do things to them that will have you begging me to kill them. That's who I am. — Barry Lyga

Writing isn't about creating perfect characters. There's no such thing. It's about creating characters that are real; flawed
yet beautiful, in that they know they need another person. Needing someone else doesn't make them weak; if they believed all they needed was them self, they would be. A strong heroine isn't afraid to admit that a best friend, or soul mate, is exactly what they need at one moment or another. A strong heroine never stands alone. They stand tall; they believe in who they are. They are perfect in every human flaw, because as humans we are flawed. And in every flaw, I see the perfection of their souls. Writers breath life into simple words and create beings
flaws and all. — Cassandra Giovanni

In this vast universe There is but one supreme truth- That God is our friend! By that truth meaning is given To the remote stars, the numberless centuries, The long and heroic struggle of mankind ... O my Soul, dare to trust this truth! Dare to rest in God's kindly arms, Dare to look confidently into His face, Then launch thyself into life unafraid! Knowing thou art within my Father's house, That thou art surrounded by His love, Thou wilt become master of fear, Lord of Life, conqueror even of death! — Joshua L. Liebman

What went on between you and my mom? Did you seduce all the Liddell women? Did you tell them the same pretty words you told me?" I curl my legs beneath my dress, feeling small and vulnerable for even asking.
Morpheus scoots aside some glass with his boot and kneels. He takes my hand in his. "I've known but three generations of Liddell women. Counting the ones in London, there's been twenty or so. Most were oblivious and unreachable - they didn't hear the nether-call. The others weren't strong enough to face their lineage without losing their minds. As for Alison, she and I were business partners. There has never been more than that between us. There's only one Liddell I desire, only one who earns my undying devotion." He works a fingertip into the lace at my elbow and drags off the glove. "The one who was my truest friend ... who took my place and braved the attack that was meant for me." — A.G. Howard

But underneath it all I tell myself the tiny glow-worm of the Leave event will be blinking. Up to me to surmount the trial, everything is dependent upon my will, impotent, tenacious, helpless, dogged, with a swollen sense of honor, I tell myself. I know me. Not that I'm the strongest as my friend used to claim, but I've always had the strength - weakness maybe - to believe that if "in the end we die, too fast," as he puts it, later on, as sequel, there's a chance that someone-I-don't-know-who - or I-don't-know-what - may come back. No keeping oneself from dying. Afterwards nothing stops one returning. — Helene Cixous

The mill owner's wife persist. 'A dollar, my foot! Fifty cents. That's my last offer. Goodness, woman, you can get another one.' In answer, my friend gently reflects: 'I doubt it. There's never two of anything. — Truman Capote

When there's no one else look inside yourself
like your oldest friend
just trust the voice within
then you'll find the strength that will guide your way. You'll learn to begin to trust the voice within. — Christina Aguilera

There are people who need people to need them. The reason you don't understand is because you're not one of those people. You'd use me and then toss me away like a paper bag if that's what it came down to. God fucked you, my friend. You're just smart enough so it would hurt you to do that, and just hard enough so you'd go ahead and do it anyway. You wouldn't be able to help yourself. — Stephen King

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

Modern science hasn't managed to come up with answers to any of the most basic questions. How did life first appear on earth? How does evolution work? Is it a series of random events, or does it have a set teleological direction? There are all kinds of theories, but we haven't been able to prove one of them. The structure of the atom is not a miniature of the solar system, it's something much more difficult to grasp, full of what you might call latent power. And when we try to observe the subatomic world, we find that the mind of the observer comes into play in subtle ways. The mind, my friend! The very same mind which, ever since Descartes, proponents of the mechanistic view of the universe considered subordinate to the body-machine. And now we find that the mind influences observed results. So I give up. Nothing surprises me. I'm prepared to accept anything that happens in this world. I actually kind of envy people who can still believe in the omnipotence of modern science. — Koji Suzuki

Well, I don't want to talk too much about my children, but a friend of one of my children, something really terrible happened to her. I just felt like I had to speak about growing up again, because I felt that there's no way I can talk about difficulties of life. I had to talk about possibilities. — Lukas Moodysson

But I took a deep breath, and she sat there listening to me across my dirty coffee table, and we talked about community and family and authenticity. It's easy to talk about it, and really, really hard sometimes to practice it. This is why the door stays closed for so many of us, literally and figuratively. One friend promises she'll start having people over when they finally have money to remodel. Another says she'd be too nervous that people wouldn't eat the food she made, so she never makes the invitation. But it isn't about perfection, and it isn't about performance. You'll miss the richest moments in life - the sacred moments when we feel God's grace and presence through the actual faces and hands of the people we love - if you're too scared or too ashamed to open the door. I know it's scary, but throw open the door anyway, even though someone might see you in your terribly ugly half-zip. — Shauna Niequist

Old friend, there are people - young and old - that I like, and people that I do not like. The former are always in short supply. I am turned off by humorless fanaticism, whether it's revolutionary mumbo-jumbo by a young one, or loud lessons from scripture by and old one. We are all comical, touching, slapstick animals, walking on our hind legs, trying to make it a noble journey from womb to tomb, and the people who can't see it all that way bore hell out of me. — John D. MacDonald

I feel like a lot of people talk about in rom-coms, there's the female best friend. There's all those archetypes in rom-coms. But even among a movie about man-children hanging out, there is always the one who's often the fat one, often the one with the beard, who is like the man-childest of them all. He's the one that eventually meets the fat girl or the quirky girl of the girl group of friends and really hits it off. — Jon Gabrus

One of the things that confirmed Hyacinth's suspicion that America was an evil, lonely place was that people were islands unto themselves. And so when Avril drifted away, there was no friend or neighbor or pastor or coworker to reach out to and ask after her child. — Naomi Jackson

A story is like a giant jigsaw puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle that would cover the whole floor of a room with its tiny pieces. Buts it's not that sort of puzzle that comes with a box. There is no lid with a picture on it so that you can see what the puzzle will look like when it's finished. And you have only some of the pieces. All you can do is keep looking and listening, sniffing about in all sorts of places, until you find the next piece. And then you'll be amazed where that next piece will take you. Suddenly your puzzle can have a whole new person in it, or it can go from being on a train to a hot air balloon, from city to country, from love to sadness to loneliness and back to love. Pieces can come to you at any time. When you're having a cup of tea or sitting on a bus or talking with a friend.it will be like a bell going off in your head. That's what comes next you'll think. And that's why it's serendipity. Serendipity is luck and chance and fate all tumbled into one. — Angelica Banks

I dunno. You have a lot of different loves in your lifetime, but only one is right, you know? You can love a friend and you can love a person for the rest of your life, and it's two different things. What about, like, loving your first girlfriend and loving your last girlfriend? They're both different, but they're both love. Just because you love one person doesn't mean you can't love another person afterward, but there's only one love that's right. — J.R. Lenk

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where St Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stock of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him crying: 'Stetson!
You, who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
You! hypocrite lecteur!-mon semblable,-mon frere! — T. S. Eliot

Yet after all there is nothing so deceptive as one's outward appearance. The reason of this is that as soon as childhood is past, we are always pretending to be what we are not
and thus, with constant practice from our youth up, we manage to make our physical frames complete disguises for our actual selves. It is really wise and clever of us
for hence each individual is so much flesh-wall through which neither friend nor enemy can spy. Every man is a solitary soul imprisoned in a self-made den
when he is quite alone he knows and frequently hates himself
sometimes he even gets afraid of the gaunt and murderous monster he keeps hidden behind his outwardly pleasant body-mask, and hastens to forget its frightful existence in drink and debauchery. — Marie Corelli

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

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

But what do you want me to do, Sir?" "My dear young friend, the golden rule is very simple. There are only two errors which would be fatal to one placed in the peculiar situation which certain parts of your previous conduct have unfortunately created for you. On the one hand, anything like a lack of initiative or enterprise would be disastrous. On the other, the slightest approach to unauthorized action - anything which suggested that you were assuming a liberty of decision which, in all the circumstances, is not really yours - might have consequences from which even I could not protect you. But as long as you keep quite clear of these two extremes, there is no reason (speaking unofficially) why you should not be perfectly safe. — C.S. Lewis

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

When her life fell apart there hadn't been one friend whom Tess could call. Not one friend. That's why she was behaving like this with Connor. She needed a friend. — Liane Moriarty