A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.

Tis true what Hemingway says--if we're lucky enough to live our dreams in youth, as Ernest Hemingway did in 1920's Paris and I did with the Beat poets, then youth's dreams become a moveable feast you take wherever you go--youthful love remains the repast plentiful; exquisite, substantive and good. You can live on happy memories. Eat of them forever.

Me? I was lost for long time. I didn’t make any friends for few years. You can say I made friends with two trees, two big trees in the middle of the school […]. I spent all my free time up in those trees. Everyone called me Tree Boy for the longest time. […]. I preferred trees to people. After that I preferred pigeons, but it was trees first.

I know I'll miss her every single day, but the memories she left won't haunt me anymore. I'll remember the girl who never wore shoes, and our blood promise to always be friends. I'll remember girls who loved and trusted each other, protected each other, and sometimes even hurt each other. I'll remember a friendship that will never go away.

Ah, they said. Qué bueno. And after and for a long time to come he'd have reason to evoke the recollection of those smiles and to reflect upon the good will which provoked them for it had power to protect and to confer honor and to strengthen resolve and it had power to hear men and to bring them to safety long after all other resources were exhausted.

I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every other moment in your life, and think, "Soon this will be over". But I understand more now. About the way life works.

I feel as if something has been torn suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole. I feel as if I couldn't be I — as if I must have changed into somebody else and couldn't get used to it. It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed, helpless feeling. It's good to see you again — it seems as if you were a sort of anchor for my drifting soul.

Freundschaft, ou quelque chose comme ça. Ta meilleure amie gagne un million au Loto, t'es contente pour elle et, en même temps, tu peux pas t'empêcher de penser avec rage: "Pourquoi pas moi?".J'adore Ariane, mais quand je vois sa vie parfaite, c'est pareil. "Pourquoi pas moi?".J'ai horreur de penser des trucs comme ça.

Not all who demand your attention desire your happiness, many merely seeking a conveyance to their own. It is entirely easy when wrapped up with the petty to miss what is possible and what rows your ship to worthwhile dreams. But when two or more fall together to share the oars of what might be, dreams may find them in equal measure and as fast as the wake made.

None of them were easy or soft or simple. They were like me, nursing hurts and hidden wounds, all broken in different ways. We didn't quite fit together. We had edges so jagged we cut each other sometimes . . . I felt a rush of gratitude so sweet it made my throat ache. Fear came with it. Keeping them close was a luxury I would pay for. Now I had more to lose.

Au-dessus de mes mots maladroits, au-dessus des raisonnements qui me peuvent tromper, tu considères en moi simplement l'Homme. Tu honores en moi l'ambassadeur de croyances, de coutumes, d'amours particulières. Si je diffère de toi, loin de te léser, je t'augmente. Tu m'interroges comme l'on interroge le voyageur.

Friendship, true friendship is a curious dance. Why does one recognize and embrace one soul and yet not another. What is that? That something unspoken. Perhaps it is a long ago remembrance of another time, another place, those same familiar eyes shining out. Always we are searching for those recognizable eyes…so that we might at last be recognized ourselves.

each year, she finds her friendships less volatile and easier, because she increasingly succeeds at looking past their flaws and disappointments and homing in on their pleasures and on what set them in motion to begin with. And she wonders why she didn’t do that sooner, why she gave in to so much fury and sorrow when she could have just let those emotions go.

Brin tilted his head. 'For a moment I thought you were a dirty little tramp like the rest of us, but then you go and ruin it. For future reference, stories about anonymous hookups in alleys should not end up with you going to the library alone.' 'I had a paper due.' Brin burst out laughing and hugged him. 'You're too adorable for words.'

This pause in time, within time ... When did I first experience the exquisite sense of surrender that is only possible with another person? The peace of mind one experiences on one's own, one's certainty of self in the serenity of solitude, are nothing in comparison to the release and openness and fluency one shares with another, in close companionship ...