No birth certificate is issued when friendship is born. There is nothing tangible. There is just a feeling that your life is different and that your capacity to love and care has miraculously been enlarged without any effort on your part. It's like having a tiny apartment and somebody moves in with you. But instead of becoming cramped and crowded, the space expands, and you discover rooms you never knew you had until your friend moved in with you. ››Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. ››If I had my life to live over I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded. ››To cement a new friendship, especially between foreigners or persons of a different social world, a spark with which both were secretly charged must fly from person to person, and cut across the accidents of place and time. ››Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can. All of them make me laugh. ››For when two beings who are not friends are near each other there is no meeting, and when friends are far apart there is no separation. ››The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right. ››To love one who loves you, The real test of friendship is: can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple? ››A friend is one with whom you are comfortable, It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us. ››There are persons so radiant, so genial, so kind, so pleasure-bearing, that you instinctively feel in their presence that they do you good, whose coming into a room is like the bringing of a lamp there. ››Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is before you can meet again, and meeting again after a moment or lifetime is certain for those who are friends. ››Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything. ››Friendship... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself… ››Don’t walk in front of me... I may not follow Treat your friend as if he will one day be your enemy, and your enemy as if he will one day be your friend. ››I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Because how do you meet a new person? I was very stunned by this for many years. And then I realized, you just say, "Hi." They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word. ››The bravest person I know is afraid of the dark. She sleeps with a night lamp always, but if her friends are threatened? She suddenly thinks she's a bear twelve feet tall and attacks whoever scared her friends. ››Friendship... is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything. ››If you don't like someone, the way he holds his spoon will make you furious; if you do like him, he can turn his plate over in your lap and you won't mind. ››Friendship is two-sided. It isn't a friend just because someone's doing something nice for you. That's a nice person. There's friendship when you do for each other. It's like marriage - it's two-sided. ››Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to 'keep' by force of mere inertia. ››A ready way to lose your friend is to lend him money. Another equally ready way to lose him is to refuse to lend him money. It is six of one and a half dozen of the other. ››That is what you love a friend for: the ability to change your angle of vision, bring back your best self when you feel worst. And speak the truth - but without malice. Loving candour is the secret of friendship. ››Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it: nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing. ››A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. ››The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself. ››It's a mistake to surround yourself only with people just like you. Throw off that worn comforter - and replace it with a crazy quilt of different and imaginative people. Then watch the ideas erupt. ››Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. ››In everyone's life, at some point, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. ››I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend. ››I'm glad we had the times together just to laugh and sing a song, seems like we just got started and then before you know it, the times we had together were gone. ››As you grow older, you realize it becomes less important to have more friends and more important to have real ones. ››The only people worthy to be in your life are the ones that help you through the hard times and laugh with you after the hard times pass. ››You have three types of friends in life: Friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime. ››Some friends are like the wind, some are like mountains. They come in and breeze out of your life, or they are there for a lifetime. ››
