The building block of every romance, family, and community, friendship manifests the most profound of human needs: to love and be loved by others, to listen and be listened to. Here we offer a tribute to the often joyous, sometimes infuriating, sometimes gut-wrenching adventure shared by kindred spirits.
There are good ships and there are wood ships, the ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are friendships, and may they always be.
—Irish proverb
For you, a thousand times over.
—Hassan, in Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
[Grant] stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk; and now, sir, we stand by each other always.
—William Tecumseh Sherman
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d banish us—you know!
—Emily Dickinson, “I’m Nobody! Who are You?”
I’m with you in Rockland
where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter.
—Allen Ginsberg, “Howl”
She recognized that that is how friendships begin: one person reveals a moment of strangeness, and the other person decides just to listen and not exploit it.
—Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings
