“
Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that.
”
”
Ally Condie (Matched (Matched, #1))
“
I may not always be with you
But when we're far apart
Remember you will be with me
Right inside my heart
”
”
Marc Wambolt (Poems from the Heart)
“
In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)
“
Friendships, even the best of them, are frail things. One drifts apart.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse)
“
You only really fall apart in front of the people you know can piece you back together.
”
”
Sarah Dessen (Saint Anything)
“
When you are in a relationship, you are aware that it might end. You might grow apart, find someone else, simply fall out of love. But a friendship isn't a zero-sum game, and as such, you assume that it will last forever, especially an old friendship. You take its permanence for grandted, whuch might be the very thing so dear about it.
”
”
Emily Giffin (Something Borrowed (Darcy & Rachel, #1))
“
It's true: lives do drift apart for no obvious reason. We're all busy people,we can't spend our time simply trying to stay in touch. The test of a friendship is if it can weather these inevitable gaps.
”
”
William Boyd (Any Human Heart)
“
How do you bear it?" Finnick looks at me in disbelief. "I don't, Katniss! Obviously, I don't. I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there's no relief in waking up." Something in my expression stops him. "Better not give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
“
And there it is: Even though we’re standing in the same patch of sun-drenched pavement, we might as well be a hundred thousand miles apart.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
“
He taught her something new about friendship: it picked right back up where you’d left off, as if you hadn’t been apart at all.
”
”
Kristin Hannah (The Great Alone)
“
The thing is, that when you're young, you always think you'll meet all sorts of wonderful people, that drifting apart and losing friends is natural. You don't worry, at first, about the friends you leave behind. But as you get older, it gets harder to build friendships. Too many defenses, too little opportunity. You get busy. And by the time you realize that you've lost the dearest best friend you've ever had, years have gone by and you're mature enough to be embarrassed by your attitude and, frankly, by your arrogance.
”
”
Kate Jacobs (The Friday Night Knitting Club (Friday Night Knitting Club, #1))
“
Like an unprotected photograph
some friendships fade.
People grow apart, lose touch,
want different things.
Dreams, woven together,
unravel.
”
”
Kimberly Marcus (Exposed)
“
The thing about old friends is not that they love you, but that they know you. They remember that disastrous New Year's Eve when you mixed White Russians and champagne, and how you wore that red maternity dress until everyone was sick of seeing the blaze of it in the office, and the uncomfortable couch in your first apartment and the smoky stove in your beach rental. They look at you and don't really think you look older because they've grown old along with you, and, like the faded paint in a beloved room, they're used to the look. And then one of them is gone, and you've lost a chunk of yourself. The stories of the terrorist attacks of 2001, the tsunami, the Japanese earthquake always used numbers, the deaths of thousands a measure of how great the disaster. Catastrophe is numerical. Loss is singular, one beloved at a time.
”
”
Anna Quindlen (Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake)
“
For many have but one resource to sustain them in their misery, and that is to think, “Circumstances have been against me, I was worthy to be something much better than I have been. I admit I have never had a great love or a great friendship; but that is because I never met a man or a woman who were worthy of it; if I have not written any very good books, it is because I had not the leisure to do so; or, if I have had no children to whom I could devote myself it is because I did not find the man I could have lived with. So there remains within me a wide range of abilities, inclinations and potentialities, unused but perfectly viable, which endow me with a worthiness that could never be inferred from the mere history of my actions.” But in reality and for the existentialist, there is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving; there is no genius other than that which is expressed in works of art.
”
”
Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism is a Humanism)
“
Learning
After some time, you learn the subtle difference between
holding a hand
and imprisoning a soul;
You learn that love does not equal sex,
and that company does not equal security,
and you start to learn….
That kisses are not contracts and gifts are not promises,
and you start to accept defeat with the head up high
and open eyes,
and you learn to build all roads on today,
because the terrain of tomorrow is too insecure for plans…
and the future has its own way of falling apart in half.
And you learn that if it’s too much
even the warmth of the sun can burn.
So you plant your own garden and embellish your own soul,
instead of waiting for someone to bring flowers to you.
And you learn that you can actually bear hardship,
that you are actually strong,
and you are actually worthy,
and you learn and learn…and so every day.
Over time you learn that being with someone
because they offer you a good future,
means that sooner or later you’ll want to return to your past.
Over time you comprehend that only who is capable
of loving you with your flaws, with no intention of changing you
can bring you all happiness.
Over time you learn that if you are with a person
only to accompany your own solitude,
irremediably you’ll end up wishing not to see them again.
Over time you learn that real friends are few
and whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later,
will find himself surrounded only with false friendships.
Over time you learn that words spoken in moments of anger
continue hurting throughout a lifetime.
Over time you learn that everyone can apologize,
but forgiveness is an attribute solely of great souls.
Over time you comprehend that if you have hurt a friend harshly
it is very likely that your friendship will never be the same.
Over time you realize that despite being happy with your friends,
you cry for those you let go.
Over time you realize that every experience lived,
with each person, is unrepeatable.
Over time you realize that whoever humiliates
or scorns another human being, sooner or later
will suffer the same humiliations or scorn in tenfold.
Over time you learn to build your roads on today,
because the path of tomorrow doesn’t exist.
Over time you comprehend that rushing things or forcing them to happen
causes the finale to be different form expected.
Over time you realize that in fact the best was not the future,
but the moment you were living just that instant.
Over time you will see that even when you are happy with those around you,
you’ll yearn for those who walked away.
Over time you will learn to forgive or ask for forgiveness,
say you love, say you miss, say you need,
say you want to be friends, since before
a grave, it will no longer make sense.
But unfortunately, only over time…
”
”
Jorge Luis Borges
“
Those truly linked don't need correspondence. When they meet again after many years apart, Their friendship is as true as ever.
”
”
Ming-Dao Deng
“
so here i sit. a sum of the parts. about a third way down this wonderful path, so to speak. and i've been thinking lately about a friendship that fell apart with time, with distance, and with the misunderstanding of youth. i'm trying not to confuse sadness with regret. not the easiest thing at times. i dont regret that certain things happened. i understand that perhaps i had a choice in the matter, or perhaps i believe in fate. probably not, but so far actions as small as the quickest glance to events as monumental as death have pushed me slowly along to right here, right now. there was no other way to get here. the meandering and erratic path was actually the straightest of lines. take away a handful of angry words, things once thought of as mistakes or regrets, and i'm suddenly a different person with a different history, a different future. that, i would regret. so here i sit. thinking about a person i once called my best friends. a man who might be full of sadness and regret, who might not give a damn, or who might, just might, remember the future and realize that's where its at.
”
”
Chris Wright
“
The pair of us are like salt and sugar: such different flavors, but so close in every other way you could never sort us apart once we're together.
”
”
Sarah Miller (The Lost Crown)
“
That's how it started: a series of small hurts and excuses between two people that built up slowly, widening over time to form a vast and yawning divide.
”
”
Nenia Campbell (Terrorscape (Horrorscape, #3))
“
We are cleaved together - we are cleaved apart - everything that draws me to you is everything that drives me away.
”
”
Sarah Perry (The Essex Serpent)
“
Why can't we be friends now?" said the other, holding him affectionately. "It's what I want. It's what you want." But the horses didn't want it — they swerved apart: the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temple, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they emerged from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices "No, not yet," and the sky said "No, not there.
”
”
E.M. Forster (A Passage to India)
“
We watch her walk into the spotlight she’s been been hiding from most of her life. Sure, friendship is all about believing in someone so hard they believe it, too. Sure, it’s about trust. But if anyone hurts her tonight, it’s about ripping them apart with my bare hands and really enjoying it.
”
”
Cath Crowley (A Little Wanting Song)
“
People with yuan fen are destined to like one another;
Friendship develops even if a thousand miles apart.
But should yuan fen be absent between two individuals,
They will remain strangers despite sitting face-to-face
”
”
Adeline Yen Mah (Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society)
“
Distance and time might keep people apart, but the heart and mind will always stay connected by memories, miracles and the power of two unlikely souls that were destined to meet.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
If I’m not around
I hope you’ll remember me
and together we will hold on to our favorite song.
”
”
Sanober Khan
“
[That wall] might be breached sometime in the future, but for now the only real conversation between them was the roots that had already grown low and deep, under the wall, where they could not be broken.
The most terrible thing, though, was the fear that the wall could never be breached, that in his heart Alai was glad of the separation, and was ready to be Ender's enemy. For now that they could not be together, they must be infinitely apart, and what had been sure and unshakable was now fragile and insubstantial; from the moment we are not together, Alai is a stranger, for he has a life now that will be no part of mine, and that means that when I see him we will not know each other.
”
”
Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1))
“
How often since then has she wondered what might have happened if she'd tried to remain with him; if she’d returned Richard's kiss on the corner of Bleeker and McDougal, gone off somewhere (where?) with him, never bought the packet of incense or the alpaca coat with rose-shaped buttons. Couldn’t they have discovered something larger and stranger than what they've got. It is impossible not to imagine that other future, that rejected future, as taking place in Italy or France, among big sunny rooms and gardens; as being full of infidelities and great battles; as a vast and enduring romance laid over friendship so searing and profound it would accompany them to the grave and possibly even beyond. She could, she thinks, have entered another world. She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.
Or then again maybe not, Clarissa tells herself. That's who I was. This is who I am--a decent woman with a good apartment, with a stable and affectionate marriage, giving a party. Venture too far for love, she tells herself, and you renounce citizenship in the country you've made for yourself. You end up just sailing from port to port.
Still, there is this sense of missed opportunity. Maybe there is nothing, ever, that can equal the recollection of having been young together. Maybe it's as simple as that. Richard was the person Clarissa loved at her most optimistic moment. Richard had stood beside her at the pond's edge at dusk, wearing cut-off jeans and rubber sandals. Richard had called her Mrs. Dalloway, and they had kissed. His mouth had opened to hers; (exciting and utterly familiar, she'd never forget it) had worked its way shyly inside until she met its own. They'd kissed and walked around the pond together.
It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk. The anticipation of dinner and a book. The dinner is by now forgotten; Lessing has been long overshadowed by other writers. What lives undimmed in Clarissa's mind more than three decades later is a kiss at dusk on a patch of dead grass, and a walk around a pond as mosquitoes droned in the darkening air. There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other.
”
”
Michael Cunningham (The Hours)
“
I cannot help feeling there is something essentially wrong about love. Friends may quarrel or drift apart, close relations too, but there is not this pang, this pathos, this fatality which clings to love. Friendship never has that doomed look. Why, what is the matter? I have not stopped loving you, but because I cannot go on kissing your dim dear face, we must part, we must part.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (The Real Life of Sebastian Knight)
“
The thing is, I never had a friend like Sohrab before. One who understood me without even trying. Who knew what it was like to be stuck on the outside because of one little thing that set you apart.
”
”
Adib Khorram (Darius the Great Is Not Okay (Darius The Great, #1))
“
People come together and move apart. It’s the age-old ebb and flow of relationships. Some are shorter journeys, and others were meant for a lifetime. That goes for friendships as well. We
”
”
Greg Behrendt (It’s Called a Breakup Because It’s Broken: The Smart Girl’s Breakup Buddy)
“
Afterward I tried to find something to explain what had happened—was it cloudy, were the stars out? But the night was ordinary. It usually is, I think, when your life changes. Most people aren’t doing anything special when the carefully placed pieces of their life break apart.
”
”
Carole Radziwill (What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love)
“
As much as he liked the idea of having best friends with whom he could share anything. it was like all he knew how to be was alone, apart.
”
”
Madeleine Roux (Asylum (Asylum, #1))
“
But in Friendship, being free of all that, we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting—any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends "You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then, in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)
“
But friendships are mercurial. They're shape-shifters. I've learned to allow them to fluctuate and take new forms. I love my friends; that's all that matters.
”
”
Rachel Harrison (The Return)
“
One of the strange things about friendship is that time together isn't cancelled out by time apart. One doesn't erase the other or balance it on some invisible scale. You can spend a few hours with someone and they will change your life, or you can spend a lifetime with a person and remain unchanged.
”
”
Michael Robotham (The Night Ferry)
“
i miss the days my friends
knew every mundane detail about my life
and i knew every ordinary detail about theirs
adulthood has starved me of that consistency
that us
the walks around the block
the long conversations when we were
too lost in the moment to care what time it was
when we won and celebrated
when we failed and celebrated harder
when we were just kids
now we have our very important jobs
that fill up our very busy schedules
we compare calendars just to plan coffee dates
that one of us eventually cancels
cause adulthood is being too exhausted
to leave our apartment most days
i miss knowing i once belonged
to a group of people bigger than myself
that belonging made life easier to live
- friendship nostalgia
”
”
Rupi Kaur (Home Body)
“
Girls are so much nicer than men (apart from Tom-but homosexual).
”
”
Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones’s Diary (Bridget Jones, #1))
“
When Nico had woken up at Barrachina and found the Hunters’ note about kidnapping Reyna, he’d torn apart the courtyard in rage. He didn’t want the Hunters stealing another important person from him. Fortunately, he’d got Reyna back, but he didn’t like how brooding she had become. Every time he tried to ask her about the incident on the Calle San Jose – those ghosts on the balcony, all staring at her, whispering accusations – Reyna shut him down.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
“
Not so long ago we were all a tightly knit group of friends. Too bad someone had ripped apart the stitches that held us together, unraveling the cozy blanket of our friendship and leaving just enough strands to hang ourselves with.
”
”
E.J. Stevens
“
Big Friendship can hold you when you’re worried that everything else is falling apart. It can be a space of validation when you feel alone in the world. It can provide the relief of feeling seen without having to explain yourself in too many words. And it offers the security of knowing that you won’t have to go through life’s inevitable challenges alone.
”
”
Aminatou Sow (Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close)
“
I…God, I don’t even know where to start. I’m here. I’m here for you, okay? No matter what. You can scream and you can yell and be as mean and self-destructive as you want. Because I know you’re going to be here for me when it’s my turn to fall apart. Let them all come, Clint. Let every last one of those tracksuit-wearing sub-verbal bullying murderous scumbags come at us. Because you and me? Together? Together, Clint, I think you and me are the person we both wish we could be. And I know that person…I know that person is worth something. I know that person can…can pretty much do anything.
”
”
Matt Fraction (Hawkeye #13)
“
Parents don’t get that, though. They don’t understand about the fragility of teen friendships. They don’t understand how easy it is for things to break apart, how someone you thought would be by your side forever can just disappear, or turn on you, or decide she likes someone more than she likes you. Parents always talk about romantic relationships being so ephemeral and fleeting in high school. What they don’t get is that friendships can be the same way.
”
”
Lauren Barnholdt (The Thing About the Truth)
“
I felt like a Jane Austen heroine all of a sudden, confusedly looking on at all the people she loves, their myriad unpredictable couplings and uncouplings. There would be no marriages at the end of this Austen novel, though, no happy endings, no endings at all. Just jokes and friendships and romances and delicious declarations of independence.
”
”
Julie Powell (Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen)
“
Star friendship.— We were friends and have become estranged. But this was right, and we do not want to conceal and obscure it from ourselves as if we had reason to feel ashamed. We are two ships each of which has its goal and course; our paths may cross and we may celebrate a feast together, as we did—and then the good ships rested so quietly in one harbor and one sunshine that it may have looked as if they had reached their goal and as if they had one goal. But then the almighty force of our tasks drove us apart again into different seas and sunny zones, and perhaps we shall never see one another again,—perhaps we shall meet again but fail to recognize each other: our exposure to different seas and suns has changed us! That we have to become estranged is the law above us: by the same token we should also become more venerable for each other! And thus the memory of our former friendship should become more sacred! There is probably a tremendous but invisible stellar orbit in which our very different ways and goals may be included as small parts of this path,—let us rise up to this thought! But our life is too short and our power of vision too small for us to be more than friends in the sense of this sublime possibility.— Let us then believe in our star friendship even if we should be compelled to be earth enemies.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
“
When a friendship ends, people don't always give it the same amount of thought that they do relationships ... most of the time, friendships end in a different way - slowly, and without declarations. Usually people don't really notice until a friend has been gone for a while and then they just say they grew apart, or their lives became too different.
”
”
Jennifer Close (The Hopefuls)
“
After so many years drifting, not connected to anything, I'm finally tethered. Safe and loved, in the middle.
We start senior year like kings, like nothing can ever tear us apart.
We're wrong.
”
”
Abigail Haas (Dangerous Girls)
“
How To Tell If Somebody Loves You:
Somebody loves you if they pick an eyelash off of your face or wet a napkin and apply it to your dirty skin. You didn’t ask for these things, but this person went ahead and did it anyway. They don’t want to see you looking like a fool with eyelashes and crumbs on your face. They notice these things. They really look at you and are the first to notice if something is amiss with your beautiful visage!
Somebody loves you if they assume the role of caretaker when you’re sick. Unsure if someone really gives a shit about you? Fake a case of food poisoning and text them being like, “Oh, my God, so sick. Need water.” Depending on their response, you’ll know whether or not they REALLY love you. “That’s terrible. Feel better!” earns you a stay in friendship jail; “Do you need anything? I can come over and bring you get well remedies!” gets you a cozy friendship suite. It’s easy to care about someone when they don’t need you. It’s easy to love them when they’re healthy and don’t ask you for anything beyond change for the parking meter. Being sick is different. Being sick means asking someone to hold your hair back when you vomit. Either love me with vomit in my hair or don’t love me at all.
Somebody loves you if they call you out on your bullshit. They’re not passive, they don’t just let you get away with murder. They know you well enough and care about you enough to ask you to chill out, to bust your balls, to tell you to stop. They aren’t passive observers in your life, they are in the trenches. They have an opinion about your decisions and the things you say and do. They want to be a part of it; they want to be a part of you.
Somebody loves you if they don’t mind the quiet. They don’t mind running errands with you or cleaning your apartment while blasting some annoying music. There’s no pressure, no need to fill the silences. You know how with some of your friends there needs to be some sort of activity for you to hang out? You don’t feel comfortable just shooting the shit and watching bad reality TV with them. You need something that will keep the both of you busy to ensure there won’t be a void. That’s not love. That’s “Hey, babe! I like you okay. Do you wanna grab lunch? I think we have enough to talk about to fill two hours!" It’s a damn dream when you find someone you can do nothing with. Whether you’re skydiving together or sitting at home and doing different things, it’s always comfortable. That is fucking love.
Somebody loves you if they want you to be happy, even if that involves something that doesn’t benefit them. They realize the things you need to do in order to be content and come to terms with the fact that it might not include them. Never underestimate the gift of understanding. When there are so many people who are selfish and equate relationships as something that only must make them happy, having someone around who can take their needs out of any given situation if they need to.
Somebody loves you if they can order you food without having to be told what you want. Somebody loves you if they rub your back at any given moment. Somebody loves you if they give you oral sex without expecting anything back. Somebody loves you if they don’t care about your job or how much money you make. It’s a relationship where no one is selling something to the other. No one is the prostitute. Somebody loves you if they’ll watch a movie starring Kate Hudson because you really really want to see it. Somebody loves you if they’re able to create their own separate world with you, away from the internet and your job and family and friends. Just you and them.
Somebody will always love you. If you don’t think this is true, then you’re not paying close enough attention.
”
”
Ryan O'Connell
“
I accept time has passed and we have changed and there is an emptiness now in which we have nothing left to say because it has all been said already, because there are no words left between us any more.
”
”
Huma Qureshi (Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love)
“
As suddenly as they had reached for each other, they broke apart. Tears were rolling down Robin's face. For one moment of madness, Strike yearned to say, “Come with me”, but there are words that can never be unsaid or forgotten, and those, he knew, were some of them.
”
”
Robert Galbraith (Lethal White (Cormoran Strike, #4))
“
In friendships, people grow apart. Some grow in different directions, and others don’t grow at all.
”
”
Doe Zantamata (Wake Up and Be Awesome (Chapters Book 2))
“
In friendship I shall bind my heart and soul to yours. Forever beside you I shall stand. Together or apart always will I be with you. Eternal friends we shall ever be.
”
”
Jen Wylie (Broken Aro (The Broken Ones, #1))
“
True friends are never apart. Maybe in distance but never in heart.
”
”
Hellen Keller
“
We can't feel the lose of a friend until they are apart from us.
”
”
Debolina
“
I wonder why I miss her and Dex does not. Perhaps it is because I've known her so much longer. Or maybe it's the very nature of a friendship versus an intimate relationship. When you are in a relationship, you are aware that it might end. You grow apart, find someone else, simply fall out of love. But a friendship isn't a zero-sum game, and as such, you assume it will last forever, especially an old friendship. You take its permanence for granted, which might be the very thing so dear about it.
”
”
Emily Giffin (Something Borrowed (Darcy & Rachel, #1))
“
Just as life is made up of day and night, and song is made up of music and silence, friendships, because they are of this world, are also made up of times of being in touch and spaces in-between. Being human, we sometimes fill these spaces with worry, or we imagine the silence is some form of punishment, or we internalize the time we are not in touch with a loved one as some unexpressed change of heart. Our minds work very hard to make something out of nothing. We can perceive silence as rejection in an instant, and then build a cold castle on that tiny imagined brick. The only release from the tensions we weave around nothing is to remain a creature of the heart. By giving voice to the river of feelings as they flow through and through, we can stay clear and open. In daily terms, we call this checking in with each other, though most of us reduce this to a grocery list: How are you today? Do you need any milk? Eggs? Juice? Toilet paper? Though we can help each other survive with such outer kindnesses, we help each other thrive when the checking in with each other comes from a list of inner kindnesses: How are you today? Do you need any affirmation? Clarity? Support? Understanding? When we ask these deeper questions directly, we wipe the mind clean of its misperceptions. Just as we must dust our belongings from time to time, we must wipe away what covers us when we are apart.
”
”
Mark Nepo (The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have)
“
As I’ve said, it wasn’t until a long time afterwards—long after I’d left the Cottages—that I realized just how significant out little encounter in the churchyard had been. I was upset at the time, yes. But I didn’t believe it to be anything so different from other tiffs we’d had. It never occurred to me that our lives, until then so closely interwoven could unravel and separate over a thing like that.
But the fact was, I suppose, there were powerful tides tugging us apart by then, and it only needed something like that to finish the task. If we’d understood that back then—who knows?—maybe we’d have kept a tighter hold of one another.
”
”
Kazuo Ishiguro (Never Let Me Go)
“
Max." Fang let go of my hand. "Right now, it's really all about—us."
He swooped down to the right in a big semicircle, ending facing me. Slowly we climbed upward, until we were almost vertical, flying straight up to the sun.
While carefully synchronizing our wings—they almost touched—Fang leaned in, gently put one hand behind my neck, and kissed me. It was just about as close to heaven as I'll ever get, I guess. I closed my eyes, lost in the feeling of flying and kissing and being with the one person in the world I completely,
utterly trusted.
When we finally broke apart, we looked down at the others, who were way far below us now. Angel was shading her eyes, looking up at us with a big smile. She was sitting on a dolphin's back, and I hoped soon someone would explain to the dolphin that he shouldn't let Angel take advantage of his good nature.
Still looking up at us, Angel gave us a big thumbs-up.
"She approves," Fang said with a hint of amusement.
"Jeez," I wondered aloud. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
”
”
James Patterson (Max (Maximum Ride, #5))
“
They had drifted apart, as people do when they promise to stay in touch; the ones who are going to stay in touch don't need to promise.
”
”
Edward St. Aubyn
“
[A]s people are beginning to see that the sexes form in a certain sense a continuous group, so they are beginning to see that Love and Friendship which have been so often set apart from each other as things distinct are in reality closely related and shade imperceptibly into each other. Women are beginning to demand that Marriage shall mean Friendship as well as Passion; that a comrade-like Equality shall be included in the word Love; and it is recognised that from the one extreme of a 'Platonic' friendship (generally between persons of the same sex) up to the other extreme of passionate love (generally between persons of opposite sex) no hard and fast line can at any point be drawn effectively separating the different kinds of attachment. We know, in fact, of Friendships so romantic in sentiment that they verge into love; we know of Loves so intellectual and spiritual that they hardly dwell in the sphere of Passion.
”
”
Edward Carpenter (The Intermediate Sex: A Study Of Some Transitional Types Of Men And Women)
“
Looking back on months and years of intimacy, to feel that your friend, while you still remember the moving words you exchanged, is yet growing distant and living in a world apart—all this is sadder far than partings brought by death.
”
”
Yoshida Kenkō (Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō)
“
After Arran died we could've fallen apart. But we didn't. Because you held it together. "Arran Lives" - you remember that?"
"I remember."
"He lived in you, Max. You done well. I like you. You're cool.
”
”
Charlie Higson (The End (The Enemy, #7))
“
There are two forms of friendship: meeting and separation. They are indissoluble. Both of them contain some good, and this good of friendship is unique, 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. As both forms contain the same good thing, they are both equally good.
”
”
Simone Weil
“
There are relationships apart from boyfriend/girlfriend & friendship, that can be very emotional and true, which is beyond the understanding of many people.
”
”
Shivam Singh (Best Friends)
“
Each of us has been falling apart since day one, Chase. We just have to find a way to fall apart together.
”
”
Brian K. Vaughan (Runaways, Vol. 6: Parental Guidance)
“
I remember just how bizarre my friendship with Tiffani has been - but then I remember that no one else but Tiffani could really even come close to understanding how I feel after losing Nikki forever. I remember that apart time is finally over, and while Nikki is gone for good, I still have a woman in my arms who has suffered greatly and desperately needs to believe once again that she is beautiful. In my arms is a woman who has given me a Skywatcher's Cloud Chart, a woman who knows all my secrets, a woman who knows just how messed up my mind is, how many pills I'm on and yet she allows me to hold her anyway. There's something honest about all of this, and I cannot imagine any other woman lying in the middle of a frozen soccer filed with me-in the middle of a snowstorm even - impossibly hoping to see a single cloud break free of a nimbostratus. Nikki would not have done this for me, not even on her best day.
”
”
Matthew Quick (The Silver Linings Playbook)
“
When Jack came in he found him sitting before a tray of bird's skins and labels. Stephen looked up, and after a moment said, 'To a tormented mind there is nothing, I believe, more irritating than comfort. Apart from anything else it often implies superior wisdom in the comforter. But I am very sorry for your trouble, my dear.'
'Thank you, Stephen. Had you told me that there was always a tomorrow, I think I should have thrust your calendar down your throat.
”
”
Patrick O'Brian (The Commodore (Aubrey/Maturin, #17))
“
Physical attraction did its part to glue them together, but something stronger than sexual attraction sealed the bond. When men and women grow apart, it is for the same reason they are drawn together; because they are finally, inherently too different. Friendships among women, on the other hand, were burdened by similarity.
”
”
Galt Niederhoffer (The Romantics)
“
It's just one more thing she hadn't considered, and as the idea of it settles over her, she realizes again how entwined their lives are. They're like two trees whose branches have grown together. Even if you pull them out by the trunks, they're still going to be twisted and tangled and nearly impossible to separate at the roots.
”
”
Jennifer E. Smith
“
Time is pulling us apart. With every second that passes, the space between us widens. Today, I saw him yesterday. In a few days, it will have been last week. Then, last month. And there is nothing I can do to keep time from wedging more of itself between us. It is inevitable. - Miles
”
”
Will Kostakis (The Sidekicks)
“
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 (Getting Over Garrett Delaney)
“
Tragedy whores don’t feel the foundation break apart beneath their feet—the reeling blast of emptiness, though to watch them you might think so. They’re voyeurs. They feed like coffin flies on drama, embroiled in virtual grief and the illusion of heartbreak. They all have stories they want to tell, insist on telling, proclaiming their link to tragedy. Emotional rubberneckers.
”
”
Carole Radziwill (What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love)
“
You don’t see heroism, humanity and hope like you do in a horror story. Horror celebrates the kind of friendship that keeps you standing shoulder to shoulder with someone even when the world is falling apart around you.
”
”
Alexander Gordon Smith
“
Our friendship had been a long-distance one since we went off to college. But I never met another woman who meant to me what she did. No one else could make me laugh like she could. So my oldest friend remained my best friend, despite however many miles kept us apart, and it was for that reason that I made her my maid of honor.
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (One True Loves)
“
He was one of those persons whom one loves not because of some lustrous streak of talent (this retired businessman possessed none), but because every moment spent with them fits exactly the gauge of one's life. There are friendships like circuses, waterfalls, libraries; there are others comparable to old dressing gowns. You found nothing especially attractive about Maximov's mind if you took it apart: his ideas were conservative, his tastes undistinguished: but somehow or other these dull components formed a wonderfully comfortable and harmonious whole.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Bend Sinister)
“
My mother had told me once when I was little and had a friendship fall apart that some relationships just end. Like a star, they burn bright and brilliant, and then nothing in particular goes wrong, they just reach their end.
”
”
Cora Carmack (Losing It (Losing It, #1))
“
Life and I became friends some years ago - not the sort of exciting friendship I longed for as a child, but a kindly truce, a pleasure in coming home every day to my apartment. I have a moment now and then - as I peel an orange and take it from kitchen counter to table - when I feel almost a pang of contentment, perhaps at that raw colour.
”
”
Elizabeth Kostova (The Swan Thieves)
“
I fell for you.
You fell for me.
Our friendship was just meant to be.
I asked if you loved me, and you said you did.
The next day you said that you wish you never did.
I fell apart that very day, begging you to stay.
You said no and pushed me away.
Now this very day im glad you didnt stay
”
”
Emma Taylor
“
IF I HAD a dime for every time I’ve heard “We’re all going to die” or “I’ll kill you,” I could afford a better apartment. You can only listen to so many threats of destruction, doom, or death before you start tuning them all out. So I followed the wolf out of the building, then went home.
”
”
J.C. Nelson (Free Agent (Grimm Agency, #1))
“
Be with me" she said simply "Just for here. Just for now. With gentleness and friendship. To take...the other away. Give me that much of yourself."
I wanted her. I wanted her with a desperation that had nothing to do with love, and even, I believe, little to do with lust. She was warm and alive and it would have been sweet and simple human comfort. If I could have been with her and arisen from it unchanged in how I thought of myself and what I felt for Molly, I would have done so. But what I felt for Molly was not something that was only for when we were together. I had given Molly that claim to me; I could not resend it just because we were apart for while.
”
”
Robin Hobb
“
It was not something you could call friendship; it was at once less and more. The sharing of such experiences created a bond and set them apart from all others. It was not something that could be told to another person. There were no words with a meaning both could understand which would impart the physical horror or the heights and depths of emotion.
”
”
Anne Perry (A Sudden, Fearful Death (William Monk, #4))
“
Maybe it had begun to happen before the slowing, but it was only afterward that I realized it: My friendships were disintegrating. Things were coming apart. It was a rough crossing, the one from childhood to the next life. And as with any other harsh journey, not everything survived.
”
”
Karen Thompson Walker (The Age of Miracles)
“
And I want you to know that I heard what you said in that speech,' Rider said, his voice scratchy. 'I might've saved you all those years ago, but now you've saved me,'
My heart stuttered and then sped up. I reacted without thought. Placing the book on the bed, I launched myself at Rider just as he came off the window seat. We collided. I folded my arms around him as we went down onto the floor, me partially in his lap and his arms tight around my waist, his face burrowed against my neck. I felt a tremor run through his body and then he shook in my arms. I held him tighter as he broke into pieces, and years of holding it together shattered. I held him through it all.
Then it was me who put Rider back together.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (The Problem with Forever)
“
Payton “Sin” Sinclair was an unapologetic people-watcher. As a sports consultant, working with some of the biggest and most recognizable athletes in sports and business, he had to be able to read the smallest nuances of others. That ability was just one of the unique attributes that set him apart from the competition and made him the go-to person when corporations wanted to align themselves with the top professional athletes in the country.
”
”
Francis Ray (A Dangerous Kiss (Grayson Friends, #7))
“
For before I met my friend there had been a period when I was prey to a morbid melancholy, if not depression, when I really believed I was lost, when for years I did no proper work but spent most of my days in a state of total apathy and often came close to putting an end to my life by my own hand. For years I had taken refuge in a terrible suicidal brooding, which deadened my mind and made everything unendurable, above all myself—brooding on the utter futility all around me, into which I had been plunged by my general weakness, but above all my weakness of character. For a long time I could not imagine being able to go on living, or even existing. I was no longer capable of seizing upon any purpose in life that would have given me control over myself. Every morning on waking I was inevitably caught up in this mechanism of suicidal brooding, and I remained in its grip throughout the day. And I was deserted by everyone because I had deserted everyone—that is the truth—because I no longer wanted anyone. I no longer wanted anything, but I was too much of a coward to make an end of it all. It was probably at the height of my despair—a word that I am not ashamed to use, as I no longer intend to deceive myself or gloss over anything, since nothing can be glossed over in a society and a world that perpetually seeks to gloss over everything in the most sickening manner—that Paul appeared on the scene at Irina’s apartment in the Blumenstockgasse.
”
”
Thomas Bernhard (Wittgenstein's Nephew: A Friendship)
“
Ive learnt the most about myself through the people and places i no longer visit, such an ironic exprience.
The greatest lessons are from those we give the keys of our hearts to & trust all too easily; realising later on, they are just apart of this grande' story and not everyone gets to make it to the end chapter & happy ever after.
”
”
Nikki Rowe
“
The evening I went for a walk. To walk for the sake of walking is something I seldom do.Inside my apartment I'd felt inexplicably anxious. I needed to talk to someone, to be reassured. Or perhaps I needed to confess my sin: I was once again having impure thoughts about saving the world. Or it was neither of these--I was afraid I was dreaming. Indeed, considering the events of the day, it was likely that I was dreaming. I sometimes fly in my dreams, and each time I say to myself, "At last--it's happening in reality and not in a dream!"
In any case, I needed to talk to someone, and I was alone. This is my habitual condition, by choice--or so I tell myself. Mere acquaintanceship leaves me unsatisfied, and few people are willing to accept the burdens and risks of friendship as I conceive of it.
”
”
Daniel Quinn (Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (Ishmael, #1))
“
A quilt circle's like a crazy quilt. You got all kinds in it. Some members are the big pieces of velvet or brocade, show-offish, while others are bitty scraps of used goods, hoping you don't notice them. But without each and every one, the quilt would fall apart. There's big and small, old and new, fancy and plain in a quilt circle. Some you like better than the others. We have our differences, and Monalisa is a trial, but it's a surprise how we all come together over the quilt frame, even Monalisa. We're as thick as a lettuce bed.
”
”
Sandra Dallas (Prayers for Sale)
“
But what sets me apart from other Chinese writers is that I neither copy the narrative techniques of foreign writers nor imitate their story lines; what I am happy to do is closely explore what is embedded in their work in order to understand their observations of life and comprehend how they view the world we live in. In my mind, by reading the works of others, a writer is actually engaging in a dialogue, maybe even a romance in which, if there is a meeting of the minds, a lifelong friendship is born; if not, an amicable parting is fine, too.
”
”
Mo Yan (Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh: A Novel)
“
And it is in New York I have those strangest things of all: human friendships. Not many friendships and not of spent familiarities: for I don't like actual human beings too much around me. But yet friendships made of the edges of thoughts and vivid pathos and pregnant odds and ends of nervous human flesh and fire.
It is in New York I go to the apartment of a Friend at the end of an afternoon. In the apartment are some persons having tea, men and women. The Friend greets me at the door. She wears maybe a dress of thin dark and light silk, shaped in the quaint outlandish fashion of the hour. And she has shrewd kindly eyes like a Rembrandt portrait, and a worn New-York-ish Latin-ish brain and heart both of which are made of steel, sparkle and the very plain red meat of living. She says, 'Hello-Mary-Mac-Lane,' and clasps my hand, and we exchange a glance of no real understanding at all but suggesting warmed challenge of personality, and an oblique sweet call of depth to depth, and of friendship which by mere force of preference and of our separate quality and calibre is true rather than false. So close and no closer may friendship be. And friendship with-all, is closer than any love. It is the closest human beings ever come to meeting.
”
”
Mary MacLane (I, Mary MacLane: A Diary of Human Days)
“
When you're a child, your best friend in the world is the kid who lives next door. It doesn't occur to you then that this is a matter of arbitrary circumstance. When you grow up you like to imagine that your friendships have a more substantial basis - common interests, like-mindedness, some genuine affinity. It's always a sad revelation that when a good friend acquires a girlfriend or a husband and disappears. You realize that,for them, your friendships was always only a matter of convenience, a fallback, and they simply don't need you anymore. There's nothing especially cynical about this; people are drawn to each other because they're giving each other something they both need, and they drift apart when they aren't getting it or don't need it anymore. Friendship have natural life spans, like love affairs or favorite songs.
”
”
Tim Kreider (We Learn Nothing)
“
Sixth grade, I remembermy best friend Wendy
whose parents were fighting, harshly, loudly,
and we sat on the curb outside so she wouldn't have to hear it,
and she cried, believing her world was falling apart.
I made up a kind-of game:
to everything she would say, I would respond
"Is that a fact or an opinion?"
and she had to figure it out and say it outloud--
we played it for hours,
ending up laughing
but she also began to separate
what was actually happening inside the house
from her feelings about it
and her fears.
I feel like I'm still playing "Fact or Opinion"
in my writing,
in the world--
with family, friends,
and, of course, myself.
Wish I could play it with our governmental representatives,
our institutions,
our courts.
”
”
Shellen Lubin
“
Sixth grade, I remembermy best friend Wendy
whose parents were fighting, harshly, loudly,
and we sat on the curb outside so she wouldn't have to hear it,
and she cried, believing her world was falling apart.
I made up a kind-of game:
to everything she would say, I would respond
'Is that a fact or an opinion?'
and she had to figure it out and say it outloud--
we played it for hours,
ending up laughing
but she also began to separate
what was actually happening inside the house
from her feelings about it
and her fears.
I feel like I'm still playing 'Fact or Opinion'
in my writing,
in the world--
with family, friends,
and, of course, myself.
Wish I could play it with our governmental representatives,
our institutions,
our courts.
”
”
Shellen Lubin
“
No. If she cared about me, she would have loved me for whomever I was, not just who she wanted me to be. What she maybe thought I was. Relationships are always made up of these little perceptions of relationships, you know. What you think is friendship is something else so to someone else. You can never really know what's in someone else's mind, no matter how much you love them."
I nod, then say, "Yeah," because I realize she can't see me. I think of the distance between us, and how maybe there's that distance between all of us, because she's right, I can't know what's in someone else's head. And just like that, I can feel the distance close—snap like a rubber band. We were never really far apart, maybe. It just looked that way.
”
”
Lev A.C. Rosen (Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts))
“
My best friend came to visit from far away. She took two planes and a train to get to Brooklyn. We met at a bar near my apartment and drank in a hurry as the babysitter's meter ticked. In the past, we'd talked about books and other people, but now we talked only of our respective babies, hers sweet-faced and docile, mine at war with the world. We applied our muzzy intellects to a theory of light. That all are born radiating light but that this light diminished slowly (if one was lucky) or abruptly (if one was not). The most charismatic people—the poets, the mystics, the explorers—were that way because they had somehow managed to keep a bit of this light that was meant to have dimmed. But the shocking thing, the unbearable thing it seemed, was that the natural order was for this light to vanish. It hung on sometimes through the twenties, a glint here or there in the thirties, and then almost always the eyes went dark.
”
”
Jenny Offill (Dept. of Speculation)
“
Love is about control and loss of control. In love, we give ourselves up to each other. We lose control or, rather, we cede control to another, trusting in a way we would never otherwise trust, letting the other person hold the deepest part of our being in their hands, with the capacity to hurt it mortally. This cession of control is a deeply terrifying thing, which is why we crave it and are drawn to it like moths to the flame, and why we have to trust it unconditionally. In love, so many hazardous uncertainties in life are resolved: the constant negotiation with other souls, the fear and distrust that lie behind almost every interaction, the petty loneliness that we learned to live with as soon as we grew apart from our mother’s breast. We lose all this in the arms of another. We come home at last to a primal security, made manifest by each other’s nakedness…
And with that loss of control comes mutual power, the power to calm, the power to redeem, and the power to hurt.
”
”
Andrew Sullivan (Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival)
“
Some might wonder that the two men should consider themselves to be old friends having only known each other for four years; but the tenure of friendships has never been governed by the passage of time. These two would have felt like old friends had they met just hours before. To some degree, this was because they were kindred spirits—finding ample evidence of common ground and cause for laughter in the midst of effortless conversation; but it was also almost certainly a matter of upbringing. Raised in grand homes in cosmopolitan cities, educated in the liberal arts, graced with idle hours, and exposed to the finest things, though the Count and the American had been born ten years and four thousand miles apart, they had more in common with each other than they had with the majority of their own countrymen.
”
”
Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
“
friendship nostalgia
i miss the days when
my friends knew every mundane detail
about my life and i knew every ordinary detail about theirs
adulthood has starved me of that consistency that us
those walks around the block
those long conversations when we were
too lost in the moment to care
what time it was when we won-and celebrated
when we failed and celebrated even harder
when we were just kids
now we have our very important jobs
that fill up our very busy schedules
we have to compare calendars
just to plan coffee dates
that one of us will eventually cancel
because adulthood is being
too exhausted to leave our apartments most days
i miss belonging to a group of people bigger than myself
it was that belonging that made life easier to live
how come no one warned us about
how we'd graduate and grow apart
after everything we'd been through
how come no one said
one of life's biggest challenges
would be trying to stay connected
to the people that make us feel alive
no one talks about the hole
a friend can leave inside you
when they go off to make their dreams come true
in college we used to stay up till 4 in the morning
dreaming of what we'd do
the moment we started earning real paychecks
now we finally have the money
to cross everything off our bucket lists
but those lists are collecting dust
in some lost corridor of our minds
sometimes when i get lonely
i still search for them
i'd give anything to go back
and do the foolish things we used to do
i feel the most present in your presence
when we're laughing so hard
the past slides off our shoulders
and worries of the future slip away
the truth is i couldn't survive without my friends
they know exactly what i need
before i even know that i need
the way we hold each other is just different
so forget grabbing coffee
i don't want to have another dinner
where we sit across from each other
at a table reminiscing about old times
when we have so much time left
to make new memories with
how about
you go pack your bags
and i'll pack mine
you take a week off work
i'll grab my keys
and let's go for ride
we've got years of catching up to do
”
”
Rupi Kaur
“
reining yourself in because why ruin a good thing? why make it weird? and then you say goodbye, with a hug, with a snarky remark, and head home. you climb into bed and imagine them with you. you think about how their hair falls in their face, about how they breathe when they sleep. you think about them waking up and nudging you into consciousness with soft kisses down your torso. you sit in bed and think of all the ways you could make their soul dance. how you know their quirks and it all feels so right, but why? why is this happening? why can’t you just be content with what you have now? except even now you have to control the urge to kiss them, even though it is in your nature, even just on the cheek, because what if it breaks the relationship apart at the seams? you may not even mean it sexually or romantically, but what if? and there’s always the chance they have felt this way too. but it’s only a chance. and why risk it? so you lay there in bed and twist the sheets around your legs and text them back about another person they have feelings toward and coax them into something healthy. you put their happiness before your own. you watch as they stumble and help them rise mightily. you gush over them and try to snuff out the selfishness that builds whenever you see them with someone else. it wouldn’t be fair to them to impose your own wants on them and take away a good friendship. it isn’t always about you. and yet here you are, writing this. writing this and thinking of someone specific the entire time.
”
”
Taylor Rhodes (calloused: a field journal)
“
Anything Bunny wrote was bound to be alarmingly original, since he began with such odd working materials and managed to alter them further by his befuddled scrutiny, but the John Donne paper must have been the worst of all the bad papers he ever wrote (ironic, given that it was the only thing he ever wrote that saw print. After he disappeared, a journalist asked for an excerpt from the missing young scholar's work and Marion gave him a copy of it, a laboriously edited paragraph of which eventually found its way into People magazine).
Somewhere, Bunny had heard that John Donne had been acquainted with Izaak Walton, and in some dim corridor of his mind this friendship grew larger and larger, until in his mind the two men were practically interchangeable. We never understood how this fatal connection had established itself: Henry blamed it on Men of Thought and Deed, but no one knew for sure. A week or two before the paper was due, he had started showing up in my room about two or three in the morning, looking as if he had just narrowly escaped some natural disaster, his tie askew and his eyes wild and rolling. 'Hello, hello,' he would say, stepping in, running both hands through his disordered hair. 'Hope I didn't wake you, don't mind if I cut on the lights, do you, ah, here we go, yes, yes…' He would turn on the lights and then pace back and forth for a while without taking off his coat, hands clasped behind his back, shaking his head. Finally he would stop dead in his tracks and say, with a desperate look in his eye: 'Metahemeralism.
Tell me about it. Everything you know. I gotta know something about metahemeralism.'
'I'm sorry. I don't know what that is.'
'I don't either,' Bunny would say brokenly. 'Got to do with art or pastoralism or something. That's how I gotta tie together John Donne and Izaak Walton, see.' He would resume pacing.
'Donne. Walton. Metahemeralism. That's the problem as I see it.'
'Bunny, I don't think "metahemeralism" is even a word.'
'Sure it is. Comes from the Latin. Has to do with irony and the pastoral. Yeah. That's it. Painting or sculpture or something, maybe.'
'Is it in the dictionary?'
'Dunno. Don't know how to spell it. I mean' – he made a picture frame with his hands – 'the poet and the fisherman. Parfait. Boon companions. Out in the open spaces. Living the good life. Metahemeralism's gotta be the glue here, see?'
And so it would go, for sometimes half an hour or more, with Bunny raving about fishing, and sonnets, and heaven knew what, until in the middle of his monologue he would be struck by a brilliant thought and bluster off as suddenly as he had descended.
He finished the paper four days before the deadline and ran around showing it to everyone before he turned it in.
'This is a nice paper, Bun -,' Charles said cautiously.
'Thanks, thanks.'
'But don't you think you ought to mention John Donne more often? Wasn't that your assignment?'
'Oh, Donne,' Bunny had said scoffingly. 'I don't want to drag him into this.'
Henry refused to read it. 'I'm sure it's over my head, Bunny, really,' he said, glancing over the first page. 'Say, what's wrong with this type?'
'Triple-spaced it,' said Bunny proudly.
'These lines are about an inch apart.'
'Looks kind of like free verse, doesn't it?'
Henry made a funny little snorting noise through his nose.
'Looks kind of like a menu,' he said.
All I remember about the paper was that it ended with the sentence 'And as we leave Donne and Walton on the shores of Metahemeralism, we wave a fond farewell to those famous chums of yore.' We wondered if he would fail.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
“
After Dena hung up she didn’t feel any better. Sookie was wrong. Dena could barely remember any of the girls she went to school with, or at times even the names of the schools. Dena had always been a loner. She did not feel connected to anything. Or anybody. She felt as if everybody else had come into the world with a set of instructions about how to live and someone had forgotten to give them to her. She had no clue what she was supposed to feel, so she had spent her life faking at being a human being, with no idea how other people felt. What was it like to really love someone? To really fit in or belong somewhere? She was quick, and a good mimic, so she learned at an early age to give the impression of a normal, happy girl, but inside she had always been lonely.
As a child she had spent hours looking in windows at families, from trains, buses, seeing the people inside that looked so happy and content, longing to get inside but not knowing how to do it. She always thought things might change if she could just find the right apartment, the right house, but she never could. No matter where she lived it never felt like home. In fact, she didn’t even know what “home” felt like.
Did everybody feel alone out there in the world or were they all acting? Was she the only one? She had been flying blind all her life and now suddenly she had started to hit the wall. She sat drinking red wine, and thinking and wondering what was the matter with her. What had gone wrong?
”
”
Fannie Flagg (Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! (Elmwood Springs, #1))