“
People will walk in and walk out of your life, but the one whose footstep made a long lasting impression is the one you should never allow to walk out.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson
“
So tonight I reach for my journal again. This is the first time I’ve done this since I came to Italy. What I write in my journal is that I am weak and full of fear. I explain that Depression and Loneliness have shown up, and I’m scared they will never leave. I say that I don’t want to take the drugs anymore, but I’m frightened I will have to. I am terrified that I will never really pull my life together.
In response, somewhere from within me, rises a now-familiar presence, offering me all the certainties I have always wished another person would say to me when I was troubled. This is what I find myself writing on the page:
I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long. I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it—I will love you through that, as well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you, too. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and Braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.
Tonight, this strange interior gesture of friendship—the lending of a hand from
me to myself when nobody else is around to offer solace—reminds me of something that happened to me once in New York City. I walked into an office building one afternoon in a hurry, dashed into the waiting elevator. As I rushed in, I caught an unexpected glance of myself in a security mirror’s reflection. In that moment, my brain did an odd thing—it fired off this split-second message: “Hey! You know her! That’s a friend of yours!” And I actually ran forward toward my own reflection with a smile, ready to welcome that girl whose name I had lost but whose face was so familiar. In a flash instant of course, I realized my mistake and laughed in embarrassment at my almost doglike confusion over how a mirror works. But for some reason that incident comes to mind again tonight during my sadness in Rome, and I find myself writing this comforting reminder at the bottom of the page.
Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a FRIEND…
I fell asleep holding my notebook pressed against my chest, open to this most recent assurance. In the morning when I wake up, I can still smell a faint trace of depression’s lingering smoke, but he himself is nowhere to be seen. Somewhere during the night, he got up and left. And his buddy loneliness beat it, too.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert
“
A genuine enemy is more useful than a fake friend.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
When finally she finished and stood herself up, he put his arm around her, best-buddy style, and they walked on. There was no request for a kiss. Nothing like that. You can love Rudy for that, if you like.
”
”
Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)
“
Some of our friends are our friends only because we used to be friends.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism)
“
Depressing thought: my friends were the girls I ate lunch with, all buddies from kindergarten who knew one another so well we weren't sure if we even liked one another anymore.
”
”
Lauren Groff (Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories)
“
What are we doing?" Asher helped himself to a seat at my table.
"We aren't doing anything," I told him bluntly.
"My mistake. I thought we were brooding in Henry's general direction. Like so." He adopted stormy countenance, then gestured to me. "Yours is better."
"Go away, Asher."
"You say go away, I hear be my bosom buddy." He gave an elaborate shrug. "Seriously, though: friendship bracelets—yea or nay?
”
”
Jennifer Lynn Barnes (The Fixer (The Fixer, #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)
“
Your true friend is the one who will never walk away in your time of need.
Regardless of the situation, time or location, your true friend will stand by you
”
”
Ellen J. Barrier (How to Trust God When All Other Resources Have Failed)
“
Penelope? Thank you. For not leaving me alone to deal with this . . . when things got hard. other people would have. You're a true friend.
”
”
Svetlana Chmakova (Awkward (Berrybrook Middle School #1))
“
In the village he [My friend Moe] said once, "Me and her is buddies, see? If her gate falls down, I go and fix it. If I git in a tight for money she helps me if she's got it, and if she ain't got it, she gits it for me. We stick together. You got to stick to the bridge that carries you across.
”
”
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Cross Creek)
“
Hope and God were buddies. Theirs was not a formal relationship steeped in ritual and tradition. It was more of a close yet casual friendship.
”
”
Augusten Burroughs (Running with Scissors)
“
Friendship is not something that you seek but something that finds you.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (On Friendship: A Satirical Essay)
“
Now I had a mate and a pal. All I needed to complete the Kat Friendship Club was a buddy!
”
”
June Whyte (Chasing Can Be Murder (Kat McKinley Mystery #1))
“
You can be a friend to someone who is to you not a friend.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (On Friendship: A Satirical Essay)
“
An awesome friend is everything.
”
”
Ellen J. Barrier (How to Trust God When All Other Resources Have Failed)
“
I’ve watched it time and time again—a woman always slots into a man’s life better than he slots into hers. She will be the one who spends the most time at his flat, she will be the one who makes friends with all his friends and their girlfriends. She will be the one who sends his mother a bunch of flowers on her birthday. Women don’t like this rigmarole any more than men do, but they’re better at it—they just get on with it. This means that when a woman my age falls in love with a man, the list of priorities goes from this: Family Friends To this: Family Boyfriend Boyfriend’s family Boyfriend’s friends Girlfriends of the boyfriend’s friends Friends Which means, on average, you go from seeing your friend every weekend to once every six weekends. She becomes a baton and you’re the one at the very end of the track. You get your go for, say, your birthday or a brunch, then you have to pass her back round to the boyfriend to start the long, boring rotation again. These gaps in each other’s lives slowly but surely form a gap in the middle of your friendship. The love is still there, but the familiarity is not. Before you know it, you’re not living life together anymore. You’re living life separately with respective boyfriends then meeting up for dinner every six weekends to tell each other what living is like. I now understand why our mums cleaned the house before their best friend came round and asked them “What’s the news, then?” in a jolly, stilted way. I get how that happens. So don’t tell me when you move in with your boyfriend that nothing will change. There will be no road trip. The cycle works when it comes to holidays as well—I’ll get my buddy back for every sixth summer, unless she has a baby in which case I’ll get my road trip in eighteen years’ time. It never stops happening. Everything will change.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir)
“
Please, I'm your friend -- inside that tough-girl shell is a really tough girl. But you're motivated by how much you care. Being part of Team Lois, it's an honor. There's nothing you wouldn't do for any of us.
”
”
Gwenda Bond (Triple Threat (Lois Lane, #3))
“
He stands and he lifts me up by my shoulders, and he hugs me tight.
“I'm sorry, dude.”
Zay-Rod joins our little huddle. It is, sex included, the most intimate moment of my life. They hold me tight, and I just close my eyes and breathe, thinking how glad I am they're my buddies, and wondering why I was ever afraid to tell them
”
”
Bill Konigsberg (The Music of What Happens)
“
I loved having each book I read on display, even though Beck constantly teased me about having similar habits to a serial killer who liked their trophies.
”
”
Andrea Andersen (What It Means To Be Brave (What It Means 2))
“
Wiggy & I were drug buddies. There is no tighter compact for friendship. There is no greater potential for deceit.
”
”
Pete Townshend (Who I Am)
“
There is nothing that you and I could not accomplish together, if we gave our minds to it.
”
”
A.A. Milne (The Red House Mystery-Classic Edition(Annotated))
“
All I know is, you only make a once-in-a-lifetime buddy, once in a lifetime.
”
”
Stymie, The Little Rascals
“
Some people look for good friends and some become a good friend.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
Be the kind of a friend you would like to be with.
”
”
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
“
But that’s the way life is; felicity and expiation play together in the narrow lanes of life like bosom friends, inseparable. You find one, and the other is always around the corner.
”
”
Anurag Shourie (Half A Shadow)
“
BFF, bestie, buddy—there are many ways to describe friends. But what really makes a “good” or “close” friend? And why do some friendships feel like a cozy robe, while others feel like a scary movie?
”
”
Jessica Speer (BFF or NRF (Not Really Friends): A Girl's Guide to Happy Friendships)
“
... our union stands upon a firm foundation of that nether rock of friendship, perfect trust, perfect faith, love stronger than death, which makes a peace in our hearts, a mighty influence in our lives which very truly “passeth understanding.
”
”
Jessie Fothergill (The First Violin V3)
“
Rocky!'
A crackle. My ears perk up.
'Rocky?!'
'Grace, question?'
'Yes!' I've never been so happy to hear a few musical notes! 'Yeah, buddy! It's me!'
'You are here, question?!' his voice is so high-pitched I can barely understand him. But I understand Eridian pretty well now.
'Yes! I'm here!'
'You are...' he squeaks. 'You...' he squeaks again. 'You are here!'
'Yes! Set up the airlock tunnel!'
'Warning! Taumoeba-82.5 is-'
'I know! I know. It can get through xeonite. That's why I'm here. I knew you'd be in trouble.'
'You save me!'
'Yes. I caught the Taumoeba in time. I still have fuel. Set up the tunnel. I'm taking you to Erid.'
'You save me and you save Erid!' he squeaks.
'Set up the damn tunnel!'
'Get back in you ship! Unless you want to look at tunnel from outside!'
'Oh, right!
”
”
Andy Weir (Project Hail Mary)
“
Wait, sweetheart, you're not gonna card me?" He looked, bright eyed, at his table mates to join in the joke. "What, do I look old or something?"
She'd dealt with this before. "No, you look honest."
The guy to his left- this time central casting's Joseph (as in Jesus, Mary, and)- slapped his back and crowed at her response. "You thought you had her! She got you good, buddy!
”
”
Beth Harbison (The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship)
“
In the development of its love story, Singin’ in the Rain follows a particular plotline that came to have a great deal of currency in Hollywood films, especially in “buddy” films (and most especially those directed by Howard Hawks), involving a kind of “love triangle” in which the long-standing friendship of two men (often a hero and his sidekick) is threatened by the attraction of one of them to a woman introduced early on (the ingénue, although often not exactly an innocent).26 Generally, this plot situation may be taken to carry homosexual overtones, so that the story becomes a parable about embracing heterosexual love. This interpretation is, of course, quite easily avoided, since most sidekicks have next to no discernible sex drive, at least during the film’s story,27 but it is surely significant that, in more recent times, the asexual sidekick is often replaced by a homosexual friend. And even the latter development may be explained away, given the utility of the sidekick plot situation and recent shifts in what audiences might accept as either “natural” or interesting wrinkles on the device. Nevertheless, the homoerotic tension in some of these relationships is significant enough to lay the entire tradition open to this interpretive avenue.
”
”
Raymond Knapp (The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity)
“
School friends are like the bijou of friends.
School friends were and are the sorcerers of real happiness.
Happiness that once thrived through us, by virtue of the fact that we were untouched by the ways of the world.
And happiness that comes through them even today, however sporadic, by the virtue of the fact that the pure and unadulterated impressions of buddy-love that
were left on us then,
could not be eroded by time
or too much awareness
or too many new friends.
”
”
Vidhu Kapur (DO WE MAKE FRIENDS AFTER SCHOOL?)
“
company. You're a cool person, and I like you as more than a buddy. I don't want to pressure you, but our friendship is vital to me." Respond correctly. If the guy tells you he likes you, make sure you respond appropriately. If he likes you, embrace him or show him how thrilled you are, then talk about going on a date and moving further. If he likes you, you can chuckle about how you tried to show it. If he doesn't reciprocate, that's fine. Keep calm. Don't express your disappointment or how much you like him. Don't get irritated or furious because he doesn't share
”
”
Jenny Peel (How to get into a relationship with your crush in 30 days: Learn how to get to get him not to only notice you but Fall for you too.)
“
Neither needs friendship nor a buddy who requires and wants only my body.
”
”
Ehsan Sehgal
“
She sounds better but she is not. She is trapping herself, this time by being my buddy, best of all buddies and most privy to my little researches. In spite of everything she finds herself, even now, playing out the role. In her long nightmare, this our old friendship now itself falls victim to the grisly transmogrification by which she unfailingly turns everything she touches to horror.
”
”
Walker Percy (The Moviegoer)
“
No buddy is perfect
”
”
Saji Ijiyemi
“
That weekend my people brought home
a big eared gray scrawny kit.
He was so loud and annoying
that I did not like him one bit.
”
”
Melinda K. Trotter (Spice Cat Wishes for a Buddy)
“
Literary friendship is impossible, it seems; at least, it is impossible for me. Indeed, all male friendships outside of work sometimes seem to be impossible: you look at each other at the restaurant at some point in the conversation and you know that each of you is thinking, man, this is futile, why are we here, we’re wasting our time, we have nothing to say, we’re not involved in some project together that we can bitch about, we can’t flirt, we feel like dummies discussing movies or books, we aren’t in some moral bind with a woman that we need to confess, we’ve each said the other is a genius several times already, and the whole thing is depressing and the tone is false and we might as well go home to our wives and children and rent buddy movies like Midnight Run or Planes, Trains, and Automobiles or The Pope of Greenwich Village> when we need a shot of the old camaraderie.
”
”
Nicholson Baker (U and I)
“
I don't want to leave.
”
”
Svetlana Chmakova (Awkward (Berrybrook Middle School #1))
“
Happiness is.. reading a novel with your Bestie.
”
”
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (10 Alone)
“
Paulette awoke with an ache in her heart, a grinding in her gut. If there really was a God, why would He have let anyone put a child through that? …
She had survived, but at what cost? She was an itinerant professor, living in her head, not her heart. She had broken away, but abandoned her sister; hadn’t contacted her family in years.
Paulette wondered what she was looking for in these weekend workshops. Absolution wasn’t on the curriculum. What could she possibly hope to accomplish? To be a healer you need to connect with people. You need to touch, and let yourself be touched. And not just with your hands.
Watching these nurses, she envied them their friendships. Here were real buddies truly caring about each other, taking jabs, sharing private jokes and fears. She’d never had that. Even witnessing it from across a room, or a yard, only made her feel that much more lonely.
She got along with people well enough. Agreed with whatever they said, watched their pets, helped them move from one apartment to another. But no one really knew her.
Paulette had never been flush with self-confidence. People took that as humility, but humility isn’t painful and crippling. She hadn’t yet learned that humble and self-destructive aren’t the same thing at all. They’re not even on the same team.
And now here she was at a workshop for healers. Had she come here to heal; or to be healed?
It was one of those warm, charming days that write poems about themselves, and then settle these very softly into your mind. Paulette sensed what felt like a rain-laced breeze stirring her soul; sodden, and yet beautiful; laden with both the dismal, and the promising.
- From “The Gardens of Ailana”, a fiction largely based around adults still traumatized by having been abused as children, in the name of their parents’ religion.
”
”
Edward Fahey (The Gardens of Ailana)
“
It’s important to have a buddy like that. Somebody who’ll stop you from doing that really stupid thing you were gonna do just because you couldn’t think of anything better. -- unidentified soldier, eulogizing his dead buddy
”
”
Henry V. O'Neil (Orphan Brigade (Sim War #2))
“
Cut wrong buddies from your agenda; otherwise, the treasure you gathered for decades will fade away in the blink of an eye.
”
”
Luckson T Mabade
“
So how is this different from bludgeoning all your friends to death with your sad, obsessive patter? Glad you asked! Enlisting a Breakup Buddy is an act of taking control. Instead of allowing your need to vent, complain, and wallow seep into every area of your life and every relationship you have (which will only keep you stuck and miserable), you are limiting yourself to one friend who agrees to help—thus ensuring that you are supported but don't subject others to an endless stream of whining. Having an established agreement also takes away any guilt you may feel about calling that friend for the third time that day. You asked them to stick with you for sixty days—they accepted. They want to be there. So you can pick up the phone when you need to without feeling ashamed or risking your friendships.
”
”
Greg Behrendt (It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken: The Smart Girl's Break-Up Buddy)
“
And now in Hawaii, I could see his character reflected in other small ways. His long-lasting friendships with his high school buddies showed his consistency in relationships. In his devotion to his strong-willed mother, I saw a deep respect for women and their independence. Without needing to discuss it outright, I knew he could handle a partner who had her own passions and voice. These were things you couldn't teach in a relationship, things not even love could really build or change. In opening up his world to me, Barack was showing me everything I'd ever need to know about the kind of life partner he'd be.
”
”
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
“
Neither needed friendship nor as a buddy
One required and wanted only my body
”
”
Ehsan Sehgal
“
School friends are like the bijou of friends. School friends were and are the sorcerers of real happiness. Happiness that once thrived through us, by virtue of the fact that we were untouched by the ways of the world. And happiness that comes through them even today, however sporadic, by the virtue of the fact that the pure and unadulterated impressions of buddy-love that were left on us then, could not be eroded by time or too much awareness or too many new friends.
”
”
Vidhu Kapur
“
Come close, be my buddy, then after a while call me nigga - it won't affect our friendship one bit. But out of the blue if you walk up to me as a complete stranger and call me that, then you only deepen the wounds caused by white oppressors throughout human history.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Şehit Sevda Society: Even in Death I Shall Live)
“
Children under the age of ten are extraordinarily loyal to their parents,” write the authors of Best Friends, Worst Enemies. By age thirteen, they begin seeing their parents’ flaws and share astute observations about them with buddies.
”
”
Carlin Flora (Friendfluence: The Hidden Ways in Which Friendships Shape Our Characters and Life Chances from Infancy to Old Age)
“
I want to know more about what dogs are feeling, and how those feelings compare with mine. I want to know because I was trained as a scientist and am driven by the druglike excitement of discovery. I want to know because I think it's important for our species to understand where we fit in with the rest of life. In addition, so much suffering - in both species - could be prevented if we had a better understanding of the emotional lives of our dogs. My dogs are as important to me as my human friends. They are my buddies, my family, my co-workers, my therapists, and, like all good friends, occasionally thorns in my side. I want to know more about who they are, and what they are feeling - partly from a desire to give them the best life I can, and partly from a desire to deepen our friendship
”
”
Patricia B. McConnell (For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend)
“
Hard work. Friendship. Those are the Walen ways.” “Sounds pretty good to me, buddy. Where I’m from, that would make you special. Not all heroes wear capes.” “What do fashion statements have to do with anything?
”
”
J.N. Chaney (Homeworld Lost (Homeworld Lost, #1))
“
What are a few coins among friends,
paper notes among buddies,
when they can cover gaps and deficits,
mend broken fences, and give a hand?
”
”
Muziwandile Mahlangu
“
Companionship will be made possible from enduring lonely nights, leaving the wrong drinking buddies, books and benches, concerts and stadiums, and universities and clothing stores. These were the conditions necessary for companionship. You will answer the question all souls ask: How will I find you? The answer: Truth magnetizes to truth, as long as it repels temptation.
”
”
Kristian Ventura (The Goodbye Song)
“
But Barack had arrived in my life a wholly formed person. From our very first conversation, he’d shown me that he wasn’t self-conscious about expressing fear or weakness and that he valued being truthful. At work, I’d witnessed his humility and willingness to sacrifice his own needs and wants for a bigger purpose. And now in Hawaii, I could see his character reflected in other small ways. His long-lasting friendships with his high school buddies showed his consistency in relationships. In his devotion to his strong-willed mother, I saw a deep respect for women and their independence. Without needing to discuss it outright, I knew he could handle a partner who had her own passions and voice. These were things you couldn’t teach in a relationship, things that not even love could really build or change. In opening up his world to me, Barack was showing me everything I’d ever need to know about the kind of life partner he’d be.
”
”
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
“
Moo,” said my bovine buddy reminding me just to be grateful. “Yeah, I know,” I admitted. “At least I won’t have to worry about starving. In fact, I think there’s a saying where I come from: Don’t live to eat, just eat to live.” I looked up at the setting sun, thinking of tonight’s zombies in a whole new way. “Thank you,” I told Moo, milking her for another pail, “not just for this, but for, you know, everything, even after what I almost did to you.” And then my generous, nurturing, unbelievably awesome pal gave me the third and final gift of friendship that day. “Moo,” she said, which I knew meant, “I forgive you.
”
”
Max Brooks (Minecraft: The Island)
“
Barack had arrived in my life a wholly formed person. From our very first conversation, he’d shown me that he wasn’t self-conscious about expressing fear or weakness and that he valued being truthful. At work, I’d witnessed his humility and willingness to sacrifice his own needs and wants for a bigger purpose. And now in Hawaii, I could see his character reflected in other small ways. His long-lasting friendships with his high school buddies showed his consistency in relationships. In his devotion to his strong-willed mother, I saw a deep respect for women and their independence. Without needing to discuss it outright, I knew he could handle a partner who had her own passions and voice. These were things you couldn’t teach in a relationship, things that not even love could really build or change. In opening up his world to me, Barack was showing me everything I’d ever need to know about the kind of life partner he’d be.
”
”
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
“
To a lost friend,
Hey buddy. How are you. Its been quite long. Like really super long that we haven't crossed eachother paths.
Never imagined that we will grow this old that we even wont care about how great friends we use to be once.
Though i would like to remind that whenever you cross my mind, it genuinely brings a smile within. Hope you are taking your good care & also that you are settled down. And if not then i hope you make it there soon. Can't say or ask more.
From a lost friend..
”
”
Arpan Baid
“
I’ve seen you do way more embarrassing stuff.”
I snort. “Like what?”
“We met because you fell on your face! Sorry, buddy. Our whole friendship is founded on you being embarrassing.”
“Great. Thanks. I feel a lot better now.
”
”
Britnee Meiser (All My Bests)