“
Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.
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Mary Wollstonecraft
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Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.
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Woodrow Wilson
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It was true; always had been. Friendships were like marriages in that way. Routines and patterns were poured early and hardened like cement.
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Kristin Hannah (Firefly Lane (Firefly Lane, #1))
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Blank-slate friendships were thin and temperamental. She knew that. There was no history there to cement people together, for better or worse.
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Sarah Addison Allen (The Girl Who Chased the Moon)
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Love binds people too, in matrimony's sacred bonds where chaste lovers are met, and friends cement their trust and friendship. How happy is mankind, if the love that orders the stars above rules, too, in your hearts.
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Boethius (The Consolation of Philosophy)
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It shouldn't have happened at all, but their friendship had been cemented in only the time it took to get to school that morning - Adam demonstrating how to fasten the Camaro's ground wire more securely, Gansey lifting Adam's bike halfway into the trunk so they could ride to school together, Adam confessing he worked at a mechanic's to put himself through Aglionby, and Gansey turning to the passenger seat and asking, "What do you know about Welsh kings?
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Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
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It was about the inestimable burden of their lives: the work, the houses, the friendships, the marriages, the children, as if all the things they’d wanted and worked for had cemented the impossibility of any sort of happiness. The
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Ann Patchett (Commonwealth)
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With me living forty-five minutes away, Tumblr is supposed to be sacred ground where our friendship is cemented. Unfollowing me is the same as saying, ‘I don’t like you anymore.
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Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1))
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The less we cement ourselves to our certainties, the fuller our lives can be.
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Kim Fay (Love & Saffron)
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Kin,” she finished. It was that last word that cemented their odd, tell-all friendship, the kind that only arises when a wronged person meets someone who has been similarly wronged and discovers that while it may be the only thing they share, it is more than enough.
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Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
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Food, in my experience, is one of the few things that can cement a good friendship between strangers.
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Brian McClellan (Sins of Empire (Gods of Blood and Powder, #1))
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My father and he had cemented (the verb is excessive) one of those English friendships which begin by avoiding intimacies and eventually eliminate speech altogether.
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Jorge Luis Borges (Ficciones)
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The kind of laughter that keeps going until you’ve forgotten what was so funny in the first place. The kind that cements friendships instantly. A warm balloon expanded in me, lifting me for a few moments out of the shadows. When I caught my breath and came back to earth, I belonged around this fire, with these guys.
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Emma Scott (When You Come Back to Me (Lost Boys, #2))
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It was about the inestimable burden of their lives: the work, the houses, the friendships, the marriages, the children, as if all the things they’d wanted and worked for had cemented the impossibility of any sort of happiness.
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Ann Patchett (Commonwealth)
“
My father and he had cemented (the verb is excessive) one of those English friendships which begin by avoiding intimacies and eventually eliminate speech altogether. They used to exchange books and periodicals; they would beat one another at chess, without saying a word.
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Jorge Luis Borges (Ficciones)
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...nothing cements a friendship like hating the same person.
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Steven H. Strogatz
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This is a landscape of dreams cemented in the past, of hopes gone cold, of girls and boys for rent in officially empty tower blocks, where none is truly so.
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Carla H. Krueger (Sex Media)
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The mutual conquest of difficulties is the cement of friendship, as it is the only lasting cement of matrimony.
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Apsley Cherry-Garrard (The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913)
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Perhaps language was the key—it was hard to say. Certainly I was astonished to find how few Cypriots knew good English, and how few Englishmen the dozen words of Greek which cement friendships and lighten the burdens of everyday life.
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Lawrence Durrell (Bitter Lemons of Cyprus: Life on a Mediterranean Island)
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When Lafayette visited Monticello in 1824, his old friend Thomas Jefferson toasted him: “When I was stationed in his country for the purpose of cementing its friendship with ours, and of advancing our mutual interests, this friend of both, was my most powerful auxiliary and advocate. He made our cause his own . . . His influence and connections there were great. All doors of all departments were open to him at all times. In truth, I only held the nail, he drove it.
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Sarah Vowell (Lafayette in the Somewhat United States)
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To help cement the friendship between Japan and Disney, Emperor Hirohito personally presented to Roy O. Disney, for the dedication of the Magic Kingdom, a stone Japanese lantern known as a Toro to light the way to success and happiness.
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Jim Korkis (Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never Knew You Never Knew)
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It was that last word that cemented their odd, tell-all friendship, the kind that only arises when a wronged person meets someone who has been similarly wronged and discovers that while it may be the only thing they share, it is more than enough.
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Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
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I won't let him come between us, Konnor,” Grayson promised, refusing to let go. “I feel so close to you…more than best friends. It's like we're soul mates. You're the part of me that I've always been missing. And he'll have to kill me to get me away from you,” he swore, unknowingly cementing his place in Konnor's heart with the words. He felt exactly the same.
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Elaine White (The Other Side (Decadent, #2))
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Day after day we were on the list, for a trip to Berlin or Nancy or Munich or somewhere. We weren’t meeting any new people, or learning anything constructive, or deepening our understanding or cementing any friendships.
We just went up there and over, to knock hell out of some city with the vague hope that some day that city will be rebuilt for some people we can get along with. Offhand it always seemed like a sort of sick way of doing things, and when the day turns up that we can start using other methods, I’m going to be one of the gladder people in the world.
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Bert Stiles (Serenade to the Big Bird)
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I have always thought love the only foundation of happiness in a married state, as it can only produce that high and tender friendship which should always be the cement of this union; and, in my opinion, all those marriages which are contracted from other motives are greatly criminal; they are a profanation of a most holy ceremony, and generally end in disquiet and misery: for surely we may call it a profanation to convert this most sacred institution into a wicked sacrifice to lust or avarice: and what better can be said of those matches to which men are induced merely by the consideration of a beautiful person, or a great fortune?
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Henry Fielding (The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling)
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And yet, what finally cemented our friendship from the very start was our love of France and of the French language, or, better yet, of the idea of France - because real France we no longer had much use for, nor it for us. We nursed this love like a guilty secret, because we couldn't undo it, didn't trust it, didn't even want to dignify it with the name of love.
But it hovered over our lives like a fraught and tired heirloom that dated back to our respective childhoods in colonial North Africa. Perhaps it wasn't even France, or the romance of France we loved; perhaps France was the nickname we gave our desperate reach for something firm in our lives - and for both of us the past was the firmest thing we had to hold on to, and the past in both cases was written in French.
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André Aciman (Harvard Square)
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Many of us drink in order to take that flight, in order to pour ourselves, literally, into new personalities: uncap the bottle, pop the cork, slide into someone else’s skin. A liquid makeover, from the inside out. Everywhere we look, we are told that this is possible; the knowledge creeps inside us and settles in dark corners, places where fantasies lie. We see it on billboards, in glossy magazine ads, in movies and on TV: we see couples huddled together by fires, sipping brandy, flames reflecting in the gleam of glass snifters; we see elegant groups raising celebratory glasses of wine in restaurants; we see friendships cemented over barstools and dark bottles of beer. We see secrets shared, problems solved, romances bloom. We watch, we know, and together the wine, beer, and liquor industries spend more than $1 billion each year*2 reinforcing this knowledge: drinking will transform us.
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Caroline Knapp (Drinking: A Love Story)
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Friendship, mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweet’ner of Life, and solder of Society!
I owe thee much -
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Blair
“
The Bridges of Marin County
harbor views back east
never so panoramic
but here
driving the folds
of mt tamalpais
the whole picture smooth
blue of the bay
set like a table
for dinner guests who seat themselves
in berkeley oakland and san jose
pass around delicate dishes
of angel island ferry boats and alcatraz
i'll save a spot for you
in san francisco spread
with your favorite dishes
don't leave me
hanging in marin
dinner at eight and everyone else
on time
you said you'd bring the wine
we waited
as long as we could
the food
went cold
witnesses said
that you stood
nearly an hour
i imagine you crossing
back and forth
leaning tower to tower
finally
choosing
the southern
your wish to rest
nearer the city
than the driveway
how long had you been letting
your two selves push each other over
the edge
stuffing your pockets
with secrets and shame
weighing yourself down
with cement shoes
a gangster assuring your own
silence
i pay the toll daily
wondering
as the dark shroud
of the bay
smoothed over you
that night
who did you think
your quiet splash
was saving
were you keeping
yourself from the pleasures
you found in the city
boys in dark bars
handsome men who loved you
did they love you too
did you wrestle with vertigo
lose your sense of balance
imagine yourself icarus
dizzied by your own precarious perch
glorious ride
on flawed wings
was it so impossible to live
and love on both sides
of the bay
did you think i couldn't feel
your love
when it was there for me
your distraction
when desires
divided
history like the water
smoothes over
with half-truth
story of good job
and grieving widow
but each time i cross
this span
i wonder
about the men
with whom i share the loss
of you
invisibly
i sit unseen in
a castro cafe
wondering which men
gave you what kinds
of comfort
delight
satisfaction
these men of leather
metal tattoos
did you know them
how did you get their attention
how did they get yours
did you walk hand-in-hand
with a man who looked like you
the marlboro man double exposed
did you bury a love of bondage
dominance submission
in the bay
did you find friendship too
would you and i have found
the same men handsome
where are you
in this cafe crowd
i want to love
what you wouldn't show
me
dance with more than
a slice of truth
hold your halves together
in my arms
and rock the till i have mourned
and honored
the whole of you
was it so impossible to
cross that divide
to live
and love
on both sides
of the bay
hey
isn't that what bridges
are for
”
”
Nancy Boutilier (On the Eighth Day Adam Slept Alone: New Poems)
“
Human beings and bonobos use eroticism for pleasure, for solidifying friendship, and for cementing a deal (recall that historically, marriage is more akin to a corporate merger than a declaration of eternal love). For these two species (and apparently only these two species), nonreproductive sex is “natural,” a defining characteristic.5
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Christopher Ryan (Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships)
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I have no right to make you love me, or to love you. But I do know that love is something that is tested and mended over time.
"I don't know if purely romantic love can last through anything (it is so based on feelings and attraction, both of which are fickle at times), but I think friendship can, and when the romantic love and friendship get blurred together into one it makes 'relationship cement,' I think." - Stay by Jennifer Silverwood
"And then, real love I think comes later. When you really get to know someone and how they think and feel, when you can't imagine if something were to happen to them. When you trust them and want to spend all your time doing nothing with them, when you want to grow old together." - Stay by Jennifer Silverwood
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Jennifer Silverwood (Stay)
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I looked around to make sure I wasn't leaving anything behind, closed the door behind me, and collapsed sobbing, on the little cement landing, gripping, the cold metal railing to keep from falling over completely. Thinking back on it now, it reminds me of labor. There was a point during my son's birth when my contractions changed very suddenly from gripping to pushing. I was not in control; my body and the wisdom it held from thousands of years of evolution took over. My body did the same with my grief. It seized my bones and muscles and pushed it out. There in the rain outside my dad's home, I bawled and shook wildly for a few moments.
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Mia Birdsong (How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community)
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The last couple of months with Summer have really cemented our friendship. I’ve seen her almost as much as I’ve seen the guys and wanted to see her even more.
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Katherine Jay (When Nothing Else Matters (Heartstrings, #1))
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For the next month, reports of CIA activities in Australia dominated the front pages of several Australian newspapers. Using Chris’s disclosure of CIA tampering in Australia as a springboard, the newspapers initiated investigative series which suggested that the ouster of Prime Minister Whitlam might have been orchestrated by the American intelligence service, and there were fresh reports almost daily of different alleged CIA manipulations of political, economic and labor affairs in the country. None of the Australian journalists managed to discover the “deception” that Chris had alluded to—the Rhyolite-Argus deception. Nevertheless, the close Australian–American alliance that had been cemented in World War II was suddenly buffeted by a political tornado, and the incident touched off day after day of stormy sessions in the Australian parliament. There were demands for a complete investigation of the CIA’s role in Australia. But the government managed to ride out the storm. It simply remained aloof from the crisis, refusing to respond to the allegations and biding its time until they subsided.
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Robert Lindsey (The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage)
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Spector’s visit to London had consolidated his position at the top of the music business tree. He had cemented friendships with the two biggest groups on the British music scene, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who would soon follow their British rivals to America. Spector was thrilled at the music, the breath of fresh air it carried. But he could little have imagined that the impending British Invasion was to prove the harbinger of his decline.
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Mick Brown (Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector)
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Henry likes Maddy. He loves her, even. If Paul had to marry a woman, he’s glad Maddy was the one. From the first time Paul introduced them, Henry could see the places Paul and Maddy fit, the way their bodies gravitated to one another—hips bumping as they moved through the kitchen preparing dinner, fingers touching as they passed plates. They made sense in all the ways Paul and Henry did not, even though their own friendship had been instant, cemented when Paul came across Henry drunkenly trying to break into an ex-boyfriend’s apartment to get his camera back, and offered to boost him through the window. At
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Ellen Datlow (Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles)
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Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.
”
”
Golden Flower
“
Friendships were like marriages in that way. Routines and patterns were poured early and hardened like cement.
”
”
Kristin Hannah (Firefly Lane (Firefly Lane #1))
“
The day after setting foot upon the deck of the whale-ship, Snowball was appointed chef de caboose, in which distinguished office he continued for several years; and only resigned it to accept of a similar situation on board a fine bark, commanded by Captain Benjamin Brace, engaged in the African trade. But not that African trade carried on by such ships as the Pandora. No; the merchandise transported in Captain Brace’s bark was not black men, but white ivory, yellow gold-dust, palm-oil, and ostrich-plumes; and it was said, that, after each “trip” to the African coast, the master, as well as owner, of this richly laden bark, was accustomed to make a trip to the Bank of England, and there deposit a considerable sum of money. After many years spent thus professionally, and with continued success, the ci-devant whalesman, man-o’-war’s-man, ex-captain of the Catamaran, and master of the African trader, retired from active life; and, anchored in a snug craft in the shape of a Hampstead Heath villa, is now enjoying his pipe, his glass of grog, and his otium cum dignitate. As for “Little William,” he in turn ceased to be known by this designation. It was no longer appropriate when he became the captain of a first-class clipper-ship in the East Indian trade,—standing upon his own quarter-deck full six feet in his shoes, and finely proportioned at that,—so well as to both face and figure, that he had no difficulty in getting “spliced” to a wife that dearly loved him. She was a very beautiful woman, with a noble round eye, jet black waving hair, and a deep brunette complexion. Many of his acquaintances were under the impression that she had Oriental blood in her veins, and that he had brought her home from India on one of his return voyages from that country. Those more intimate with him could give a different account,—one received from himself; and which told them that his wife was a native of Africa, of Portuguese extraction, and that her name was Lalee. They had heard, moreover, that his first acquaintance with her had commenced on board a slave bark; and that their friendship as children,—afterwards ripening into love,—had been cemented while both were castaways upon a raft—Ocean Waifs in the middle of the Atlantic. The End.
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”
Walter Scott (The Greatest Sea Novels and Tales of All Time)