Friendship Bands Quotes

i have a friend request from some stranger on facebook and i delete it without looking at the profile because that doesn't seem natural. 'cause friendship should not be as easy as that. it's like people believe all you need to do is like the same bands in order to be soulmates. or books. omg... U like the outsiders 2... it's like we're the same person! no we're not. it's like we have the same english teacher. there's a difference.

Twenty years of joy and support and friendship, that’s a success. Twenty years of anything with another person is a success. If a band stays together twenty years, it’s a miracle. If a comedy duo stays together twenty years, they’re a triumph. Is this night a failure because it will end in an hour? Is the sun a failure because it’s going to end in a billion years? No, it’s the fucking sun. Why does a marriage not count? It isn’t in us, it isn’t in human beings, to be tied to one person forever.

As individuals they were each of them fallible, discordant as notes without harmony. But as a band they were something more, something perfect in its own intangible way

As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it.

Love from its very nature must be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant would be as wild a search as for the philosopher’s stone or the grand panacea: and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship.

Fang swerved closer to me, big and supremely graceful, like a black panther with wings. Oh, God. I'm so stupid. Forget I just said that. "He needs a Band-Aid," I said. A look passed between me and Fang, full of suppressed humor, relief, understanding,love — Forget I said that too. I don't know what's wrong with me.

I suppose that means you don’t want any band-aids, either,” I said, a touch more bitterly than I’d meant to.

We slept beside them, fought beside them, bled beside them. We trusted them to watch our backs and save our asses – which they did, time and time again. And somewhere out there, between one gig and the next, something changed. We woke up one day and realized that home was no longer behind us. That our families were with us all along. We looked around at these miscreants, these motley crews, and knew in our hearts there was nowhere we’d rather be than by their side.

They didn't get the friendships that formed, the community of people who shared in your same joy.

(...) Clay knew better. He and Gabriel had been friends for thirty-five years, and Gabe had been talking him into doing recklessly stupid shit for damn near all of them. He was a charismatic craftsman: every heart a furnace, every soul a blade.

Come gather 'round hardy men of the steppes and listen to my tale of heroes bold and friendships fast and the Tyrant of Icenwind Dale of a band of friends by trick or by deed bred legends for the bard the baneful pride of the one poor wretch and the horror of the Crystal Shard.

If you wish your house to be well managed, imitate the Spartan Lycurgus. For as he did not fence his city with walls, but fortified the inhabitants by virtue and preserved the city always free;35 so do you not cast around (your house) a large court and raise high towers, but strengthen the dwellers by good-will and fidelity and friendship, and then nothing harmful will enter it, not even if the whole band of wickedness shall array itself against it.

Looking back at those early days in the band house, we can all see how important they were in helping us bond as a band. It could have gone so wrong. Danny and I had picked Harry and Dougie after, literally, two days of knowing them. We could have all hated each other. We could have found that we had nothing in common, or that we resented the time we spent with each other. In fact, we had such a lot of fun. We weren’t yet famous or successful, but already we were having the time of our lives. Even when we hit the big time, we didn’t want to go out to clubs or celebrity haunts. Not our scene. For us, the best thing about being in a band was being in a band, doing band stuff - not all the trappings that went with it. We liked working on our music, and we liked hanging out together. All this meant we gelled more than most bands ever have the opportunity or inclination to do. Within a couple of months of moving into the band house, I had three new best friends. Their names were Danny, Harry and Dougie. No matter what the future held for us, our friendship was something we now know we could always rely on.

EVERYONE JOINS A BAND IN THIS LIFE. You are born into your first one. Your mother plays the lead. She shares the stage with your father and siblings. Or perhaps your father is absent, an empty stool under a spotlight. But he is still a founding member, and if he surfaces one day, you will have to make room for him. As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it. And, as is usually the fate with bands, most of them will break up—through distance, differences, divorce, or death.

Autumn was her happiest season. There was an expectancy about its sounds and shapes: the distant thunk pomp of leather and young bodies on the practice field near her house made her think of bands and cold Coca-Colas, parched peanuts and the sight of people's breath in the air. There was even something to look forward to when school started - renewals of old feuds and friendships, weeks of learning again what one half forgot in the long summer. Fall was hot-supper time with everything to eat one missed in the morning when too sleepy to enjoy it.

Those silly girls had no idea what they were really celebrating. They had no idea what it took to bring Agatha and her friends together seventy-five years ago. The Women's Society Club had been about supporting one another, about banding together to protect one another because no one else would. But it had turned into an ugly beast, a means by which rich ladies would congratulate themselves by giving money to the poor. And Agatha had let it happen. All her life, it seemed, she was making up for things she let happen.

I always retained a stunning friendship with most of my amores, which made me feel like life was worth living. All the hours of lunacy and love had actually amounted to Something.

A crazy old lady, leading a band of teenagers against an angry supernatural Entity - who’da thought?

Guys playing music. I loved music. I wanted to push up close to whatever it was men felt when they were together onstage—to try to ink in that invisible thing. It wasn't sexual, but it wasn't unsexual either. Distance mattered in male friendships. One on one, men often had little to say to one another. They found some closeness by focusing on a third thing that wasn't them: music, video games, golf, women. Male friendships were triangular in shape, and that allowed two men some version of intimacy. In retrospect, that's why I joined a band, so I could be inside that male dynamic, not staring in through a closed window but looking out.

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.

The most holy band of society is friendship. It has been well said, by a shrewd satirist, "that rare as true love is, true friendship is still rarer.

True friendship isn’t abstaining from hurting one another, but forgiving each other when you do.

What's in a life without Camaraderie? For setting sail on a ship with a band of merry brothers by your side is much more gratifying than drifting aimlessly on a boat lost alone at sea.

I’m saying it’s a success. Twenty years of joy and support and friendship, that’s a success. Twenty years of anything with another person is a success. If a band stays together twenty years, it’s a miracle. If a comedy duo stays together twenty years, they’re a triumph. Is this night a failure because it will end in an hour? Is the sun a failure because it’s going to end in a billion years? No, it’s the fucking sun. Why does a marriage not count? It isn’t in us, it isn’t in human beings, to be tied to one person forever. Siamese twins are a tragedy.

Faith is never connected to safe. There is no faith without tension. For a rubber band to function to it's elasticity, it has to experience a tension. Saints of God who has no tension has no function.

No! No, Arthur, no, it’s the opposite! I’m saying it’s a success. Twenty years of joy and support and friendship, that’s a success. Twenty years of anything with another person is a success. If a band stays together twenty years, it’s a miracle. If a comedy duo stays together twenty years, they’re a triumph. Is this night a failure because it will end in an hour? Is the sun a failure because it’s going to end in a billion years? No, it’s the fucking sun. Why does a marriage not count? It isn’t in us, it isn’t in human beings, to be tied to one person forever. Siamese twins are a tragedy. Twenty years and one last happy road trip. And I thought, Well, that was nice. Let’s end on success.” “You can’t do this,

It’s not like you have anything to lose anymore.” My fingers stop at my thumb ring while Sienna’s words echo in my head. Do I have anything to lose? I mean, after all I did, everything I fought against. I slowly turn the ring on my thumb. This simple band has, like all of my rings, one word engraved on it. Will anything change if I go to him? After all, I did lose everything that is important. It’s funny, actually, after the months I spent pushing him away. I thought, like the silly girl I probably am, that if I didn’t give myself to him, I’d be safe, that as long as I didn’t sleep with him, I wouldn’t lose my heart. Shouldn’t I have this one last memory to take home with me? So lost…I came here lost and I’ll go home lost. How convenient, and so utterly pathetic I want to give myself one strong shake to snap out of this.

Women are more powerful than most of us give ourselves credit for. When we actually decide to stop the jealousy and the finger pointing, and band together to laugh with one another and understand one another, it's like a beautiful firework display on the Fourth of July in Vegas, baby!

At This Moment Of Time Some who are uncertain compel me. They fear The Ace of Spades. They fear Loves offered suddenly, turning from the mantelpiece, Sweet with decision. And they distrust The fireworks by the lakeside, first the spuft, Then the colored lights, rising. Tentative, hesitant, doubtful, they consume Greedily Caesar at the prow returning, Locked in the stone of his act and office. While the brass band brightly bursts over the water They stand in the crowd lining the shore Aware of the water beneath Him. They know it. Their eyes Are haunted by water Disturb me, compel me. It is not true That "no man is happy," but that is not The sense which guides you. If we are Unfinished (we are, unless hope is a bad dream), You are exact. You tug my sleeve Before I speak, with a shadow's friendship, And I remember that we who move Are moved by clouds that darken midnight

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 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.

The words that passed between the girls of the little band and myself were not of any interest; they were, moreover, but few, broken by long spells of silence on my part. All of which did not prevent me from finding, in listening to them when the spoke to me, as much pleasure as in gazing at them, in discovering in the voice of each one of them a brightly colored picture. It was with ecstasy that I caught their pipings.

The words that passed between the girls of the little band and myself were not of any interest; they were, moreover, but few, broken by long spells of silence on my part. All of which did not prevent me from finding, in listening to them when they spoke to me, as much pleasure as in gazing at them, in discovering in the voice of each one of them a brightly colored picture. It was with ecstasy that I caught their pipings.

Gewiß, so liebt ein Freund den Freund Wie ich dich liebe, Rätselleben -- Ob ich in Dir gejauchzt, geweint, Ob du mir Glück, ob Schmerz gegeben. Ich liebe Dich samt deinem Harme, Und wenn du mich vernichten mußt, Entreiße ich mich Deinem Arme, Wie Freund sich reißt von Freundesbrust. Mit ganzer Kraft umfaß ich Dich! Laß Deine Flammen mich entzünden, Laß noch in Glut des Kampfes mich Dein Rätsel tiefer nur ergründen. Jahrtausende zu sein! zu denken! Schließ mich in beide Arme ein: Hast Du kein Glück mehr mir zu schenken -- Wohlan -- noch hast Du Deine Pein.

One of the biggest shifts in the last decade of anthropology, one of the discoveries in the field that has changed everything, is the realization that we evolved as cooperative breeders. Bringing up kids in a nuclear family is a novelty, a blip on the screen of human family life. We never did child rearing alone, isolated and shut off from others, or with just one other person, the child’s father. It is arduous and anomalous and it’s not the way it “should” be. Indeed, for as long as we have been, we have relied on other females—kin and the kindly disposed—to help us raise our offspring. Mostly we lived as Nisa did—in rangy, multifamily bands that looked out for one another, took care of one another, and raised one another’s children. You still see it in parts of the Caribbean today, where any adult in a small town can tell any kid to toe the line, and does, and the kids listen. Or in Hawaii, where kids and parents alike depend on hanai relationships—aunties and uncles, indispensible honorary relations who take a real interest in an unrelated child’s well-being and education. No, it wasn’t fire or hunting or the heterosexual dyad that gave us a leg up, anthropologists now largely concur; it was our female Homo ancestors holding and handling and caring for and even nursing the babies of other females. That is in large part why Homo sapiens flourished and flourish still, while other early hominins and prehominins bit the dust. This shared history of interdependence, of tending and caring, might explain the unique capacity women have for deep friendship with other women. We have counted on one another for child care, sanity, and survival literally forever. The loss of your child weighs heavily on me in this web of connectedness, because he or she is a little bit my own.

Twenty years of joy and support and friendship, that’s a success. Twenty years of anything with another person is a success. If a band stays together twenty years, it’s a miracle. If a comedy duo stays together twenty years, they’re a triumph. Is this night a failure because it will end in an hour? Is the sun a failure because it’s going to end in a billion years? No, it’s the fucking sun. Why does a marriage not count? It isn’t in us, it isn’t in human beings, to be tied to one person forever. Siamese twins are a tragedy. Twenty years and one last happy road trip. And I thought, Well, that was nice. Let’s end on success.

No! No, Arthur, no, it’s the opposite! I’m saying it’s a success. Twenty years of joy and support and friendship, that’s a success. Twenty years of anything with another person is a success. If a band stays together twenty years, it’s a miracle. If a comedy duo stays together twenty years, they’re a triumph. Is this night a failure because it will end in an hour? Is the sun a failure because it’s going to end in a billion years? No, it’s the fucking sun. Why does a marriage not count? It isn’t in us, it isn’t in human beings, to be tied to one person forever. Siamese twins are a tragedy. Twenty years and one last happy road trip. And I thought, Well, that was nice. Let’s end on success.

This angered him so badly, that he turned against everything he cared about: learning, foster parents, and hopes to make it into college; he dropped out of school. He ran away from the foster family that was caring for him at the time and eventually found Adrian, and then we somehow found each other and we happily formed our little group of outcasts. James is 18; he is smarter than Nathan, but not as technologically inclined as him. James looks out for me. He keeps accounts in order, pays receipts, and calculates risks-benefits for different jobs we decide to take. He’s like the vice-president of our “little robbers’ band”, while Adrian is the president. James and Adrian argue quite often about all sorts of things - James is very critical of Adrian and Adrian can’t stand to be contradicted;

Being a fan isn't always about the thing you're a fan of. Okay well, it sort of is, but there is much more to it than just going online and screaming that you love something. Being a fan has given me people to talk to about the things that I like for the past five years. Being a fan has made me better friends online than I've ever encountered in real life; it has entered me into a community where people are joined in love and passion and hope and joy and escape. Being a fan has given me a reason to wake up, something always to look forward to, something to dream about while I'm trying to fall asleep. And people sneer. Sure. I get it. Adults especially. They see all these teenage girls and they think it's because we're stupid. They only see the tiny percentage of fans who take it too far – the stalkers – and they think we're all like that. They think we only love the band because of their looks; they think we only like their music because it's relatable. They think all of us are girls. They think all of us are straight. They think we're dumb little girls who spend all our time screaming because we want to marry a musician. They don't understand half of it. Any of it. How could they? Adults don't think teenagers can do anything, anyway. But despite everything in the world being terrible, we choose to stand by The Ark. We choose hope, light, joy, friendship, faith, even when our lives aren't perfect, or exciting, or fun, or special, like the boys from The Ark. I might be a disappointing student, without many close friends, with a life of mediocrity waiting for me back at home – an average degree from an average university, an average job and an average life – but I will always have this. In an otherwise mediocre existence, we choose to feel passion.

You have heard the good Talks which our Brother (George Morgan) Weepemachukthe [The White Deer] has delivered to us from the Great Council at Philadelphia representing all our white Brethern who have grown out of this same Ground with ourselves for this Big [Turtle] Island being our common Mother, we and they are like one Flesh and Blood." -Chief Cornstalk to Mingo representatives at a conference at Fort Pitt [Pittsburgh], Friday, June 21st, 1776 [response] "We are sprung from one common Mother, we were all born in this big Island; we earnestly wish to repose under the same Tree of Peace with you; we request to live in Friendship with all the Indians in the Woods...We call God to Witness, that we desire nothing more ardently than that the white and red Inhabitants of this big Island should cultivate the most Brotherly affection, and be united in the firmest bands of Love and friendship." -Morgan Letterbrook, "American Commissioners for Indian Affairs to Delawares, Senecas, Munsees, and Mingos" Pittsburgh, 1776

Where have you been?” I softly answered followed by a question. I wanted to laugh hysterically at the controlled calmness of it all, as if nothing at all had happened, as if he hadn’t resurrected himself after an eternity of absence. “New York,” I have a good friend there. I found a job, a place. I had to- away from here; away from Bella; from you.” Swallowing, I clasped my hands together to stop from trembling and I said in a low, audible voice, “From me?” He sighed heavily. “I can’t love you, Helena. I still love Bella. And I suppose I could love another woman in another way at the same time, but not you.” “…but why?” I tried hard to keep my voice and gaze even. I glanced at the plain wedding ring on the third finger on his left hand, his wedding band. It was gleaming brightly in the firelight. I felt my heart plummet, like a disappointed child. Seeking the right words, he replied with a very soft voice, “It’s because I would always see you as an extension of her. I want to fall in love with you in separate way, the one that involves only us, uninfluenced by the past and our hurt. I can’t do that now and I can’t tell when I’ll be able to.

I built, of blocks, a town three hundred thousand strong, whose avenues were paved with a wine-colored rug and decorated by large leaves outlined inappropriately in orange, and on this leafage I'd often park my Tootsie Toy trucks, as if on pads of camouflage, waiting their deployment against catastrophes which included alien invasions, internal treachery, and world war. It was always my intention, and my conceit, to use up, in the town's construction, every toy I possessed: my electronic train, of course, the Lincoln Logs, old kindergarten blocks—their deeply incised letters always a problem—the Erector set, every lead soldier that would stand (broken ones were sent to the hospital), my impressive array of cars, motorcycles, tanks, and trucks—some with trailers, some transporting gas, some tows, some dumps—and my squadrons of planes, my fleet of ships, my big and little guns, an undersized group of parachute people (looking as if one should always imagine them high in the sky, hanging from threads), my silversided submarines, along with assorted RR signs, poles bearing flags, prefab houses with faces pasted in their windows, small boxes of a dozen variously useful kinds, strips of blue cloth for streams and rivers, and glass jars for town water towers, or, in a pinch, jails. In time, the armies, the citizens, even the streets would divide: loyalties, friendships, certainties, would be undermined, the city would be shaken by strife; and marbles would rain down from formerly friendly planes, steeples would topple onto cars, and shellfire would soon throw aggie holes through homes, soldiers would die accompanied by my groans, and ragged bands of refugees would flee toward mountain caves and other chairs and tables.

BEST FRIENDS SHOULD BE TOGETHER We’ll get a pair of those half-heart necklaces so every ask n’ point reminds us we are one glued duo. We’ll send real letters like our grandparents did, handwritten in smart cursive curls. We’ll extend cell plans and chat through favorite shows like a commentary track just for each other. We’ll get our braces off on the same day, chew whole packs of gum. We’ll nab some serious studs but tell each other everything. Double-date at a roadside diner exactly halfway between our homes. Cry on shoulders when our boys fail us. We’ll room together at State, cover the walls floor-to-ceiling with incense posters of pop dweebs gone wry. See how beer feels. Be those funny cute girls everybody’s got an eye on. We’ll have a secret code for hot boys in passing. A secret dog named Freshman Fifteen we’ll have to hide in the rafters during inspection. Follow some jam band one summer, grooving on lawns, refusing drugs usually. Get tattoos that only spell something when we stand together. I’ll be maid of honor in your wedding and you’ll be co-maid with my sister but only cause she’d disown me if I didn’t let her. We’ll start a store selling just what we like. We’ll name our firstborn daughters after one another, and if our husbands don’t like it, tough. Lifespans being what they are, we’ll be there for each other when our men have passed, and all the friends who come to visit our assisted living condo will be dazzled by what fun we still have together. We’ll be the kind of besties who make outsiders wonder if they’ve ever known true friendship, but we won’t even notice how sad it makes them and they won’t bring it up because you and I will be so caught up in the fun, us marveling at how not-good it never was.

If we consider the possibility that all women–from the infant suckling her mother’s breast, to the grown woman experiencing orgasmic sensations while suckling her own child, perhaps recalling her mother’s milk-smell in her own; to two women, like Virginia Woolf’s Chloe and Olivia, who share a laboratory; to the woman dying at ninety, touched and handled by women–exist on a lesbian continuum, we can see ourselves as moving in and out of this continuum, whether we identify ourselves as lesbian or not. It allows us to connect aspects of woman-identification as diverse as the impudent, intimate girl-friendships of eight- or nine-year-olds and the banding together of those women of the twelfth and fifteenth centuries known as Beguines who “shared houses, rented to one another, bequeathed houses to their room-mates … in cheap subdivided houses in the artisans’ area of town,” who “practiced Christian virtue on their own, dressing and living simply and not associating with men,” who earned their livings as spinners, bakers, nurses, or ran schools for young girls, and who managed–until the Church forced them to disperse–to live independent both of marriage and of conventual restrictions. It allows us to connect these women with the more celebrated “Lesbians” of the women’s school around Sappho of the seventh century B.C.; with the secret sororities and economic networks reported among African women; and with the Chinese marriage resistance sisterhoods–communities of women who refused marriage, or who if married often refused to consummate their marriages and soon left their husbands–the only women in China who were not footbound and who, Agnes Smedley tells us, welcomed the births of daughters and organized successful women’s strikes in the silk mills. It allows us to connect and compare disparate individual instances of marriage resistance: for example, the type of autonomy claimed by Emily Dickinson, a nineteenth-century white woman genius, with the strategies available to Zora Neale Hurston, a twentieth-century black woman genius. Dickinson never married, had tenuous intellectual friendships with men, lived self-convented in her genteel father’s house, and wrote a lifetime of passionate letters to her sister-in-law Sue Gilbert and a smaller group of such letters to her friend Kate Scott Anthon. Hurston married twice but soon left each husband, scrambled her way from Florida to Harlem to Columbia University to Haiti and finally back to Florida, moved in and out of white patronage and poverty, professional success and failure; her survival relationships were all with women, beginning with her mother. Both of these women in their vastly different circumstances were marriage resisters, committed to their own work and selfhood, and were later characterized as “apolitical ”. Both were drawn to men of intellectual quality; for both of them women provided the ongoing fascination and sustenance of life.

Logen ambled over to him. If you’re going to travel with a man, and maybe fight alongside him, it’s best to talk, and laugh if you can. That way you can get an understanding, and then a trust. Trust is what binds a band together, and out there in the wilds that can make the difference between living or dying. Building that kind of trust takes time, and effort. Logen reckoned it was best to get started early, and today he had good humour to spare, so he stood next to Luthar and looked out at the park, trying to dream up some common ground in which to plant the seeds of an unlikely friendship.

The new ideal of virginity and widowhood opened up a new era of sympathetic collaboration between men and women, and for male-female friendship. By establishing a category of women who were understood to be off-limits with respect to romantic entanglements, writers like Gregory were able to support and even celebrate a feminine version of Christianity without being afraid to seem as if they had fallen under the influence of feminine charms.

This is why it is so fundamental for us right now to grab hold of this idea of power and to democratize it. One of the things that is so profoundly exciting and challenging about this moment is that as a result of this power illiteracy that is so pervasive, there is a concentration of knowledge, of understanding, of clout. I mean, think about it: How does a friendship become a subsidy? Seamlessly, when a senior government official decides to leave government and become a lobbyist for a private interest and convert his or her relationships into capital for their new masters. How does a bias become a policy? Insidiously, just the way that stop-and-frisk, for instance, became over time a bureaucratic numbers game. How does a slogan become a movement? Virally, in the way that the Tea Party, for instance, was able to take the "Don't Tread on Me" flag from the American Revolution, or how, on the other side, a band of activists could take a magazine headline, "Occupy Wall Street," and turn that into a global meme and movement. The thing is, though, most people aren't looking for and don't want to see these realities. So much of this ignorance, this civic illiteracy, is willful. There are some millennials, for instance, who think the whole business is just sordid. They don't want to have anything to do with politics. They'd rather just opt out and engage in volunteerism. There are some techies out there who believe that the cure-all for any power imbalance or power abuse is simply more data, more transparency. There are some on the left who think power resides only with corporations, and some on the right who think power resides only with government, each side blinded by their selective outrage. There are the naive who believe that good things just happen and the cynical who believe that bad things just happen, the fortunate and unfortunate unlike who think that their lot is simply what they deserve rather than the eminently alterable result of a prior arrangement, an inherited allocation, of power.

They hadn't had a real meal together in years. Those late, boozy nights with sloppy cheeseburgers and too many appetizers were long gone. No longer would they get pasta and wine by the bottle, telling their Sicilian server not to judge them for how much cheese they wanted ground over their gnocchi and carbonara. They would drink beer and share those plasticky nachos and watch awful bands cover extremely good bands. Their indulgence might kill them one day, but wasn't it worth it? That had been her opinion. She'd never really considered what would happen once the indulgence was gone. Margo, luckily, was always up for whatever challenge made her days more interesting. She was constantly trying to make dupes for whatever she- or he- was really in the mood for. Egg white huevos rancheros, turkey meat loaf, chicken chili, and on one disastrous Thanksgiving, Tofurkey. Nutritional yeast weakly filled the big shoes of good Parmesan. Lettuce did the minimum to live up to the utility purpose of a tortilla while textured vegetable protein tried pitifully to be taco meat.

Nothing sustains motivation better than belonging to the tribe. It transforms a personal quest into a shared one. Previously, you were on your own. Your identity was singular. You are a reader. You are a musician. You are an athlete. When you join a book club or a band or a cycling group, your identity becomes linked to those around you. Growth and change is no longer an individual pursuit. We are readers. We are musicians. We are cyclists. The shared identity begins to reinforce your personal identity. This is why remaining part of a group after achieving a goal is crucial to maintaining your habits. It’s friendship and community that embed a new identity and help behaviors last over the long run.

Paul and Linda were deeply wounded by Seiwell’s rebellion. In Henry’s case, they knew what the problems were, and they knew he would leave eventually, having already quit once. They even, to a degree, respected him for standing up for his own artistry. But their relationship with Seiwell was not just that of band colleagues. It went back to the Ram sessions and had quickly become a real friendship.

I still find it hard to really cover some of the events of this period properly. Roger was probably still my closest friend, and we were able to enjoy each other’s company. But our friendship was increasingly put under strain as Roger struggled to modify what had been an ostensibly democratic band into the reality of one with a single leader.

Full Disclosure: when Dan DiDio approached me about doing one, I was wary to say the least. Nowadays events often mean character deaths or reboots or company-wide publishing initiatives and so on. But the run Greg Capullo and I had on BATMAN was, for better or for worse, idiosyncratic - about our own hopes, our fears, our interests. It was just... very much ours. Even so, I told Dan that I *did* have a story, one I'd been working on for a few years, a big one, in the back of my brain. It was about a detective case that stretched back to the beginnings of humanity, a mystery about the nature of the DC Universe that Batman would try to uncover, and which would lead him and the Justice League to discover that their own cosmology was much larger, scarier and more wondrous than they'd known. But I wasn't sure it would make a good "event". Dan, to his credit, said, "Work it up and let's see." So I did. But in the course of working it up, I reread all the events I could think of. Just for reference. Not only recent ones, but events from years ago, from when I was a kid. And what I discovered, or rediscovered, was that at their core, events are joyous things. They're these great big stories, ridiculous tales about alien invasions or cosmic gems or zombie-space-cop attacks that have the highest stakes possible - stories where the whole universe hangs in the balance and nothing will ever be the same again! They were *about* things, and - what I also realized while doing my homework - when I was a kid, they were THE stories that brought me and my friends together. We'd split our money and buy different parts of an event, just to be able to argue about it. We'd meet after school and go on for hours about who should win, who should lose... Because even the grimmest events are celebratory. They're about pushing the limits of an already ludicrous form to a breaking point. So that's what I came back with. I remember standing in my kitchen and getting ready to pitch DARK NIGHTS: METAL to Greg, having prepared a whole presentation, a whole argument as to why, crazy as it was, it was us, it was *our* event. I said "It's called METAL," and Greg said, "I'm in," before I could even tell him the story. And even though Dan thought it was crazy, he went with it, and for that I'm very grateful. In the end, METAL is a lot of things - it's about those moments when you find yourself face to face with the worst versions of yourself, moments when all looks like doom - but at it's heart it's a love letter to comic storytelling at its most lunatic, and a tribute to the kinds of stories, events that got me thought hard times as a kid and as an adult. It's about using friendship as a foundation to go further than you thought you could go, and that means it's about me and Greg, and you as well. Because we tried something different with it, something ours, hoping you'd show up, and you did. So thank you, sincerely, from all of us on the team. Because when they work, events are about coming together and rocking out over our love of this crazy art form. And you're all in the band, now and always.

Clay could bear the silence no longer and cleared his throat. “I love you guys,” he said, and gods-be-damned if his voice didn’t sell him out at the end and crack like a boy of twelve summers. Moog nearly choked on a sob himself. “I love you guys, too,” he said, unashamed by the tears rolling over his cheeks. “Me too,” Matty croaked. “I love you,” said Gabriel, matching gazes with each of them one by one. “All of you.” Ganelon remained silent, but when the rest of them looked his way he rolled his eyes and loosed a sympathetic growl. “Okay, fine. You’re the last four people I’d ever kill.

The other member of the small band of friends was Daisy, a fawn-coloured dairy cow with a lovely heart. She was a gentle, kind, dreamy soul, who loved nothing more than to slowly wander the paddocks, trailing her nose through the long grass in search of an eating experience she had once had years earlier. Her inability to ever recreate that “incredible grass eating day” was a topic she often returned to.

Never in my life have I seen fate play such a strong and clear hand. Not the band-career thing necessarily, but the universal powers deciding we would be brothers/partners. We have no choice. Maybe it is past life influences, maybe an interlocking neurosis of some Jungian, Freudian, or Marx Brotherian vari- ety, maybe each of us looking for the promise of a fulfillment that exists in the other. I just knew in my heart that we would always be close, and that neither of us belonged in that society circle that I saw from afar, pretend as we might.

Never in my life have I seen fate play such a strong and clear hand. Not the band-career thing necessarily, but the universal powers deciding we would be brothers/partners. We have no choice. Maybe it is past life influences, maybe an interlocking neurosis of some Jungian, Freudian, or Marx Brotherian variety, maybe each of us looking for the promise of a fulfillment that exists in the other. I just knew in my heart that we would always be close, and that neither of us belonged in that society circle that I saw from afar, pretend as we might.

The battle within Colditz was now a two-sided conflict between the British and the Germans. There was no longer a danger that an escape plan secretly mounted by one nation might trip up another. Colditz became a British prison: the hierarchy of rank was more pronounced, as was the control exerted by the escape committee, and the opportunity for one-man ventures was reduced. The Dutch Hawaiian band, the French cuisine, and the Polish choir were gone. The informal cultural osmosis between nationalities was over, as was the fruitful Anglo-Dutch partnership and the daily babble of diverse languages in the inner courtyard. Padre Platt noticed that as an all-Anglo prison, the place seemed more cliquey, with “small friendship groups, complete in themselves and almost exclusive.

The military band did not make things easier. Having detected a larger than usual turnout of British travelers, and waiting with some infernal clairvoyance until Cyprian thought he had a grip on himself, just as he turned to bid Yashmeen a breezy arrivederci, they began to play an arrangement for brass of ‘Nimrod’ – what else? – from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Teutonic bluntness notwithstanding, at the first major-seventh chord, an uncertainty of pitch among the trumpets contributing its touch of unsought innocence, Cyprian felt the tap opening decisively. It was difficult to tell what Yashmeen was thinking as she offered her lips. He was concentrating on not getting her vestee wet. The music took them for an instant in its autumnal envelope, shutting out the tourist chatter, the steam horns and quayside traffic, in as honest an expression of friendship and farewell as the Victorian heart had ever managed to come up with, until finally, the band moved mercifully on to ‘La Gazza Ladra.’ It wasn’t till Yashmeen nodded and released him that Cyprian realized they had been holding each other.

I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me so much of themselves, helped me find so much of me, and always been there to support when I needed it most. #BandOfBrothers.

He has that determined Mateo look I remember from the tail end of our friendship, when his dad hit the road to ‘find himself’ as a roadie for a Grateful Dead cover band. Like Mateo had finally realized he’d been letting a useless person dictate half his life, so he was going to have to step up, and—oh. Oh, ok. I’ve become the useless person that Mateo has to compensate for.

I believe in friendship,’ Band said to Reinhardt, then made his way to Huston and delivered the present. Huston unwrapped his present. ‘This is just swell, amigo – just wonderful,’ he said to Band. He closed the book and took a cigarette box out of his pocket. It was empty. ‘Get me some cigarettes, will ya, kid?’ he said. Band rushed off for cigarettes.

the judge Don Achille speaks up, with sly and devastating irony, saying that the whole history of mankind is the history of rhetoric: that is, the history of moving masses of people by words, words, words. That is all there is in Political Life Under Compulsion. Words are not troves of truth or bands of friendship. They are tools, and the people who use them are tools, and so are the people upon whom they are used.

Somewhere between buying 25 friendship bands and passing by the shop with a smile looking at kids buying the bands, we grew up

With a start, she noticed the warrior had stretched out a hand to her. A wide leather band encircled his wrist to protect him from his bowstring. Staring at his dark palm and strong fingers, she shook her head in denial. “Hi, tai,” he said in a low voice. Guiding his stallion closer, he bent to touch her chin. Her eyelid quivered when he brushed at a tear on her cheek. “Ka taikay, ka taikay, Tohobt Nabituh,” he whispered. The words made no sense. Puzzled, she met his gaze. “Tosa ehr-mahr.” Raising his hand, he showed her the glistening wetness on his fingertips. “Silver rain, tosa ehr-mahr.” He compared her tears to silver rain? She searched his eyes for some trace of humanity and found none. After a moment he straightened, raising his lance in what looked like a salute. “Suvate!” he yelled, his glittering eyes sweeping the line of encircling riders. A low rumble of answering voices replied, “Suvate!” He seemed satisfied with the response and, with a mighty thrust, drove the lance into the earth. Again, he thrust out his hand. “Take it, Yellow Hair, in friendship.” She was afraid he might drag her onto his mount if she touched him, but his eyes compelled her. Besides, if he was set on it, he’d have his way, with or without her cooperation. She lifted a quivering arm, expecting the worst, and placed her fingers across his palm. His callused hand tightened on hers, the warmth of his grip shooting to her shoulder. “We will meet again. I will come to you like the wind, from nowhere. Remember the face of this Comanche. I am your destiny.” With that, he released her and rode his horse in a circle about the yard, one arm raised high, his head thrown back to emit a shrill cry that sent shivers up her spine. Moments later a cloud of dust rose in the yard, and four hundred hooves beat a deafening staccato of retreat.

The most holy band of society is friendship. Mary Wollstonecraft, ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’,

Music journalist Chris Nelson once wrote, “Their friendship formed the living core of the Minutemen, while their loyalty to each other and San Pedro informed the overarching theme of brotherhood that permeates the band’s catalog.

Despite all the solo vocals, each using the others as a back-up group, the White Album still sounds haunted by memories of friendship—that “dreamlike state” they could still zoom into hearing each other sing. They translated Rishikesh into their own style of English pagan pastoral—so many talking animals, so many changes in the weather. One of my favorite British songwriters, Luke Haines from the Auteurs and Black Box Recorder, once told me in an interview that his band was making “our Wicker Man album.” He was miffed I had no idea what he meant. “You can’t understand British bands without seeing The Wicker Man. Every British band makes its Wicker Man album.” So I rented the classic 1973 Hammer horror film, and had creepy dreams about rabbits for months, but he’s right, and the White Album is the Beatles’ Wicker Man album five years before The Wicker Man, a rustic retreat where nature seems dark and depraved in a primal English sing-cuckoo way. They also spruced up their acoustic guitar chops in India, learning folkie fingerpicking techniques from fellow pilgrim Donovan, giving the songs some kind of ancient mystic chill.

The band is the only thread keeping us three connected. If we lose that, I don't know what's left.

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.

Where have you been?” I softly answered followed by a question. I wanted to laugh hysterically at the controlled calmness of it all, as if nothing at all had happened, as if he hadn’t resurrected himself after an eternity of absence. “New York. I have a good friend there. I found a job, a place. I had to- away from here; away from Bella; from you.” Swallowing, I clasped my hands together to stop from trembling and I said in a low, audible voice, “From me?” He sighed heavily. “I can’t love you, Helena. I still love Bella. And I suppose I could love another woman in another way at the same time, but not you.” “…but why?” I tried hard to keep my voice and gaze even. I glanced at the plain wedding ring on the third finger on his left hand, his wedding band. It was gleaming brightly in the firelight. I felt my heart plummet, like a disappointed child. Seeking the right words, he replied with a very soft voice, “It’s because I would always see you as an extension of her. I want to fall in love with you in separate way, the one that involves only us, uninfluenced by the past and our hurt. I can’t do that now and I can’t tell when I’ll be able to.

Where have you been?” I asked, almost a whisper. I wanted to laugh hysterically at the controlled calmness of it all, as if nothing at all had happened, as if he hadn’t resurrected himself after an eternity of absence. “New York. I have a good friend there. I found a job, a place. I had to- away from here; away from Bella; from you.” Swallowing, I clasped my hands together to stop from trembling and I said in a low, audible voice, “From me?” He sighed heavily. “I can’t love you, Helena. I still love Bella. And I suppose I could love another woman in another way at the same time, but not you.” “…but why?” I tried hard to keep my voice and gaze even. I glanced at the plain wedding ring on the third finger on his left hand, his wedding band. It was gleaming brightly in the firelight. I felt my heart plummet, like a disappointed child. Seeking the right words, he replied with a very soft voice, “It’s because I would always see you as an extension of her. I want to fall in love with you in separate way, the one that involves only us, uninfluenced by the past and our hurt. I can’t do that now and I can’t tell when I’ll be able to.

Anthony lived with the same fear and separateness that kept me totally disengaged from the social process. But he was able to turn it inside out. It drove him to do shit I would never dare. Nothing was gonna keep him from going for what he thought he deserved. His disdain for the popular kids only motivated his actions. He went hard and challenged the external world. I went the other way, slipping deeper into an interior world. Two sides of the same coin...... Never in my life have I seen fate play such a strong and clear hand. Not the band-career thing necessarily, but the universal powers deciding we would be brothers/partners. We have no choice. Maybe it is past life influences... maybe each of us looking for the promise of a fulfillment that exists in the other...... When he started wiring lyrics over my baselines his artistry gave me new life. My heart grew a couple of sizes. The color of his words, the sharp sounds of the syllables cracking together. Both his lyrics and my bass lines pulsed together, same as the heartbeat of our friendship.

If we were on Friends, who do you think 'd be?" I wonder aloud. "I think you'd be Phoebe because you're quirky and creative," Chloe tells me. "Really? I think I'd be Monica because I'm crazy and neurotic," I say. "Jo, who do you think I am? Phoebe or Monica?" "Neither," Joni answers. "You're Ross." "What?!" Call me dramatic, but I've never been more offended in my life. "How am I Ross?" "Because you've had the same pathetic crush on the same blond ditz your entire life. And you like dinosaurs." "Everyone likes dinosaurs," I argue. Then I realize what else she's insinuating. "Wait a minute. Are you saying that Sam is Rachel?" Joni shrugs. "If the designer shoe fits." Oh my God.

If we were on Friends, who do you think I'd be?" I wonder aloud. "I think you'd be Phoebe because you're quirky and creative," Chloe tells me. "Really? I think I'd be Monica because I'm crazy and neurotic," I say. "Jo, who do you think I am? Phoebe or Monica?" "Neither," Joni answers. "You're Ross." "What?!" Call me dramatic, but I've never been more offended in my life. "How am I Ross?" "Because you've had the same pathetic crush on the same blond ditz your entire life. And you like dinosaurs." "Everyone likes dinosaurs," I argue. Then I realize what else she's insinuating. "Wait a minute. Are you saying that Sam is Rachel?" Joni shrugs. "If the designer shoe fits." Oh my God.

Chimpanzees are our nearest living relatives, and offer hints as to how our distant ancestors may have behaved. Chimps live in bands within territories, and show a ferocious in-group out-group consciousness. It has long been known that males drive off intruders from other bands and kill their young if they can. Psychologists watching chimps in Uganda found that even females are murderously territorial. On three occasions they saw females drive off invaders and kill their babies. People often behave according to genetic similarity theory, and the scholar who has probably written most extensively in this field is J. Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario. “Genetically similar people tend to seek one another out and to provide mutually supportive environments such as marriage, friendship, and social groups,” he has written. For example, spouses tend to resemble each other, not just in age, ethnicity, and education (r = 0.6) but in opinions and attitudes (r = 0.5), intelligence (r = 0.4), and even in such things as personality and physical traits (r = 0.2). They are even like each other in undesirable traits such as aggressiveness, criminality, alcoholism, and mental disease. It is possible to predict how happy a couple is by know.

They were, David decided, a very colourful lot, but apart from Herries himself he was unable, during those first weeks, to strike up a friendship with any one of them. It was as though he had joined a band of castaways on a desert island, the lone survivor of a subsequent wreck, and at first he was inclined to view his isolation as the inevitable result of his own mental confusion. In the end he took his problem to Herries. 'In a sense you are an outsider, my dear chap,' he said, 'and that's the reason I grabbed you the moment you showed up. You're the bridge, don't you see? A passage over a generation gap, and it isn't the conventional generation gap we all have to cross if we know our business properly. Your gap, caused by the war, is semi permanent. It might take twenty years to close.' 'But some of the chaps on the staff are only a year or so older than I am,' David argued. 'There's the C.3 men, and Carter.' 'It's not a matter of years, but of experience, don't you see? What are our casualties to date? Not far short of three million, I'd say, and a third of them dead at eighteen-plus. No one who hasn't been out can imagine what it's like. Mentally a man like you must have aged about a year every month, and that makes you immeasurably senior to theorists like me, and faithful old buffers like Cordwainer, Acton and Gibbs. Someone has to tackle the job of nudging all those young rascals over the threshold into what I sincerely hope will be an entirely new world. We can't do it because we're even more adrift than they are and haven't a compass reading between us. In a year or so I daresay we can find you some help. Hang it all, everyone in his early twenties can't be dead or maimed or gassed. In the meantime you're on your own, lad.