β
Donβt walk in front of meβ¦ I may not follow
Donβt walk behind meβ¦ I may not lead
Walk beside me⦠just be my friend
β
β
Albert Camus
β
A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.
β
β
Elbert Hubbard
β
Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
β
β
Mark Twain
β
There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.
β
β
Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)
β
There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.
β
β
Linda Grayson
β
I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.
β
β
Helen Keller
β
Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.
β
β
Sarah Dessen (Someone Like You)
β
You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
β
Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing.
β
β
E.B. White (Charlotteβs Web)
β
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
β
β
Aristotle
β
Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment.
β
β
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
β
Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
β
β
AnaΓ―s Nin (The Diary of AnaΓ―s Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934)
β
No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.
β
β
Alice Walker
β
Only a true best friend can protect you from your immortal enemies.
β
β
Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, #1))
β
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life)
β
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
β
β
Friedrich Nietzsche
β
Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
β
β
Abraham Lincoln
β
If you have two friends in your lifetime, you're lucky. If you have one good friend, you're more than lucky.
β
β
S.E. Hinton
β
I think if I've learned anything about friendship, it's to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don't walk away, don't be distracted, don't be too busy or tired, don't take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff.
β
β
Jon Katz
β
Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.
β
β
William Shakespeare (The Passionate Pilgrim (By Shakspere, Marlowe, Barnfield, Griffin, And Other Writers Unknown))
β
How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it. How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it. How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live 'em. How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give 'em.
β
β
Shel Silverstein
β
Silence make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying, but the never needing to say that counts.
β
β
Margaret Lee Runbeck
β
It gives me strength to have somebody to fight for; I can never fight for myself, but, for others, I can kill.
β
β
Emilie Autumn (The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls)
β
If you have good friends, no matter how much life is sucking , they can make you laugh.
β
β
P.C. Cast
β
Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.
β
β
Oscar Wilde
β
What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.
β
β
C.S. Lewis
β
True friends are always together in spirit.
β
β
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1))
β
Well, it seems to me that the best relationships - the ones that last - are frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before. Like a switch has been flicked somewhere. And the person who was just a friend is... suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with.
β
β
Gillian Anderson
β
Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life--and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next.
β
β
Dean Koontz (Fear Nothing (Moonlight Bay, #1))
β
I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's
why.
β
β
John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men)
β
There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.
β
β
Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
β
Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.
β
β
Amos Bronson Alcott (Concord Days)
β
Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.
β
β
Stephen King (Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption)
β
Can miles truly separate you from friends... If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?
β
β
Richard Bach
β
Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.
β
β
A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1))
β
The best mirror is an old friend.
β
β
George Herbert
β
A friend to all is a friend to none.
β
β
Aristotle
β
Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
β
β
Oprah Winfrey
β
The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away.
β
β
Barbara Kingsolver
β
Why are old lovers able to become friends? Two reasons. They never truly loved each other, or they love each other still.
β
β
Whitney Otto (How to Make an American Quilt)
β
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
β
β
Aristotle
β
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
β
β
Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends & Influence People)
β
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
β
β
Jim Henson (Favorite Songs From Jim Henson's Muppets)
β
Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.
β
β
Doris Lessing
β
She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.
β
β
Toni Morrison (Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1))
β
You can go through life and make new friends every year - every month practically - but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel.
β
β
Alexander McCall Smith (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, #1))
β
Talk between women friends is always therapy...
β
β
Jayne Anne Phillips
β
When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.
β
β
Fred Rogers
β
Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.
β
β
Gloria Naylor
β
I don't care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching--they are your family.
β
β
Jim Butcher (Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, #8))
β
It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
β
β
E.B. White (Charlotteβs Web)
β
When a woman becomes her own best friend life is easier.
β
β
Diane Von Furstenberg
β
Friends are the family you choose (~ Nin/Ithilnin, Elven rogue).
β
β
Jess C. Scott (The Other Side of Life)
β
If you know someone whoβs depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isnβt a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.
Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness theyβre going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. Itβs hard to be a friend to someone whoβs depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.
β
β
Stephen Fry
β
A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face.
β
β
Maya Angelou (Letter to My Daughter)
β
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.
β
β
Henry David Thoreau
β
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.
β
β
Richard Bach
β
It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
β
β
Mahatma Gandhi
β
My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4))
β
You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn't depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.
β
β
Trenton Lee Stewart (The Mysterious Benedict Society (The Mysterious Benedict Society, #1))
β
I don't want to hurt you or anybody so please forget about me. Just try. Find yourself a better friend.
β
β
Nina LaCour (Hold Still)
β
In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.
β
β
John Churton Collins
β
I don't suppose you have many friends. Neither do I. I don't trust people who say they have a lot of friends. It's a sure sign that they don't really know anyone.
β
β
Carlos Ruiz ZafΓ³n (The Angel's Game (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #2))
β
A faithful friend is a strong defense;
And he that hath found him hath found a treasure.
β
β
Louisa May Alcott
β
A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.
β
β
Jim Morrison
β
A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
β
β
Baltasar GraciΓ‘n (The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle)
β
When you loved someone and had to let them go, there will always be that small part of yourself that whispers, "What was it that you wanted and why didn't you fight for it?
β
β
Shannon L. Alder
β
Friendship," said Christopher Robin, "is a very comforting thing to have.
β
β
A.A. Milne
β
I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
β
β
Plutarch
β
Watson. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.
β
β
Arthur Conan Doyle (Adventure of the Creeping Man)
β
No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.
β
β
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
β
Close friends are truly life's treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.
β
β
Vincent van Gogh
β
You think I'm a fool?" demanded Harry.
"No, I think you're like James," said Lupin, "who would have regarded it as the height of dishonor to mistrust his friends.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
β
This is how it works. I love the people in my life, and I do for my friends whatever they need me to do for them, again and again, as many times as is necessary. For example, in your case you always forgot who you are and how much you're loved. So what I do for you as your friend is remind you who you are and tell you how much I love you. And this isn't any kind of burden for me, because I love who you are very much. Every time I remind you, I get to remember with you, which is my pleasure.
β
β
James Lecesne
β
Friends are honest with each other. Even if the truth hurts.
-Maggie
β
β
Sarah Dessen (Along for the Ride)
β
Sam and Patrick looked at me. And I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that's all you can ever ask from a friend.
β
β
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
β
A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.
β
β
Bernard Meltzer
β
Friendship is the bestiest thing that comes to life . Friends will always be there for you don't worry about the fakes worry about the people who had your back from the start and never treated you wrong always remember they are your real friends don't never take them as granted because one day your going to lose a good friend by the way your action's are when you see a good friend stick to that person .
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as
the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
β
β
Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
β
The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.
β
β
Aristotle
β
A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.
β
β
Lois Wyse
β
Are you upset little friend? Have you been lying awake worrying? Well, don't worry...I'm here. The flood waters will recede, the famine will end, the sun will shine tomorrow, and I will always be here to take care of you.
β
β
Charles M. Schulz
β
True friends are like diamonds β bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style.
β
β
Nicole Richie
β
Friendship with oneself is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
β
β
Eleanor Roosevelt
β
One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about.
β
β
Mindy Kaling (Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns))
β
Are you out of your goddamn mind? You think we can take on two hundred soldiers? I know I am an extremely attractive man, J, but I am not Bruce Lee.β
βWhoβs Bruce Lee?β
βWhoβs Bruce Lee?β Kenji asks, horrified. βOh my God. We canβt even be friends anymore.β
βWhy? Was he a friend of yours?β
βYou know what,β he says, βjust stop. JustβI canβt even talk to you right now.
β
β
Tahereh Mafi (Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3))
β
When you have a good friend that really cares for you and tries to stick in there with you, you treat them like nothing. Learn to be a good friend because one day you're gonna look up and say I lost a good friend. Learn how to be respectful to your friends, don't just start arguments with them and don't tell them the reason, always remember your friends will be there quicker than your family. Learn to remember you got great friends, don't forget that and they will always care for you no matter what. Always remember to smile and look up at what you got in life.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
enough money within her control to move out
and rent a place of her own even if she never wants
to or needs to...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
something perfect to wear if the employer or date of her
dreams wants to see her in an hour...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ...
a youth she's content to leave behind....
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to
retelling it in her old age....
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .....
a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black
lace bra...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
one friend who always makes her laugh... and one who
lets her cry...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone
else in her family...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a
recipe for a meal that will make her guests feel honored...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a feeling of control over her destiny...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to fall in love without losing herself..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
HOW TO QUIT A JOB,
BREAK UP WITH A LOVER,
AND CONFRONT A FRIEND WITHOUT RUINING THE FRIENDSHIP...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
when to try harder... and WHEN TO WALK AWAY...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
that she can't change the length of her calves,
the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
that her childhood may not have been perfect...but it's over...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
what she would and wouldn't do for love or more...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to live alone... even if she doesn't like it...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
whom she can trust,
whom she can't,
and why she shouldn't
take it personally...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
where to go...
be it to her best friend's kitchen table...
or a charming inn in the woods...
when her soul needs soothing...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
what she can and can't accomplish in a day...
a month...and a year...
β
β
Pamela Redmond Satran
β
Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into oneβs life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to oneβs side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps . . . perhaps . . . love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.
β
β
L.M. Montgomery
β
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.
β
β
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Essays, First Series)
β
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.
β
β
David Levithan (Will Grayson, Will Grayson)
β
But it does not seem that I can trust anyone,' said Frodo.
Sam looked at him unhappily. 'It all depends on what you want,' put in Merry. 'You can trust us to stick with you through thick and thin--to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours--closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1))
β
Luna had decorated her bedroom ceiling with five beautifully painted faces: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville. They were not moving as the portraits at Hogwarts moved, but there was a certain magic about them all the same: Harry thought they breathed. What appeared to be fine golden chains wove around the pictures, linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or so, Harry realized that the chains were actually one word, repeated a thousand times in golden ink: friends . . . friends . . . friends . . .
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
β
In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.
β
β
C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)
β
Bryce's face crumpled as she lurched to her feet, sprinting to the Gate.
She didn't care how it was possible as Danika said again, "Light it up"
Then Bryce was laughing and sobbing as she screamed, "LIGHT IT UP, DANIKA! LIGHT IT UP, LIGHT IT UP, LIGHT IT UP!"
Bryce slammed her palm onto the bronze disk of the Gate.
And soul to soul with the friend whom she had not forgotten, the friend who had not forgotten her, even in death, Bryce made the Drop.
β
β
Sarah J. Maas (House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City, #1))
β
I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my childrenβs godparents, the people to whom Iβve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when Iβve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination)
β
You can be just friends with people, you know," Orla said. "I think it's crazy how you're in love with all those raven boys."
Orla wasn't wrong, of course. But what she didn't realize about Blue and her boys was that they were all in love with one another. She was no less obsessed with them than they were with her, or one another, analyzing every conversation and gesture, drawing out every joke into a longer and longer running gag, spending each moment either with one another or thinking about when next they would be with one another. Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn't all-encompassing, that wasn't blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she'd had this kind, she didn't want the other.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle, #3))
β
When the two people who thus discover that they are on the same secret road are of different sexes, the friendship which arises between them will very easily pass β may pass in the first half hour β into erotic love. Indeed, unless they are physically repulsive to each other or unless one or both already loves elsewhere, it is almost certain to do so sooner or later. And conversely, erotic love may lead to Friendship between the lovers. But this, so far from obliterating the distinction between the two loves, puts it in a clearer light. If one who was first, in the deep and full sense, your Friend, is then gradually or suddenly revealed as also your lover you will certainly not want to share the Belovedβs erotic love with any third. But you will have no jealousy at all about sharing the Friendship. Nothing so enriches an erotic love as the discovery that the Beloved can deeply, truly and spontaneously enter into Friendship with the Friends you already had; to feel that not only are we two united by erotic love but we three or four or five are all travelers on the same quest, have all a common vision.
β
β
C.S. Lewis (Four Loves)
β
Do not love half lovers
Do not entertain half friends
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life
and do not die a half death
If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished
Do not silence yourself to say something
And do not speak to be silent
If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it
for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance
Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes
Half a drink will not quench your thirst
Half a meal will not satiate your hunger
Half the way will get you no where
Half an idea will bear you no results
Your other half is not the one you love
It is you in another time yet in the same space
It is you when you are not
Half a life is a life you didn't live,
A word you have not said
A smile you postponed
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know
To reach and not arrive
Work and not work
Attend only to be absent
What makes you a stranger to them closest to you
and they strangers to you
The half is a mere moment of inability
but you are able for you are not half a being
You are a whole that exists to live a life
not half a life
β
β
Kahlil Gibran
β
You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw -- but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realise that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you are transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of -- something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it -- tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest -- if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself -- you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say "Here at last is the thing I was made for". We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.
β
β
C.S. Lewis (The Problem of Pain)