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
Harry - you're a great wizard, you know."
"I'm not as good as you," said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let go of him.
"Me!" said Hermione. "Books! And cleverness! There are more important things - friendship and bravery and - oh Harry - be careful!
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1))
β
the only way Bex would miss this would be if she were unconscious. And tied up. And in a concrete bunker. In Siberia.
β
β
Ally Carter (Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (Gallagher Girls, #3))
β
And now I need you to do for me what I cannot do for myself. For you to be my eyes when I do not have them. For you to be my hands when I cannot use my own. For you to be my heart when mine is done beating.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
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
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
True friends are those who came into your life, saw the most negative part of you, but are not ready to leave you, no matter how contagious you are to them.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson (The Infinity Sign)
β
Your truest friends are the ones who will stand by you in your darkest moments--because they're willing to brave the shadows with you--and in your greatest moments--because they're not afraid to let you shine.
β
β
Nicole Yatsonsky
β
I don't like to give up on people when they need someone not to give up on them.
β
β
Carroll Bryant
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
A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things-a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.
β
β
John Grogan (Marley and Me: Life and Love With the Worldβs Worst Dog)
β
What's most important in a friendship? Tolerance and loyalty.
β
β
J.K. Rowling
β
Your friends will believe in your potential, your enemies will make you live up to it.
β
β
Tim Fargo
β
Friends ask you questions; enemies question you.
β
β
Criss Jami (Healology)
β
We are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter
β
β
Allen Ginsberg (Howl and Other Poems)
β
He would always want me near him. I would always be first in his eyes. We were a good match. A perfect match. Soul mates.
Passion, friendship, love, loyalty, trustβ¦if you found the right personβ¦you really could have it all.
β
β
S.C. Stephens (Reckless (Thoughtless, #3))
β
Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.
β
β
Ann Landers
β
Never mind, said Hachiko each day. Here I wait, for my friend whoβs late. I will stay, just to walk beside you for one more day.
β
β
Jess C. Scott (Skins, Animal Stories)
β
I may be stupid, as you say, to believe in honour and friendship and loyalty without price. But these are virtues to be cherished, for without them we are no more than beasts roaming the land.
β
β
David Gemmell (Shield of Thunder (Troy, #2))
β
But what are loyalty and caring really worth?"
"To me? Everything.
β
β
Richelle Mead (The Golden Lily (Bloodlines, #2))
β
Passion, friendship, love, loyalty, trust . . . if you found the right person . . . you really could have it all.
β
β
S.C. Stephens (Reckless (Thoughtless, #3))
β
People leave imprints on our lives, shaping who we become in much the same way that a symbol is pressed into the page of a book to tell you who it comes from. Dogs, however, leave paw prints on our lives and our souls, which are as unique as fingerprints in every way.
β
β
Ashly Lorenzana
β
Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.
β
β
William T. Sherman
β
You will find joy, frustration and sorrow in your quest. Never forget that friendship and loyalty are more precious than riches...Happiness can be brief, but it knows no time in the land of dreams.
β
β
Brian Jacques (Pearls of Lutra (Redwall, #9))
β
Sometimes I think you believe in me more than I do," said the boy
"You'll catch up," said the horse.
β
β
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
β
...writers are a savage breed, Mr. Strike. If you want life-long friendship and selfless camaraderie, join the army and learn to kill. If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels.
β
β
Robert Galbraith (The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2))
β
I am not a believer in love at first sight. For love, in its truest form, is not the thing
of starry-eyed or star-crossed lovers, it is far more organic, requiring nurturing and time
to fully bloom, and, as such, seen best not in its callow youth but in its wrinkled maturity.
Like all living things, love, too, struggles against hardship, and in the process sheds
its fatuous skin to expose one composed of more than just a storm of emotionβone of loyalty
and divine friendship. Agape. And though it may be temporarily blinded by adversity,
it never gives in or up, holding tight to lofty ideals that transcend this earth and
timeβwhile its counterfeit simply concludes it was mistaken and quickly runs off to
find the next real thing.
β
β
Richard Paul Evans (The Letter (The Christmas Box, #3))
β
True friends don't come with conditions.
β
β
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
β
Avoid those who seek friends in order to maintain a certain social status or to open doors they would not otherwise be able to approach.
β
β
Paulo Coelho (Manuscript Found in Accra)
β
Favorite Quotations.
I speak my mind because it hurts to bite my tongue.
The worth of a book is measured by what you carry away from it.
It's not over till it's over.
Imagination is everything.
All life is an experiment.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly.
β
β
Pat Frayne (Tales of Topaz the Conjure Cat: Part I Topaz and the Evil Wizard & Part II Topaz and the Plum-Gista Stone)
β
It was a lesson most people learned much earlier; that even friendship could have an undisclosed shelf life. That loyalty and affection, so consuming and powerful, could dissipate like fog.
β
β
Jennifer Haigh (The Condition)
β
A friend's loyalty lasts longer than their memory. Over the course of a long friendship, you might fight with your friend, even get angry with them. But a true friend will forget that anger after a while, because their loyalty to their friend outweighs the memory of the disagreement.
β
β
Matthew Reilly (The 5 Greatest Warriors (Jack West Jr, #3))
β
So I guess you could say Neel owes me a few favors, except that so many favors have passed between us now that they are no longer distinguishable as individual acts, just a bright haze of loyalty. Our friendship is a nebula.
β
β
Robin Sloan (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #1))
β
Friends arenβt forever. Theyβre not even for a while. They come into your life
and they leave when something or someone changes. Nothing grounds them to you.
Not blood or loyalty. Theyβre justβ¦fleeting.-Daisy Calloway
β
β
Krista Ritchie (Hothouse Flower (Calloway Sisters #2))
β
Why does this mean so much to you, Jon?"
The Prince turned. "Because he's my friend. Because I always know where he stands, and where I stand with him. Because I think he'd die for me and--and I think I'd die for him. Is that enough?
β
β
Tamora Pierce (Alanna: The First Adventure (Song of the Lioness, #1))
β
Together we shared a bond not even death would violate.
β
β
Dee Remy (There Once Was A Boy)
β
Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue - perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one.
β
β
Milan Kundera (Encounter)
β
I no longer have patience for certain things, not because Iβve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and thatβs why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.
β
β
JosΓ© Micard Teixeira
β
It's a good sign but rare instance when, in a relationship, you find that the more you learn about the other person, the more you continue to desire them. A sturdy bond delights in that degree of youthful intrigue. Love loves its youth.
β
β
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
β
It's not how many friends you can count, it's how many of those you can count on.
β
β
Anthony Liccione
β
A friend is someone who walks into a room when everyone else is walking out.
β
β
Gary Moore (Playing With the Enemy: A Baseball Prodigy, a World at War, and a Field of Broken Dreams)
β
Sometimes it was worth all the disadvantages of marriage just to have that: one friend in an indifferent world.
β
β
Erica Jong
β
Where loyalty bound creatures together, they became something larger, something new and whole and inexplicable.
β
β
Orson Scott Card
β
Take one cup of love, two cups of loyalty, three cups of forgiveness, four quarts of faith and one barrel of laughter. Take love and loyalty and mix them thoroughly with faith; blend with tenderness, kindness and understanding. Add friendship and hope. Sprinkle abundantly with laughter. Bake it with sunshine. Wrap it regularly with lots of hugs. Serve generous helpings daily.
β
β
Zig Ziglar
β
As you grow older, you realize it becomes less important to have more friends and more important to have real ones.
People nowadays don't know the true meaning of friendship and loyalty.
People always suddenly miss you more once they see how much happier you are without them.
Learn the real from the fake....and don't worry about the mistakes you make.
There are no mistakes in life, just lessons.
The only people worthy to be in your life are the ones that help you through the hard times and laugh with you after the hard times pass.
β
β
Ziad K. Abdelnour (Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics)
β
The part the stories leave out," Tress said as the Sorceress's runes formed into a vibrant wall, "is everything that comes before. You see, I've discovered that it's all right to need help. So long as you've lived your life as the kind of person who deserves to be rescued.
β
β
Brandon Sanderson (Tress of the Emerald Sea)
β
love has little to do with blood relations and more to do with who you choose to bleed for
β
β
Trista Mateer (Aphrodite Made Me Do It)
β
It is not lies or a lack of loyalty that ends a relationship. It is the agonizing truth that one person feels in their heart on a daily basis. It is realizing that you are coping and not living. It is the false belief that there is a verse, quote, phrase or talk that will magically make you feel content, complete or not care. However, it doesnβt last longer than a few days, before your mind and heart goes back to what it wants. It is the moment you realize that you left without ever leaving. It is the moment you realize that fear, shame or guilt is the only thing standing in the way of the life God meant for you to live.
β
β
Shannon L. Alder
β
Family. Friendship. Loyalty. These things have been my guiding stars, my light in these dark times.
β
β
John Gwynne (Ruin (The Faithful and the Fallen, #3))
β
Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, sunlight turn to fog;
but you're never friendless ever, if you have a dog.
β
β
Douglas Malloch
β
There are friends one makes at a youthful age in whom one simply rejoices, for whom one possesses a love and loyalty mysteriously lacking in the friendships made in after-years, no matter how genuine.
β
β
William Styron (Sophieβs Choice)
β
What good is treasure if I'm alone? After sharing so much of our dreams instead of sacrificing them and leaving with you. I would rather have nothing at all!
β
β
Nami
β
My people - before I was changed - they exchanged this as a sign of devotion. It's a Claddagh ring. The hands represent friendship; the crown represents loyalty... and the heart... Well, you know... Wear it with the heart pointing towards you. It means you belong to somebody. Like this.
β
β
Joss Whedon
β
But you can't give up on people. It's one of the three keys of friendship. You gotta listen, you gotta care, and most importantly, you gotta keep trying.
β
β
Kelly Yang (Three Keys (Front Desk, #2))
β
She is probably by this time as tired of me, as I am of her; but as she is too Polite and I am too civil to say so, our letters are still as frequent and affectionate as ever, and our Attachment as firm and sincere as when it first commenced.
β
β
Jane Austen (Love and Freindship (and Other Early Works))
β
Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty thru good times and bad. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses. Love is content with the present; it hopes for the future and it doesn't brood over the past. It is the day-in and out chronicles of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories and common goals. If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things that you lack. If you don't have it, no matter what else is there, it isn't enough..
β
β
Ann Landers
β
Sibling relationships outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust.
β
β
Erica E. Goode
β
They had the rare kind of friendship that allowed for a great deal of privacy within it. One of the reasons they had become such good friends originally was because she had not insisted he tell his sad stories to satisfy her own curiosity. The least he could do was return the favor.
β
β
Gabrielle Zevin (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow)
β
Some people treat
loyalty as a lamp:
they think, they can
just switch it on/off
and believe,
you won't notice
the difference...
β
β
Veronika Jensen
β
We had grown into one another somewhere along the way. We were officially a team.
β
β
Shannon A. Thompson (Take Me Tomorrow)
β
Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.
β
β
Jay Crownover (Built (Saints of Denver, #1))
β
Secrets make life more interesting. You can be in a crowded room with someone and touch them without touching, just with a look, because they know a part of you no one else knows. And whenever you're with them, the two of you are alone, because the you they see no one else can.
β
β
Mohsin Hamid (Moth Smoke)
β
There's always two ways of looking at things... that seeing what's positive about a situation is a lot more fun and gets you a lot further than looking for what might be wrong with it.
β
β
D.J. MacHale (The Lost City of Faar (Pendragon, #2))
β
...a friend is someone to whom you can tell all your secrets, someone whom you can trust without reservation, a person who is not overawed when you are at your best, and is not turned away when you are at your worst.
β
β
Steven J. Carroll (City of Words)
β
We have no money. We have no possessions. Maybe that is why we value the things we do have ... loyalty and friendship.
β
β
Anthony Horowitz (Evil Star (Power of Five, #2))
β
Ask us for any help you need...Let us be strong for you.
β
β
Juliet Marillier (Son of the Shadows (Sevenwaters, #2))
β
A guy that'll really listen to you, listen and care about what you're saying, is something rare.
β
β
S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders)
β
I have this thing about friends and secrets. Sometimes when I meet a person I like, I tell them a secret they don't know me well enough to be told. It lets me judge their potential as a friend.
β
β
Mohsin Hamid (Moth Smoke)
β
Because there is no power on earth that could make me abandon our friendship. There is no deed you could confess so dark that it would make me forsake you. You said of us once that we were quicksilver and the rest of the world mud. We are alike, shaped by Nature in the same mold, and whatever that signifies, it means that to spurn each other would be to spit in the face of whatever deity has seen fit to bring us together. We are the same, and to leave you would be to leave myself.
β
β
Deanna Raybourn (A Treacherous Curse (Veronica Speedwell, #3))
β
I need you to just trust me for now without knowing all the answers.
β
β
J.M. Richards (Tall, Dark Streak of Lightning (Dark Lightning Trilogy, #1))
β
That she was irreplaceable became a bittersweet loyalty: Her death was what I had now instead of her.
β
β
Gail Caldwell (Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship)
β
You cannot go and warn him," Saeunn said sternly. "It is too late. You would never find him."
"I know," said Renn without turning her head.
To herself she added, But I've still got to try.
β
β
Michelle Paver (Spirit Walker (Chronicles of Ancient Darkness #2))
β
Marriage and friendship were built on trust and loyalty. Not deceit and lies. Love could only be given. It could never be demanded.
β
β
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Illusion (Chronicles of Nick, #5))
β
Convince people that you need them, and watch what they do.
β
β
Wayne Gerard Trotman
β
Love is years of devotion, sacrifice, commitment, loyalty, trust, faith, and friendship all wrapped up in one. True love does more than cause your heart to flutter. It upholds your heart when the infatuation no longer makes it flutter.
β
β
Richelle E. Goodrich (Eena, The Return of a Queen (The Harrowbethian Saga #2))
β
Us. All regrets, left them in the sea, smiling at life as if it was a beautiful dream, because if one thing is certain, clearing the strange foreigh steam. Like the diamond ring that fits in your finger, we are stronger as a steel linker
β
β
Lucia Ohanian
β
The thing is, you can't really rely on love. Which is why I intend to offer you something far more consistent. Commitment, friendship and loyalty. I promise to give you my protection, no matter the price. I will never turn our back on us. We will fall in and out of love many times, but I promise to always find my way back to you. To put us back together even when the temptation to break things off is too much. And when loves feels far away..."
He presses his forehead to mine, his lips moving over mine.
"I will bring it right back to our doorstep.
β
β
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
β
I, who was emptyβ¦ I made myself believe that I could only fill it.. by falling in loveβ¦ at that time to me.. in this world around you, Nana... Everything was so shiny that I was blinded. That doesnβt mean that anyone would suit meβ¦ I just wanted to be in the same light as you.
β
β
Ai Yazawa
β
Loyal companions are an unequaled grace, stanching fear before it bleeds you numb, a reliable antidote for creeping despair.
β
β
Dean Koontz (Odd Interlude (Odd Thomas, #4.5))
β
Only those who stick around long enough to see the caterpillar turn into the butterfly actually get to witness the transformation.
β
β
Kristin Michelle Elizabeth
β
Mates such as they must stand by one another
β
β
Mary Grant Bruce
β
If I were not to put my arms out; would I have not caught you when you fell
β
β
Jeremy Aldana
β
βPor supuesto, Barramar. Te lo prometo. Somos una manada, ΒΏrecuerdas?
βRecuerdo, Gryalβ¦ βse abrazΓ³ el viejo al CapitΓ‘n de la Miliciaβ. Y lo seremos hasta el final.
β
β
Jordi Balaguer (El retorno de Gryal (El amante de la luna, #3))
β
There are things in the world that cannot be brought about. There are mistakes that cannot be repaired. But there is one thing sure -- that loyalty and friendship are the most precious possessions a man can have.
β
β
Herbert Hoover
β
To the loyal and to the blood-lovers, in the good families and in the fiery dynasties, life is family and family is life. It is the same people who give advice and their vices to live well who turn out to be the ones who give resource and reason to live long.
β
β
Criss Jami (Healology)
β
Partially trust your friends.
Moderately trust your family.
Seldomly trust your acquaintances.
Never trust your enemies.
Jealous friends betray you quickly.
Envious friends will betray instantly.
Loyal acquaintances will help you swiftly.
Noble acquaintances will help you immediately.
β
β
Matshona Dhliwayo
β
I no longer have patience for certain things, not because Iβve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and thatβs why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.
NOTE: She neither said nor wrote this quote. Just because you saw it on Facebook does not mean it's true. Snopes is your friend. The quote was written by JosΓ© Micard Teixeira
β
β
Meryl Streep
β
But loyalty isn't rooted in friendship. It's much stronger than that. It comes from being born and raised under the same sky, from walking the same path as our ancestors, and from sharing the warrior code. With this life I commit you to upholding the warrior code, whatever challenges you might face. This is the wisdom of our ancestors, all our traditions distilled. Trust the code to lead you along the right path.
β
β
Erin Hunter (Tallstar's Revenge (Warriors Super Edition, #6))
β
I turned to face Audrey, and everything I loved was right there in her eyes, the memories tangible: the schooldays and sleepovers, the cheap bottles of wine and sappy chick flicks. She was there for my motherβs drunken relapses, there to hold me until I fell asleep the first time the ex from Seattle hit me. It was all there, and my God, each memory was suddenly sacred and the sun rose and set upon it.
β
β
Rachael Wade (The Tragedy of Knowledge (Resistance, #3))
β
Still, you must especially avoid those who are gloomy and always lamenting, and who grasp at every pretext for complaint. Though a man's loyalty and kindness may not be in doubt, a companion who is agitated and groaning about everything is an enemy to peace of mind.
β
β
Seneca (On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It (Penguin Great Ideas))
β
Because we grow up, Filip,' Tedros exhaled. 'When you're young, you think your best friend is everything. But once you find real love... it changes. Your friendship can never be the same after that. Because no matter how much you try to keep both, your loyalty can only lie with one.
β
β
Soman Chainani (A World Without Princes (The School for Good and Evil, #2))
β
A dog only got hurt if its love was repudiated, intentional or not, though it never had long to feel true sorrow in response because it never held its love back, regardless of reciprocation; the dog just tried to love you more. No other distractions such as work, home, friendships, or loversβjust the insistence of undying and unwavering affection in the truest sense of the wordβasking for only a fraction of what it gave.
β
β
Michael A. Ferro (TITLE 13: A Novel)
β
But nothing delights the mind so much as fond and loyal friendship. What a blessing it is to have hearts that are ready and willing to receive all your secretes in safety, with whom you are less afraid to share knowledge of something than keep it to yourself, whose conversation soothes your distress, whose advice helps you make up your mind, whose cheerfulness dissolves your sorrow, whose very appearance cheers you up!
β
β
Seneca (On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It (Penguin Great Ideas))
β
There's a funny thing about light and darkness--like hope, you can never blot out either one completely. They always exist, side by side, bright light making shadows darker, darkness making the light more beautiful, a tempting siren call. I can't hate the dark parts of myself. They are the things that showed me how special and rare the bright flames of trust, loyalty, friendship, and love were. My darkness showed me how to love Rob. But now I choose light and fire and love. No I choose freedom.
β
β
A.C. Gaughen (Lion Heart (Scarlet, #3))
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Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course when things are boring, to run the risk of repeating an old argument just one more time, or of going one more round with a hostile or (much worse) indifferent audience. I first became involved with the Czech opposition in 1968 when it was an intoxicating and celebrated cause. Then, during the depressing 1970s and 1980s I was a member of a routine committee that tried with limited success to help the reduced forces of Czech dissent to stay nourished (and published). The most pregnant moment of that commitment was one that I managed to miss at the time: I passed an afternoon with Zdenek Mlynar, exiled former secretary of the Czech Communist Party, who in the bleak early 1950s in Moscow had formed a friendship with a young Russian militant with an evident sense of irony named Mikhail Sergeyevitch Gorbachev. In 1988 I was arrested in Prague for attending a meeting of one of Vaclav Havel's 'Charter 77' committees. That outwardly exciting experience was interesting precisely because of its almost Zen-like tedium. I had gone to Prague determined to be the first visiting writer not to make use of the name Franz Kafka, but the numbing bureaucracy got the better of me. When I asked why I was being detained, I was told that I had no need to know the reason! Totalitarianism is itself a clichΓ© (as well as a tundra of pulverizing boredom) and it forced the clichΓ© upon me in turn. I did have to mention Kafka in my eventual story. The regime fell not very much later, as I had slightly foreseen in that same piece that it would. (I had happened to notice that the young Czechs arrested with us were not at all frightened by the police, as their older mentors had been and still were, and also that the police themselves were almost fatigued by their job. This was totalitarianism practically yawning itself to death.) A couple of years after that I was overcome to be invited to an official reception in Prague, to thank those who had been consistent friends through the stultifying years of what 'The Party' had so perfectly termed 'normalization.' As with my tiny moment with Nelson Mandela, a whole historic stretch of nothingness and depression, combined with the long and deep insult of having to be pushed around by boring and mediocre people, could be at least partially canceled and annealed by one flash of humor and charm and generosity.
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Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
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Then what is true love?β she asked audaciously.
Derian leaned forward, his focus powerfully fixed on her. His voice turned delicate and compelling as he spoke.
βLove is so much more than a feeling. True love, Eena, is something that develops over time. Itβs not that initial infatuation nor the shivers and butterflies that take your breath away when youβre first attracted to someone. Those things are nice, but they are barely the beginning of what could become true love. The emotions you speak of are temporary and unreliable, elicited when two people come together. The power I speak of grows ever stronger over time until it is steadfast, even in separation. Then, reunited, it solidifies unshakably.β
She shook her head. βI donβt quite follow.β
The captain inched closer, fixing her with the sincerest of gazes. His hands cupped as if he were holding his very heart within them.
βTrue love is a developed and intense appreciation for someone. Itβs that perfect awareness that you are finally whole when sheβs with you, and that hollow incompleteness you suffer when sheβs gone. True love takes time, Eena. Itβs an earned comfort that tells you sheβll be right there beside you no matter what you do, not necessarily happy with your every action, but faithful to you just the same. Love is knowing someone so deeply, understanding her so completely, that you can finish her thoughts without hesitation, confident in reading her face, her body, even her slightest gesture means something to you. Love is years of devotion, sacrifice, commitment, loyalty, trust, faith, and friendship all wrapped up in one. True love does more than cause your heart to flutter, Eena. It upholds your heart when the infatuation no longer makes it flutter.β
βWow.
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Richelle E. Goodrich (Eena, The Return of a Queen (The Harrowbethian Saga #2))
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Sometimes life feels a certain way that we call βabsurdβ: nothing matters, all efforts are for naught, everything seems random and perverse, positive intention is perpetually thwarted. This stance communicates darkness and edginess, which can feel like wisdom. But we donβt live as if life is absurd; we live as if it has meaning and makes sense. We live (or try to) by kindness, loyalty, friendship, aspiration to improvement, believing the best of other people. We assume causality and continuity of logic. And we find, through living, that our actions do matter, very much. We can be a good parent or a bad parent, we can drive safely or like a maniac. Our minds can feel clean and positive and clear or polluted and negative. To have an ambition and pursue it feels healthy. A life without earnest striving is a nightmare. (When desire vanishes from a normal life, that is called depression.)
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George Saunders (A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life)
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Relationships never provide you with everything. They provide you with some things. You take all the things you want from a person - sexual chemistry, let's say, or good conversation, or financial support, or intellectual compatibility, or niceness, or loyalty - and you get to pick three of those things. Three - that's it. Maybe four, if you're very lucky. The rest you have to look for elsewhere. It's only in the movies that you find someone who gives you all of those things. But this isn't the movies. In the real world, you have to identify which three qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and then you look for those qualities in another person. That's real life. Don't you see it's a trap? If you keep trying to find everything, you'll wind up with nothing.'
...At the time, he hadn't believed these words, because at the time, everything really did seem possible: he was twenty-three, and everyone was young and attractive and smart and glamorous. Everyone thought they would be friends for decades, forever. But for most people, of course, that hadn't happened. As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren't necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. If you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic. They all chose differently: Roman had chosen beauty, sweetness, pliability; Malcolm, he thought, had chosen reliability, and competence...and aesthetic compatibility. And he? He had chosen friendship. Conversation. Kindness, Intelligence. When he was in his thirties, he had looked at certain people's relationships and asked the question that had (and continued to) fuel countless dinner-party conversations: What's going on there? Now, though, as an almost-forty-eight-year-old, he saw people's relationships as reflections of their keenest yet most inarticulable desires, their hopes and insecurities taking shape physically, in the form of another person. Now he looked at couples - in restaurants, on the street, at parties - and wondered: Why are you together? What did you identify as essential to you? What's missing in you that you want someone else to provide? He now viewed a successful relationship as one in which both people had recognized the best of what the other person had of offer and had chosen to value it as well.
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Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
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Was it good?
Nemecsek fixed his blue eyes on Gereb and replied:
Yes, and quietly added: Much better than to be standing on the bank, laughing at me. I'd rather stay in the water neck-deep until New Year than be hand-in-hand with my friends' enemies. I don't mind having dipped in the water. The other day I fell in there by myself. I saw you then, too, with these strangers on the island. But you fellows can invite me as long as you like, you can flatter me and shower me with presents - yet I won't have a thing to do with you. And if you give me another ducking, if you throw me in the water a hundred times, or even a thousand times, I'll come here tomorrow and the day after just the same. I'll find a hiding place where you won't get me. I'm not afraid of anyone of you. And if you'll come to Paul Street, to take our ground away, we'll be on the spot! And don't you forget that either! I'll show you that with ten of us against your ten, you'll hear a different sort of talk from what I'm giving you now. It was easy enough to get the better of me! The one that's stronger always wins! The Pasztor boys stole my marbles in the Museum Garden because they were stronger. Now I got a ducking because you are stronger! Easy enough when ten are against one! But I don't care! You can even beat me up, if it'll do you good. I could have saved myself from the ducking, but I wouldn't join you. I'd rather be drowned or have my brains knocked out than be a traitor...like....somebody standing over...there....
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Ferenc MolnΓ‘r (The Paul Street Boys)
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[Robert's eulogy at his brother, Ebon C. Ingersoll's grave. Even the great orator Robert Ingersoll was choked up with tears at the memory of his beloved brother]
The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower.
Dear Friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me.
The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west.
He had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point; but, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust.
Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. For whether in mid sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.
This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights, and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning, of the grander day.
He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly gave alms. With loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts.
He was a worshipper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: 'For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer!' He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers.
Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, 'I am better now.' Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead.
And now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust.
Speech cannot contain our love. There was, there is, no gentler, stronger, manlier man.
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Robert G. Ingersoll (Some Mistakes of Moses)