Penguin Friendship Quotes

Deal with people from whom you can learn

But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good.

In many people, incidentally, the gift of having good friends is much greater than the gift of being a good friend.

Some friendships are like a marriage, others like an affair; the latter are for pleasure, the former for the abundant success they engender. Few are friends because of you yourself, many of because of your good fortune. A friend's true understanding is worth more than the many good wishes of others. Make friends by choice, then, not by chance.

You will never belong entirely to someone else nor they to you. Neither ties of blood, nor friendship, nor the most pressing obligation are sufficient for this, for there's a big difference between opening your heart and surrendering your will. Even the greatest intimacy has its limits, and the laws of courtesy are not offended by this. A friend always keeps some secret to himself and a son conceals something from his father...

when you give love... it grows and grows.

Oh, I must tell you, so interesting. You know that Birds man, who said he had written a Birds book too, and was cross, and I was afraid there would be another Main case? Well, this man, Mr Frank Baker, wrote me a nice letter and sent me his Birds to read, saying he had read mine in Penguin’s, and thought it very good. So I began his, rather smiling derisively, thinking it would be nonsense, and it’s frightfully good! Much more psychological politics than mine, and going into great Deep Thoughts, I was quite absorbed! His birds were not ordinary birds like mine, but great strange things from outer space (and this was written in 1936), and they turned out to be the souls of all the people in the world, who had somehow pushed them out of their inner selves; and so the wretched souls, turned into birds, were furious and sought revenge.

There's no desert like a life without friends: friendship multiplies blessings and divides troubles. It's the only remedy for bad fortune and is an oasis of comfort for the soul.

Friendship was not only an Epicurean good in itself, it delivered real pragmatic benefits, for friends united in common purpose become allies in times of need.

a good marriage is based on a talent for friendship

Sometimes in our relationship to another person, the right balance of friendship is restored when we put a few grains of injustice on our own side of the scale

But what is the good of friendship if