Sport Friendship Quotes

If you lose touch with nature you lose touch with humanity. If there's no relationship with nature then you become a killer; then you kill baby seals, whales, dolphins, and man either for gain, for "sport," for food, or for knowledge. Then nature is frightened of you, withdrawing its beauty. You may take long walks in the woods or camp in lovely places but you are a killer and so lose their friendship. You probably are not related to anything to your wife or your husband.

I used to think that diamonds were a girl's best friend, but now I realize it's carbohydrates. Seriously, I have a French baguette at home sporting a matching friendship bracelet.

Ninth rule of friendship,” he says, “ghost-watching is a two-person sport.

It’s amazing how two thin pieces of clothing can hold such deep memories. Laughter, pain, victory, defeat, friendship, fatigue, elation… they’re all there, but only to the person who’s worn the uniform

Sports just happen to be excellent for avoiding foreign-language stage fright and developing lasting friendships while still sounding like Tarzan.

Every great athlete, artist and aspiring being has a great team to help them flourish and succeed - personally and professionally. Even the so-called 'solo star' has a strong supporting cast helping them shine, thrive and take flight.

Max. God, but she was stubborn. And tough. And closed in. Closed off. Except when she was holding Angel, or ruffling the Gasman’s hair, or pushing something closer to Iggy’s hand so he could find it easily without knowing anyone had helped him. Or when she was trying to untangle Nudge’s mane of hair. Or-sometimes-when she was looking at Fang. He shifted on the hard ground, a half-dozen flashes of memory cycling through his brain. Max looking at him and laughing. Max leaping off a cliff, snapping out her wings, flying off, so incredibly powerful and graceful that it took his breath away. Max punching someone’s lights out, her face like stone. Max kissing that weiner Sam on Anne’s front porch. Gritting his teeth, Fang rolled onto his side. Max kissing him on the beach, after Ari had kicked Fang’s butt. Just now, her mouth soft under his. He wished she were here, if not next to him, then somewhere in the cave, so he could hear her breathing. It was going to be hard to sleep without that tonight.

The truth is that men don’t want to be friends with women. Men know they don’t understand women, and they don’t much care. They want women as lovers, as wives, as mothers, but they’re not really interested in them as friends. They have friends. Men are their friends. And they talk to their male friends about sports, and I have no idea what else. Women, on the other hand, are dying to be friends with men. Women know they don’t understand men, and it bothers them: they think that if only they could be friends with them, they would understand them and, what’s more (and this is their gravest mistake), it would help.

The most profound message of racial segregation may be that the absence of people of color from our lives is no real loss. Not one person who loved me, guided me, or taught me ever conveyed that segregation deprived me of anything of value. I could live my entire life without a friend or loved one of color and not see that as a diminishment of my life. In fact, my life trajectory would almost certainly ensure that I had few, if any, people of color in my life. I might meet a few people of color if I played certain sports in school, or if there happened to be one or two persons of color in my class, but when I was outside of that context, I had no proximity to people of color, much less any authentic relationships. Most whites who recall having a friend of color in childhood rarely keep these friendships into adulthood. Yet if my parents had thought it was valuable to have cross-racial relationships, they would have ensured that I had them, even if it took effort—the same effort so many white parents expend to send their children across town so they can attend a better (whiter) school. Pause for a moment and consider the profundity of this message: we are taught that we lose nothing of value through racial segregation. Consider the message we send to our children—as well as to children of color—when we describe white segregation as good.

Oh, look, the lights are so pretty,” I said dreamily, having just noticed them. I smiled at the way the lights were dancing overhead, pink and yellow and blue. I felt some pressure on my arm and thought, I should look over and see what’s going on, but then the thought was gone, sliding away like Jell-O off a hot car hood. “Fang?” “Yeah. I’m here.” I struggled to focus on him. “I’m so glad you’re here.” “Yeah, I got that.” “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I peered up at him, trying to see past the too-bright lights. “You’d be fine,” he muttered. “No,” I said, suddenly struck by how unfine I would be. “I would be totally unfine. Totally.” It seemed very urgent that he understand this. Again I felt some tugging on my arm, and I really wondered what that was about. Was Ella’s mom going to start this procedure any time soon? “It’s okay. Just relax.” He sounded stiff and nervous. “Just...relax. Don’t try to talk.” “I don’t want my chip anymore,” I explained groggily, then frowned. “Actually, I never wanted that chip.” “Okay,” said Fang. “We’re taking it out.” “I just want you to hold my hand.” “I am holding your hand.” “Oh. I knew that.” I drifted off for a few minutes, barely aware of anything, but feeling Fang’s hand still in mine. “Do you have a La-Z-Boy somewhere?” I roused myself to ask, every word an effort. “Um, no,” said Ella’s voice, somewhere behind my head. “I think I would like a La-Z-Boy,” I mused, letting my eyes drift shut again. “Fang, don’t go anywhere.” “I won’t. I’m here.” “Okay. I need you here. Don’t leave me.” “I won’t.” “Fang, Fang, Fang,” I murmured, overwhelmed with emotion. “I love you. I love you sooo much.” I tried to hold out my arms to show how much, but I couldn’t move them. “Oh, jeez,” Fang said, sounding strangled.

All too often someone spoils my enjoyment of their company by talking to me.

Payton “Sin” Sinclair was an unapologetic people-watcher. As a sports consultant, working with some of the biggest and most recognizable athletes in sports and business, he had to be able to read the smallest nuances of others. That ability was just one of the unique attributes that set him apart from the competition and made him the go-to person when corporations wanted to align themselves with the top professional athletes in the country.

Sports inculcate something in you that no institution, family or friendship can. A quality that eventually emanate from you, something called Sportsmanship.

If You Respect Their Preparation, You never Drop the Baton

When we played, we were all the same. We were all one.

I say, Théoden King: shall we have peace and friendship, you and I? It is ours to command." "We will have peace," said Théoden at last thickly and with an effort. Several of the Riders cried out gladly. Théoden held up his hand. "Yes, we will have peace," he said now in a clear voice, "we will have peace, when you and all your works have perished--and the works of your dark master to whom you would deliver us. You are a liar, Saruman, and a corrupter a men's hearts. You hold out your hand it to me, and I perceive only a finger of the claw of Mordor. Cruel and cold! Even if your war on me was just--as it was not, for were you ten times as wise you would have no right to rule me and mine for your own profit as you desired--even so, what will you say of your torches in Westfold and the children that lie dead there? And they hewed Háma's body before the gates of the Hornburg, after he was dead. When you hang from a gibbet at your window for the sport of your own crows, I will have peace with you and Orthanic. So much for the house of Eorl. A lesser son of great sires am I, but I do not need to lick your fingers. Turn elsewhither. But I fear your voice has lost its charm.

Nothing had come easy to him. School, sports, or girls... it seemed to Oswald that everyone else had come into this world with a set of instructions but him. From the beginning he had always felt like a pair of white socks and brown shoes in a roomful of tuxedos. He had never really gotten a break in life, and now it was all over.

Jiu-Jitsu is just an excuse Brazilians came up with to hug people for a few hours a day.

Let's go for it," said Rachel. "I can do anything when my best friend's along for the ride!

Why had so much conventional wisdom been bullshit? And not just in sports but across the whole society. Why had so many industries been ripe for disruption? Why was there so much to be undone?

The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.

They call each other ‘E.’ Elvis picks wildflowers near the river and brings them to Emily. She explains half-rhymes to him. In heaven Emily wears her hair long, sports Levis and western blouses with rhinestones. Elvis is lean again, wears baggy trousers and T-shirts, a letterman’s jacket from Tupelo High. They take long walks and often hold hands. She prefers they remain just friends. Forever. Emily’s poems now contain naugahyde, Cadillacs, Electricity, jets, TV, Little Richard and Richard Nixon. The rock-a-billy rhythm makes her smile. Elvis likes himself with style. This afternoon he will play guitar and sing “I Taste A Liquor Never Brewed” to the tune of “Love Me Tender.” Emily will clap and harmonize. Alone in their cabins later, they’ll listen to the river and nap. They will not think of Amherst or Las Vegas. They know why God made them roommates. It’s because America was their hometown. It’s because God is a thing without feathers. It’s because God wears blue suede shoes.

Coach John Wooden [UCLA] taught me that sports wasn’t just about making us better athletes, but about making us better people. Compassion, kindness, and morality were more important than a championship season. Fame wasn’t an accomplishment, it was an opportunity to show our gratitude to the community that we are a part of by changing it for the better.

..Octopuses appear to enjoy watching Many home aquarists report that their octopuses appear to enjoy watching television with them. They particularly like sports and cartoons, with lots of movement and color....King and her coauthor, Colin Dunlop, even suggest placing the tank in the same room as the TV, so owner and octopus can enjoy programs together.

Cultivate gratitude. Carve out an hour a day for solitude. Begin and end the day with prayer, meditation, reflection. Keep it simple. Keep your house picked up. Don’t overschedule. Strive for realistic deadlines. Never make a promise you can’t keep. Allow an extra half hour for everything you do. Create quiet surroundings at home and at work. Go to bed at nine o’clock twice a week. Always carry something interesting to read. Breathe—deeply and often. Move—walk, dance, run, find a sport you enjoy. Drink pure spring water. Lots of it. Eat only when hungry. If it’s not delicious, don’t eat it. Be instead of do. Set aside one day a week for rest and renewal. Laugh more often. Luxuriate in your senses. Always opt for comfort. If you don’t love it, live without it. Let Mother Nature nurture. Don’t answer the telephone during dinner. Stop trying to please everybody. Start pleasing yourself. Stay away from negative people. Don’t squander precious resources: time, creative energy, emotion. Nurture friendships. Don’t be afraid of your passion. Approach problems as challenges. Honor your aspirations. Set achievable goals. Surrender expectations.

People who think that queer life consists of sex without intimacy are usually seeing only a tiny part of the picture, and seeing it through homophobic stereotype. The most fleeting sexual encounter is, in its way intimate. And in the way many gay men and lesbians live, quite casual sexual relations can develop into powerful and enduring friendships. Friendships, in turn, can cross into sexual relations and back. Because gay social life is not as ritualized and institutionalized as straight life, each relation is an adventure in nearly un-charted territory—whether it is between two gay men, or two lesbians, or a gay man and a lesbian, or among three or more queers, or between gay men and the straight women whose commitment to queer culture brings them the punishment of the "fag hag" label. There are almost as many kinds of relationship as there are people in combination. Where there are -patterns, we learn them from other queers, not from our-parents or schools or the state. Between tricks and lovers and exes and friends and fuckbuddies and bar friends and bar friends' tricks and tricks' bar friends and gal pals and companions "in the life," queers have an astonishing range of intimacies. Most have no labels. Most receive no public recognition. Many of these relations are difficult because the rules have to be invented as we go along. Often desire and unease add to their intensity, and their unpredictability. They can be complex and bewildering, in a way that arouses fear among many gay people, and tremendous resistance and resentment from many straight people. Who among us would give them up? Try standing at a party of queer friends and charting all the histories, sexual and nonsexual, among the people in the room. (In some circles this is a common party sport already.) You will realize that only a fine and rapidly shifting line separates sexual culture from many other relations of durability and care. The impoverished vocabulary of straight culture tells us that people should be either husbands and wives or (nonsexual) friends. Marriage marks that line. It is not the way many queers live. If there is such a thing as a gay way of life, it consists in these relations, a welter of intimacies outside the framework of professions and institutions and ordinary social obligations. Straight culture has much to learn from it, and in many ways has already begun to learn from it. Queers should be insisting on teaching these lessons. Instead, the marriage issue, as currently framed, seems to be a way of denying recognition to these relations, of streamlining queer relations into the much less troubling division of couples from friends.

Here I am, here to please, to knock on your heart, tug on your sleeve, and sir, do you have a moment to discuss your life goals? The state of the economy? The state that wants secession? The recession of hair, of tides? The ceasefire and the forest fire and the brand-new flavor of fire-roasted pretzels? The exegesis of today’s front-page headlines? The story of how the world will end, slash, how the world began, slash, what kind of world is this, anyway, slash, how ‘bout that certain team that plays that certain sport? How about the environment? The economy? The bathroom? As in, can I use yours? Do you like comedy? Would you perhaps consider a list of vintage novelties you played with as a child? A listicle of popsicles you ate as a child? The story of your inner child? The story of the baby and the bathwater? The story of the baby otter and the baby giraffe and their unlikely friendship? “Can you just skip the stories and give me the pamphlet?

But of course, in one sense, Dean never died - his existence is superior to such accidents. One must have heroes, which is to say, one must create them. And they become real through our envy, our devotion. It is we who give them their majesty, their power, which ourselves could never possess. And in turn, they give some back. But they are mortal, these heroes, just as we are. They do not last forever. They fade. They vanish. They are surpassed, forgotten - one hears of them no more.

The first time I caught the ball before it touched the ground, Mike yelled, "Good job!" I held on to the feeling, capturing his words in my fist. In this way I created a part that could play basketball—a part that could focus on the ball to the exclusion of all other distractions. These types of "happy" and "good" parts countered desperate times and feelings and made it possible for me to succeed in school, receive praise and positive reactions from others, excel fearlessly in sports, and develop friendships.

It’s the people whom she now belongs to, the family who’ve encircled her so completely. And it’s the person she discovered she was, underneath all the neat piles and careful planning. She was never really that person. She made herself into that person to counterbalance her mother’s inconsistencies. To fit in at school. To fit in with a group of friends whose values she never really shared, not really, not deep down inside. There is more to her than arm’s-length friendships and stupidly proscriptive Tinder requirements. She is the product of better people than her fantasy birth parents, the graphic designer and the fashion PR with the sports car and the tiny dogs. How unimaginative she’d been.

It truly is a team sport, and we have the best team in town. But it’s my relationship with Ilana that I cherish most. We have such a strong partnership and have learned how we work most efficiently: I need coffee, she needs tea. When we’re stressed, I pace around and use a weird neck massager I bought online that everyone makes fun of me for, and she knits. When we’re writing together she types, because she’s faster and better at grammar. We actually FaceTime when we’re not in the same city and are constantly texting each other ideas for jokes or observations to potentially use (I recently texted her from Asheville: girl with flip-flops tucked into one strap of tank top). Looking back now at over ten years of doing comedy and running a business with her I can see how our collaboration has expanded and contracted. But it’s the problem-solving aspect of this industry, the producing, the strategy, the realizing that we could put our heads together and figure out the best solution, that has made our relationship and friendship what it is. Because that spills into everything. We both have individual careers now, but those other projects have only been motivating and inspiring to each other and the show. We bring back what we’ve learned on the other sets, in the other negotiations, in the other writers’ rooms or press situations. I’m very lucky to have jumped into this with Ilana Rose Glazer, the ballsy, curly-haired, openhearted, nineteen-year-old girl that cracked me up that night at the corner of the bar at McManus. So many wonderful things have happened since we began working together, but there are a lot of confusing, life-altering things in there too, and it’s such a relief to have someone who completely understands the good and the bad.

These people lived insular, often deeply private lives focused on their work. Their voices were rarely heard, because they sought no audience. Their identities were constructed from things that couldn’t be bought in shops. They wore old clothes and only went shopping occasionally for essentials. They held “shop-bought” things in great contempt. They preferred cash to credit, and would mend anything that broke, piling up old things to use again someday, rather than throwing them away. They had hobbies and interests that cost nothing, turning their necessary tasks, like catching rats or foxes, into sport. Their friendships were built around their work, and the breeds of cattle and sheep they kept. They rarely took holidays or bought new cars. And it wasn’t all work—a lot of time was spent on farm-related activities that were communal and more relaxed, or in the simple enjoyment of wild things. My grandfather called this way of life “living quietly.

Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’ We can imagine that among those early hunters and warriors single individuals—one in a century? one in a thousand years?—saw what others did not; saw that the deer was beautiful as well as edible, that hunting was fun as well as necessary, dreamed that his gods might be not only powerful but holy. But as long as each of these percipient persons dies without finding a kindred soul, nothing (I suspect) will come of it; art or sport or spiritual religion will not be born. It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision—it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.

Ever since the 1960s, upon the urging of Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and the all-knowing Dr. Spock,* mothers have been encouraged to read to their children at a very early age. For toddlers and preschoolers who relish this early diet of literacy, libraries become a second home, story hour is never long enough, and parents can’t finish a book without hearing a little voice beg, “Again… again.” For most literary geek girls, it’s at this age that they discover their passion for reading. Whether it’s Harold and the Purple Crayon or Strega Nona, books provide the budding literary she-geek with a glimpse into an all-new world of magic and make-believe—and once she visits, she immediately wants to apply for full-time citizenship. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” —author Joan Didion, in The White Album While some children spend their summers sweating on community sports teams or learning Indigo Girls songs at sleep-away camp, our beloved bookworms are more interested in joining their local library’s summer reading program, completing twenty-five books during vacation, and earning a certificate of recognition signed by their city’s mayor. (Plus, that Sony Bloggie Touch the library is giving away to the person who logs the most hours reading isn’t the worst incentive, either. It’ll come in handy for that book review YouTube channel she’s been thinking about starting!) When school starts back up again, her friends will inevitably show off their tan lines and pony bead friendship bracelets, and our geek girl will politely oblige by oohing and aahing accordingly. But secretly she’s bursting with pride over her summer’s battle scars—the numerous paper cuts she got while feverishly turning the pages of all seven Harry Potter books.

Morey had no way of knowing that people with a gift for using numbers to predict things would overrun professional sports management and everyplace else high-stakes decisions were being made

He was also a distinctly unmotivated student at Northwestern University. He nevertheless set out to make enough money to buy a professional sports team, so that he might make the decisions about who would be on it. “Every week he’d take a sheet of paper and write on top, ‘My Goals,’” recalls his then-girlfriend, Ellen, now his wife. “The biggest life goal was, ‘I’m going to someday own a professional sports team.’” “I went to business school,” said Morey, “because I thought that’s where you had to go if you wanted to get rich.” Upon leaving business school, in 2000, he interviewed with consulting firms until he found one that got paid in the shares of the companies it advised.

She said she had been teaching them the art of reframing: thinking their way toward victory instead of toward defeat. She had been teaching them about the effect that anxiety had on their performance. Diaphragmatic breathing and positive self-talk were two tools the sports psychologist had given the runners to control their anxiety. “If they are saying to themselves, ‘I won’t get a good time,’ I try to teach them to say, ‘Oh, those are just thoughts, it doesn’t mean it will happen,’ ” she explained. “Or if it’s windy, like today, and they are worried about that, they should remind themselves that the wind will help on one side of the track, even as it will hurt on the other side, so the net effect might be inconsequential.” I could see how those tools might

The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually—their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t.

siblings? With my in-laws? With my other relatives? Do I need to forgive any family member? How do I want to relate to my spouse or ex-spouse with respect to the upbringing of our children? What type of family life feels right to me? — My friends and social life: How much time do I want to spend with my friends and acquaintances? What types of friendships do I want to encourage? Do I prefer one or two close friends, or a group of friends? What qualities and characteristics do my friends and I have? What activities would I most enjoy undertaking with them? What changes do I want to make with the people I currently socialize with? Do I need to set or maintain boundaries with any people currently in my life? Do I need to forgive any of my present or past friends? How much time do I want to spend on the telephone with my friends? What are my true beliefs about giving help to my friends? — My hobbies and recreational life: What do I most like to do? What did I like to do for fun when I was a kid? When I was a teenager? What new hobbies or sports do I want to learn? How do I want to spend my weekends and other free time? What equipment, trips, classes, or memberships do I want to purchase? When will I use them? Where? How often? With whom? — My education: What do I want to learn? What

The change in the kind of person who got rich enough to buy a professional sports franchise also had helped. “The owners often made their money from disrupting fields where most of the conventional wisdom is bullshit,” said Morey. These people tended to be keenly aware of the value of even slight informational advantages, and open to the idea of using data to gain those advantages.

It was hard to invest in a person when one saw how things passed. Take the ball player, for example, who dedicates his life, gets injured, and then watches the sport proceed without him. He sits on his leather couch, watching better athletes run across his television screen, younger ones on renovated fields. And he, who sacrificed his sweat, youth, and sanity to the sport and knew coaches, teammates, and even janitors at the stadium like brothers—is forced to still live afterward. His teammates said kind words before a match, hugged him after a goal, but now seem to be focused on new seasons and new goals. He gets left behind. Did none of it mean anything? He cries for the fast world to stop and says, “Slow down. This pains me. We were just here. I used to joke with you. We said we loved each other. Wait for me. Will you just wait for me?” Those hands he shook after a victory could not care for the weeping, broken-footed man hiding in the shadows of his home, once lit by the sun, once the life of the party. When Andrei walked into a job now, or even met someone for the first time, he thought: How long will it take you to forget me?

Aristotle said that the best activities are the most useless. This is because such things are not simply means to a further end but are done entirely for their own sake. Thus watching a baseball game is more important than getting a haircut, and cultivating a friendship is more valuable than making money. The game and the friendship are goods that are excellent in themselves, while getting a haircut and making money are in service of something beyond themselves. This is also why the most important parts of the newspaper are the sports section and the comics, and not, as we would customarily think, the business and political reports. In this sense, the most useless activity of all is the celebration of the Liturgy, which is another way of saying that it is the most important thing we could possibly do. There is no higher good than to rest in God, to honor him for his kindness, to savor his sweetness—in a word, to praise him. As we have seen in chapter three, every good comes from God, reflects God, and leads back to God, and, therefore, all value is summed up in the celebration of the Liturgy, the supreme act by which we commune with God. This is why the great liturgical theologian Romano Guardini said that the liturgy is a consummate form of play. We play football and we play musical instruments because it is simply delightful to do so, and we play in the presence of the Lord for the same reason. In chapter one I spoke of Adam in the garden as being the first priest, which is another way of saying that his life, prior to the fall, was entirely liturgical. At play in the field of the Lord, Adam, with every move and thought, effortlessly gave praise to God. As Dietrich von Hildebrand indicated, this play of liturgy is what rightly orders the personality, since we find interior order in the measure that we surrender everything in us to God. We might say that the Liturgy bookends the entire Scripture, for the priesthood of Adam stands at the beginning of the sacred text and the heavenly Liturgy of the book of Revelation stands at the end. In the closing book of the Bible, John the visionary gives us a glimpse into the heavenly court, and he sees priests, candles, incense, the reading of a sacred text, the gathering of thousands in prayer, prostrations and other gestures of praise, and the appearance of the Lamb of God. He sees,

Polo has all the qualities that a nearly middle-aged man would need. Lots of adrenalin, dangerous and, contrary to my expectations, bright and filled with shenanigans and friendships.

Terry Hanlon was no ordinary man. He was an extravagantly wild and irrepressible sportsman. Terry was a poet, philosopher and artist. He had anarchy in his soul. He disregarded the rules, and we were all jealous of his freedom and ability to make us laugh and sometimes cry.

No one was safe from Terry Hanlon's wit and humour. He was much loved by polo players all over the world.

Friends who had anarchy in their souls were reckless only by calculation and separated from convention by their own desire.

My general advice, if you are thinking of playing polo, is: don’t play polo!

Terry Hanlon was fond of saying polo is like a drug. Once you have learned to hit that ball, you can’t give it up. If you get hooked, buy the best horses you can afford and look after them.

Never play polo with anyone you don’t like, and never be bamboozled into thinking you can play as well as the Argentines.

When the Lakers held Jerry West Night in March 1971, Bill Russell paid his own way to be there and said during the ceremony, “Jerry, I once wrote that success is a journey, and that the greatest honor a man can have is the respect and friendship of his peers.

When the Lakers held Jerry West Night in March 1971, Bill Russell paid his own way to be there and said during the ceremony, “Jerry, I once wrote that success is a journey, and that the greatest honor a man can have is the respect and friendship of his peers. You have that more than any man I know. Jerry, you are, in every sense of the word, truly a champion. If I could have one wish granted, it would be that you would always be happy.

Nearly half of all associational memberships are church-religious context. Religious worshipers and people who say religion is very important to them are much more likely than other persons to visit friends, to entertain at home, to attend club meetings, and to belong to sports groups; professional and academic societies; school service groups; youth groups; service clubs; hobby or garden clubs; literary, art, discussion, and study groups; school fraternities and sororities; farm organization; political clubs; nationality groups; and other miscellaneous groups.

restaurant you are paying for the environment and the meeting place not just the food and drink. You are socializing where there is the possibility of meeting new people and you're making it a special occasion, in fact, you're celebrating the friendships that give you support, companionship and enjoyment. The same applies when you spend money to play sport or to be active in any kind of social club. The real fun and benefit is the friendly environment and opportunity to meet friends and to make new friends. The expenses associated with the activity are incidental. Think about it, a few weeks later, after a great night out with friends, do you even remember what you ate and drank? Of course not but you do remember how much fun you had and you can't wait to do it again. Do you place a low value on spending money to socialize? Does it seem wasteful to eat out or even to go out for coffee when it's much cheaper to do it yourself at home? Is it worth it to spend the money and go out a little more if it means you make new friends and get to have fun with the people already in your life?   2. Lack of Purpose In the context of making conversation a lack of purpose can cause you to be indecisive about what to say and unable to take control of the interaction. There are a number of related issues we need to look at.  

I began to recall my own experience when I was Mercutio’s age (late teens I decided, a year or two older than Romeo) as a pupil at a public school called Christ’s Hospital. This school is situated in the idyllic countryside of the Sussex Weald, just outside Horsham. I recalled the strange blend of raucousness and intellect amongst the cloisters, the fighting, the sport, and general sense of rebelliousness, of not wishing to seem conventional (this was the sixties); in the sixth form (we were called Grecians) the rarefied atmosphere, the assumption that of course we would go to Oxford or Cambridge; the adoption of an ascetic style, of Zen Buddhism, of baroque opera, the Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, and Mahler; of Pound, Eliot and e. e. cummings. We perceived the world completely through art and culture. We were very young, very wise, and possessed of a kind of innocent cynicism. We wore yellow stockings, knee breeches, and an ankle length dark blue coat, with silver buttons. We had read Proust, we had read Evelyn Waugh, we knew what was what. There was a sense, fostered by us and by many teachers, that we were already up there with Lamb, Coleridge, and all the other great men who had been educated there. We certainly thought that we soared ‘above a common bound’. I suppose it is a process of constant mythologizing that is attempted at any public school. Tom Brown’s Schooldays is a good example. Girls were objects of both romantic and purely sexual, fantasy; beautiful, distant, mysterious, unobtainable, and, quite simply, not there. The real vessel for emotional exchange, whether sexually expressed or not, were our own intense friendships with each other. The process of my perceptions of Mercutio intermingling with my emotional memory continued intermittently, up to and including rehearsals. I am now aware that that possibly I re-constructed my memory somewhat, mythologised it even, excising what was irrelevant, emphasising what was useful, to accord with how I was beginning to see the part, and what I wanted to express with it. What I was seeing in Mercutio was his grief and pain at impending separation from Romeo, so I suppose I sensitised myself to that period of my life when male bonding was at its strongest for me.

Finding Favor in God’s Eyes Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD…. Noah did everything just as God commanded him. —GENESIS 6:8,22     One way to find favor with God is to love His little children. In the New Testament we read where Jesus loved the young children and warned us as adults to be careful not to harm the little children. As a grandparent, I can gain favor with God by being kind and gentle with the little ones in our family. What an honor to be a part of the spiritual development of any child. In government, sports, business, medicine, education, theater, and music—there are those who rise to the top of their professions and are honored because they find favor through their actions, personalities, efforts, or sometimes just because of their social connections. They might be known for very amazing and noble accomplishments like running a nonprofit, discovering a new cancer drug, teaching those thought unteachable, or singing the most beautiful aria the world has ever heard. These are all remarkable reasons to have favor among men. But have you ever thought how much richer life would be to have God find favor with you as a parent, a grandparent? I stand in awe when I think of God finding favor with me, but He does. Noah lived in a world much like today’s, a world full of sin. Humanity hasn’t changed much over the centuries—we just give sin a different name. Yet through all this wickedness, Noah was a person who lived a godly life. His life was pleasing to God even during those evil days. Noah didn’t find favor because of his individual goodness but through his obedience to God. We are also judged according to the same standard—that of our personal faith and obedience. Even though Noah was upright and blameless before God, he wasn’t perfect. God recognized that Noah’s life reflected a genuine faith, but not always a perfect faith. Do you sometimes feel all alone in your walk with God? I know I do. Noah found that it wasn’t the surroundings of his life that kept him in close fellowship with God, but it was the heart of Noah that qualified him to find friendship with God. It isn’t important to find favor from our fellow humans. God’s favor is so much more rewarding. Somehow God’s favor with me is passed down through the favor from my grandchildren. As we live in this very difficult time of history, I might ask, “Do I find favor in God’s sight?” God gives us grace to live victoriously: “He gives us more grace” (James 4:6).

Ms Roache's been marred by politics and she doesn't realize it. Luckily, there's much more to life and to friendship than one's party affiliation. Arts, sports, food are just some of the nobler interests we may share with people. Often, the only thing we share with someone is experiences, or "history" — those are, in a sense, our deepest friendships. Politics already affects my affairs much more extensively than I'd be willing to allow. I refuse to let it take over my social life as well.

There is a lot to life beyond the computer screen. There is food and music and art and friendship and talking and laughing and flowers and sports and, as you say, an argument down at the pub. To say that the internet changed everything is simply an alarming assertion for an intelligent person to make. You are spending way too much time in front of a computer screen.

Turning to Patrick and Caroline, Diana asked if I had trouble getting them to do their homework. They both replied, “No, we just sit down and do it.” I know I embarrassed Patrick when I told Diana what a good student he was turning out to be. With a grin, Diana confessed, “I have to bribe my boys to do their homework.” The bribes were only little treats, like a piece of candy. Diana was determined to teach her sons about the real world and how people live. She was trying to give Prince William, at ten, and Prince Harry, soon to turn eight, as “normal an upbringing as possible,” given their station in life. With regard to this aim, she observed, “My husband thinks I’m overdoing it.” This was her only reference to Prince Charles that afternoon. For instance, so that the boys would learn to handle money, Diana gave them pocket money to buy candy and other small treats in the local shops in Tetbury, the market town near Highgrove, the royal couple’s country estate. It had been difficult to send William to boarding school at eight, but it was not as harsh as it sounded, Diana assured me. Parents could visit on weekends and come to watch sports matches, as she and Harry had done that morning. Also, the boys were allowed to come home for a weekend about once a month. Harry would be joining his big brother at Ludgrove in September. “After prep school,” I asked, “where will you send Prince William? Not to Gordonstoun, I hope.” Gordonstoun was the boarding school in northern Scotland where Prince Charles had been unhappy as a teenager. “Oh, no,” Diana answered. “I’d like William to go to Eton, if he can get in.” I smiled, “I don’t imagine that will be a problem.” Prince William is currently attending Eton and Prince Harry is finishing up at Ludgrove.

pring is a great time to introduce your children to the wonders of God's creation. Take them to a garden center and let them pick out a tree to be planted in your yard. Let them help dig the hole, add soil amendments, and place the tree. As they fill the hole around the tree, talk about how amazing God was when creating the world. Your children will love watching the tree grow through the years... as they grow with it. And remember when you used to press flowers in a scrapbook? Why not do it again? Use the pages of your phone book or apply heavy weight as you press and dry the flowers. When they're completely dry, use a tiny bit of glue to arrange them on colorful or white poster board. Add lace and ribbon, and you've got a perfect pressed flower arrangement. Or make it more masculine by adding graphics of sports, animals, cars, or trucks. ere's a tip that'll help in the dilemma of what to do with your various collections. Always arrange them in odd-numbered groupings. Three is a magic number. Cluster things that have differing shapes, but keep a theme going. ho is your best friend? Who is your second best friend? Now think about it. Is there really such a thing as a "bad" friend? Not all friendships are alike, to be sure. Some are casual and relaxing. Others are intense and stimulating. And some surprise us by seeming to come out of nowhere. Some friendships will fade ...a truth we have to accept. I have several "friends of the heart." These people aren't necessarily "best friends" because

It wasn’t just sports announcers and political pundits who radically revised their narratives, or shifted focus, so that their stories seemed to fit whatever had just happened in a game or an election. Historians imposed false order upon random events, too, probably without even realizing what they were doing. Amos had a phrase for this. “Creeping determinism,” he called it—and jotted in his notes one of its many costs: “He who sees the past as surprise-free is bound to have a future full of surprises.

Spending time with friends, being able to laugh, and encouraging each other while pushing our own personal abilities highlighted my experiences in the sport. We bonded through this shared appreciation for being out in nature and attempting climbs together. No matter the age or background of the participants, climbing was a unifying undertone tone that created instant friendships.

Conversation, friendship, laughter, and understanding are my favorite sports,

People disagree about the meaning of books, bodies, and schools, and how they should be valued. In fact, we disagree about the norms appropriate to many of the domains that markets have invaded—family life, friendship, sex, procreation, health, education, nature, art, citizenship, sports and the way we contend with the prospect of death. But that's my point: once we see that markets and commerce change the character of the goods they touch, we have to ask where markets belong—and where they don't. And we can't answer this question without deliberating about the meaning and purpose of goods, and the values that should govern them. Such deliberations touch, unavoidably, on competing conceptions of the good life. This is terrain on which we sometimes fear to tread. For fear of disagreement, we hesitate to bring our moral and spiritual convictions into the public square. But shrinking from these questions does not leave them undecided. It simply means that markets will decide them for us.

Rickles, to his dying day, constantly reminded me that when his son was born, I went to a sports store and bought every piece of sporting equipment you could think of. I mean, literally everything,” recalled actor James Caan, who met Don through Don Adams and struck up a lifelong friendship with The Merchant of Venom. “The baseball crap, the hockey stuff . . . there were two big boxes and I handed them to him and I said, ‘This is to make sure the kid grows up straight.’ He never forgot it. Twenty years later he would still bring it up.

Here’s my advice to you, for what it’s worth. Don’t give your heart too easily, but don’t be too scared to give it at all. Don’t feel you have to marry the first person you love. Do take good care choosing your friends, and be loyal to them, and work at those relationships too. No one ever tells you about the work a friendship takes. If you are able to, and you want to, have children. You have been my greatest joy, and I want you to know that kind of happiness and pride. Choose your career carefully; I hope you’ll do it for a long time. Think about what you’re good at, and what you love doing, and forge a path that incorporates both of those things. Stick with anything you enjoy and are good at, whether it’s a sport or a musical instrument or a hobby or a school subject. I thought only school subjects were important, but I was wrong. It’s good to have a wide range of skills, to be great at all kinds of things. You never know where one of those things might take you. Take your health seriously; understand your own importance. Check your breasts, go for your smear tests, get things you’re not sure about checked out. Don’t sit out in the sun all day long, even if you rarely burn. When you are young, it doesn’t seem like anything will catch you out. But I’m the proof that things can. Your body is worth looking after. I won’t tell you not to drink or smoke or take drugs; I know it’s unrealistic to expect you to be sensible enough to avoid those things. And perhaps you shouldn’t. Perhaps you have to push things to the edge to understand where the edges are and come back from them. Take care of your mind, too. You’ve got a lot to deal with as a child, having lost your mother. Take time to grieve and talk to someone if you feel lost. It’s

In private memory this place is its halls, its library, its chapel worn to satin by the encounters and collaborations among and between strangers from other neighborhoods and strangers from other lands. It is friend-ships secured and endangered on greens and in classrooms, offices, eating clubs, residences. It is stimulating rivalries negotiated in laboratories, lecture halls and sports arenas. Every doorway, every tree and turn is haunted by peals of laughter, murmurs of loyalty and love, tears of pleasure and sorrow and triumph.

Love, sex, family, the pleasures of food, intellectual delight, friendship, appreciation of beauty, the pleasure of exercise and good health, the excitement of sport and adventure -- all these qualities were given to us, not by God, but by evolution.

Those who have lived abroad know exactly what I mean. Our status as Americans creates an instantaneous, rarified friendship. You are in a fast food restaurant where they have odd things on the menu, makluba, zaatar, soojouk, and you are scrambling for something you recognize, pizza, or even pita, and then you hear that perfect Hello or How you doing? You gravitate toward that table of strangers, desperate, dear God, speak to me, fellow outsiders in in appropriate revealing clothing, seak to me American sweet nothings of sports and reality T.V. It’s the same anywhere. You reach for the known in an unknown place. You become friends with someone you wouldn’t be able to stand if you actually had options. Our history of Super Bowl commercials and expectations of flushable toilet paper seal us together.

It's a funny thing, the way childhood friendships exist, like deep water below the rolling waves, steady, constant, cool. When you're a kid, you surf with people, maybe play a sport, go to a dance, you think you don't know each other very well until you get out into the world and realise there were things you shared with your hometown friends that no one outside that town, that life, will ever understand in the same way. You share something profound, know the measure of people, without even realising it.

In an odd way you can compare the social enviroment of any online game to that of a skate park or to a lesser degree sports avenue. I know, I know, it seems like an insane comparision to make, but similarities really do exist. The most prevalent of which is the equality presented. In the previously mentioned spaces age/social status/economic background, etc... have little to no effect (depending upon the sport you don't want a 20 year old lined up across a 10 year old). The determining factors regarding inclusion or friendship revolve around talent and social skills. In a skate park or pick up soccer game where you come from doesn't matter. What matters is how you perform and more importantly if it is fun playing on your team or rolling with you. Same rules apply to online gaming, but to an even more significant degree. In the wow user interface guidez online world other people have no idea what you look like. They have no idea what you do for a living or how old you are. All they know is whether or not you are worth playing with. And being a worthwhile teammate does not just correlate to level of skill. As mentioned previously, it correlates very strongly to your social presence. In short do you make the game more fun to play? Now, you certainly do not want to be on polar opposites of each spectrum. Even if you are the most charming individual to even grace the planet earth, if you think soccer is played with your hands guess who is not getting on the field. In the same token if you think the main goal of battlegrounds in World of Warcraft is to dance on the stump guess who is not getting invited to next week's Rated Battlegrounds. On the other side of the coin there have been gigantic jack asses that just so happen to be the best player I have ever seen. Unfortunately for them despite their abilities no one wants to play with someone who makes everyone around them worse via their poisonous attitude. It is both difficult and important to find a balance between the two. There are so many opportunities waiting for you. Whether it be through sports or online gaming. Do not think for a minute that because you are XX years old or XXX pounds or from a certain background you can't fit in somewhere. One of the most amazing aspects of online gaming is that you can truly present yourself to others as you want. Physical and economic factors are completely removed from the equation. It becomes you, your voice, and who you are as a person that shines through.