Unusual Friendship Quotes

Nico scowled. ‘It’s none of your business, but I don’t belong. That’s obvious. No one wants me. I’m a child of –’ ‘Oh, please.’ Will sounded unusually angry. ‘Nobody at Camp Half-Blood ever pushed you away. You have friends – or at least people who would like to be your friend. You pushed yourself away. If you’d get your head out of that brooding cloud of yours for once –

Then, in an unusual moment, she grew emotional, which left little doubt about the level of profound respect and admiration Merkel had for her American colleague: ‘So eight years are coming to a close.  This is the last visit of (President) Barack Obama to our country…I am very glad that he chose Germany as one of the stopovers on this trip…Thank you for the reliable friendship and partnership you demonstrated in very difficult hours of our relationship. So let me again pay tribute to what we’ve been able to achieve, to what we discussed, to what we were able to bring about in difficult hours.

She turns her head, Bailey catches her eye, and she smiles at him. Not in the way that one smiles at a random member of the audience when one is in the middle of performing circus tricks with unusually talented kittens but in the way that one smiles when one recognizes someone they have not seen in some time.

I thought about how many elements it took to create the simplest of things - a pink sky an unusually perfect day, a happy family, a deep friendship, a moment of pure delight. I wondered, too, what it took to undo these things. It seemed to me that undoing something was far easier than creating it.

With true love, you can move mountains, make unusual sacrifices, live a life of deprivations and still be happy.

Peterson thought it an unusual friendship, one only the Army could forge.

Suddenly Yudhisthira saw a yaksha approaching him. The being sat in front of him and began firing questions rapidly at him. What is bigger than the Earth? the yaksha asked. "A mother" replied Yudhisthira. What is taller than the sky? "A father" What is faster than the wind? "The mind , of course". Yudhisthira smiled. What grows faster than hay? "Worry" What is the greatest dharma in the world? queried the yaksha "Compassion and conscience" With who is friendship never-ending? "With good people" responded Yudhisthira patiently. What is the secret to never feeling unhappy? "If one can control his or her mind, then that person will never feel sad" The yaksha increase his pace now. What is the greatest kind of wealth. "Education" What is the greatest kind of profit? "Health" What is the greatest kind of happiness? "Contentment" said Yudhisthira, ever prompt with his replies. What is man's worst enemy? "Anger" What disease will never have a cure? "Greed is incurable" The yaksha smiled again. A last question my friend. What is life's biggest irony? "It is the desire to live eternally. Every day, we encounter people dying but we always think that death will never come to us.

Many words made no sense to me; it was a particular kind of language, highly stylized, while at the same time much of the dialogue between officers seemed informal, even casual. What was at once evident was Captain Janeway’s love of science, her unusual friendship with the Vulcan Tuvok, her need for adventure, and her mettle. In the pilot script, her name was Elizabeth Janeway, and although I knew I had my work cut out for me, I felt an instant and natural affinity with this woman. I liked her style.

The pony preserved his character for independence and principle down to the last moment of his life; which was an unusually long one, and caused him to be looked upon, indeed, as the very Old Parr of ponies. He often went to and fro with the little phaeton between Mr. Garland's and his son's, and, as the old people and the young were frequently together, had a stable of his own at the new establishment, into which he would walk of himself with surprising dignity. He condescended to play with the children, as they grew old enough to cultivate his friendship, and would run up and down the little paddock with them like a dog; but though he relaxed so far, and allowed them such freedoms as caresses, or even to look at his shoes or hang on by his tail, he never permitted anyone among them to mount his back or drive him; thus showing that even their familiarity must have its limits, and that there were points between them far too serious for trifling. He was not unsusceptible of warm attachments in his later life, for when the good Bachelor came to live with Mr. Garland upon the clergyman's decease, he conceived a great friendship for him, and amiably submitted to be driven by his hands without the least resistance. He did no work for two or three years before he died, but lived on clover; and his last act (like a choleric old gentleman) was to kick his doctor.

It’s busy at work, so I don’t have enough time to think about my family.” But this is a life-lie. They are simply trying to avoid their other responsibilities by using work as an excuse. One ought to concern oneself with everything, from household chores and child-rearing to one’s friendships and hobbies and so on. Adler does not recognize ways of living in which certain aspects are unusually dominant.

I much prefer to attempt a friendship, try to fit in, rather than avoid everyone altogether.” He hesitated a moment before speaking. “Must you do such a thing? You were quite unusual, just as you were. I much prefer that to you becoming a duplicate of everyone else.

Naturally enough, Tod always declared that she had known from the first that Daphne was an unusual child – unusually beautiful (the photographs all over the house confirmed this), but also extraordinarily intelligent and sensitive. Later, I came to realize that Angela and Jeanne were unusual, in their own different way. Angela’s books are quieter than Daphne’s, which may be the reason why they have never reached the wider public they deserve

O, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us! Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt, Since riches point to misery and contempt? Who would be so mock'd with glory? or to live But in a dream of friendship? To have his pomp and all what state compounds But only painted, like his varnish'd friends? Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart, Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood, When man's worst sin is, he does too much good! Who, then, dares to be half so kind again? For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar men. My dearest lord, bless'd, to be most accursed, Rich, only to be wretched, thy great fortunes Are made thy chief afflictions. Alas, kind lord! He's flung in rage from this ingrateful seat Of monstrous friends, nor has he with him to Supply his life, or that which can command it. I'll follow and inquire him out: I'll ever serve his mind with my best will; Whilst I have gold, I'll be his steward still.

Second, if the idea of friendship as a cooperation device seems strange, that may be because of the unusually good times in which we live. In the feast-and-famine world of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, having friends who were willing to have you over for dinner wasn’t just a nicety but a matter of life and death. The world of our ancestors was also a lot more violent. In our world, few friends can say that they’ve saved one another’s lives, but that might not have been true in the past.

I believe we have known one another for eternities, and that our paths crossed in this existence with the perfection of fulfilling a need at a crucial time in our lives. How unusual to find a friendship mutually willing and able to completely open our hearts, completely entrust without stipulation, completely love without condition and continually endure through time. Even as the years pass, we continue to entrust our deepest feelings. Even though our ideas of life may differ, we still share our thoughts without feeling judged. You have always been and will always be my very dear friend.

It was not just her unusual intellect and outsized personality that made Margaret seem to Waldo more manly than feminine, but also her anomalous position as a woman “of the bread-winning tribe” who earned her keep as a writer and public speaker, her rate of pay approaching his own. Margaret was Waldo’s female double, not his feminine muse, as Cary was now. Margaret felt this too; it was why she thought she would make a better man than he. And why she rarely looked at men “with common womanly eyes,” as she once wrote to George Davis, but rather with an eye to friendship—yet on her own more womanly terms. If Waldo wished she would befriend him as a brother, she willed him to befriend her as a sister. The disjunction perplexed and saddened them both.

To celebrate the Russian/Ukrainian partnership, in 1954 the 300th anniversary of the Pereiaslav Treaty was marked throughout the Soviet Union in an unusually grandiose manner. In addition to numerous festivities, myriad publications, and countless speeches, the Central Committee of the all-union party even issued thirteen "thesis", which argued the irreversibility of the "everlasting union" of the Ukrainians and the Russians: "The experience of history has shown that the way of fraternal union and alliance chosen by the Russians and Ukrainians was the only true way. The union of two great Slavic peoples multiplied their strength in the common struggle against all external foes, against serf owners and the bourgeoisie, again tsarism and capitalist slavery. The unshakeable friendship of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples has grown and strengthened in this struggle." To emphasize the point that the union with Moscow brought the Ukrainians great benefits, the Pereiaslav anniversary was crowned by the Russian republic's ceding of Crimea to Ukraine "as a token of friendship of the Russian people." But the "gift" of the Crimea was far less altruistic than it seemed. First, because the peninsula was the historic homeland of the Crimean Tatars whom Stalin had expelled during the Second World War, the Russians did not have the moral right to give it away nor did the Ukrainians have the right to accept it. Second, because of its proximity and economic dependence on Ukraine, the Crimea's links with Ukraine were naturally greater than with Russia. Finally, the annexation of the Crimea saddled Ukraine with economic and political problems. The deportation of the Tatars in 1944 had created economic chaos in the region and it was Kiev's budget that had to make up loses. More important was the fact that, according to the 1959 census, about 860,000 Russians and only 260,000 Ukrainians lived in the Crimea. Although Kiev attempted to bring more Ukrainians into the region after 1954, the Russians, many of whom were especially adamant in rejecting any form of Ukrainization, remained the overwhelming majority. As a result, the Crimean "gift" increased considerably the number of Russians in the Ukrainian republic. In this regard, it certainly was an appropriate way of marking the Pereiaslav Treaty.

Well, Mimi Mackson, tell me what you like to bake." "Lots of things- brownies, cookies, pies, tarts, scones. But cupcakes are my favorite. I like to flavor them with unusual spices and herbs." "I see. And what's the last thing that you made?" "Double-chocolate brownies with cinnamon and cayenne, to welcome someone home." "And prior to that?" "Cheddar-chive biscuits." She waved her hand in front of her face like she smelled something bad. "No, no, my word, that will not do at all. Just sweet things, please." She stood and paced behind the desk. "Ha! Cheese and chives! I wouldn't dream of baking, eating, or even serving those, not to win the world." Well, that was strange. Sweet isn't sweet without savory. One isn't good without the other- I thought everyone knew that. Even the most sugary dessert needs a dash of salt. Mrs. T sat again. "So tell me then, young Mimi. The best sweet thing you've ever, ever made?" "Hmm... lemon-lavender cupcakes, I guess. To celebrate friendship.

Mum was always so generous to Lara and me growing up, and it helped me develop a very healthy attitude to money. You could never accuse my mum of being tight: she was free, fun, mad, and endlessly giving everything away--always. Sometimes that last part became a bit annoying (such as if it was some belonging of ours that Mum had decided someone else would benefit more from), but more often than not we were on the receiving end of her generosity, and that was a great spirit to grow up around. Mum’s generosity ensured that as adults we never became too attached to, or attracted by money. I learned from her that before you can get, you have to give, and that money is like a river--if you try to block it up and dam it (that is, cling to it), then, like a damned river, the water will go stagnant and stale, and your life will fester. If you keep the stream moving and keep giving stuff and money away, wherever you can, then the river and the rewards will keep flowing in. I love the quote she once gave me: “When supply seems to have dried up, look around you quickly for something to give away.” It is a law of the universe: to get good things you must first give away good things. (And of course this applies to love and friendship, as well.) Mum was also very tolerant of my unusual aspirations. When I found a ninjutsu school through a magazine, I was determined to go and seek it out and train there. The problem was that it was at the far end of the island in some pretty rough council estate hall. This was before the moped, so poor Mum drove me every week…and would wait for me. I probably never even really thanked her. So, thank you, Mum…for all those times and so much more. By the way, the ninjutsu has come in real handy at times.

I missed you," I said. "Missed you, too. Welcome home." We moved in to hug each other, then I sprang back seconds before getting smushed against his still-sopping-wet sweater. "Ben!" "Ooh, poor form on my part," he said, and peeled off his sodden sweater. He wore a thin white T-shirt underneath. The coffee spill had left the shirt a bit damp, and it clung slightly to his chest in a way that made me stare and caught my voice in my throat. That was ridiculous, of course. Ben and I had the kind of friendship where we talked about things like that. I could tease him about his suddenly well-toned body; he'd make some kind of self-effacing joke and parry by bringing up something absurd he'd seen about me in a magazine... But I didn't say a word. And I didn't stop looking. Clearly I was in a sleep-deprived haze. "You could still try the coffee," he offered. "There's plenty in the sweater. I can just wring it right into the mug." I shook off my reverie. "Tempting offer, but no thanks. You really need to give up on the coffee thing. I'm never converting from tea." "We'll see," he said. He set the wet sweater on the hand towel, then turned to me with his arms out. "Better?" "Much," I said, and closed the distance between us so he could fold me into his arms. "Hel-lo! Please tell me I'm interrupting something!" It was Rayna, and at the sound of her voice, Ben and I sheepishly pulled apart. Again, ridiculous. Hugging was nothing unusual for us. Granted, Ben was usually wearing more than a thin T-shirt at the time... "Why is it I'm hearing no one when they come into the house?" "Big house," Rayna said. "Come on-my mom's throwing us a welcome home party at our place." "Tonight?" I asked. "Immediately. Unless I can tell my mom there are...extenuating circumstances." She said the last part with a leer that lingered on Ben's chest and made him blush. Rayna's entire family had spent the last two years dying for Ben and me to get together. They seemed to be under the impression that my parents hired him to be my boyfriend, not my international adviser.

After the storm and Wes’s accident, we re-evaluated the safety procedures at the zoo. But the circumstances had been so unusual that night, there wasn’t anything we could have done differently. Wes wore the spectacular scars from Graham’s attack. The bond between Wes and Steve only grew stronger. I don’t think there is a similar concept in the rest of the world as the traditional Australian ideal of “mateship.” “Best friends” just doesn’t do it. Mateship is deeper. It’s someone who has your back, always and forever. If there’s a storm coming in on the horizon, your first thought is, I wonder how the heavy weather is going to affect my best mate? Your thoughts go to him no matter what happens. That’s how it was with Wes and Steve. Wes started working at the zoo when he was fourteen and Steve was already in his twenties. Wes backed him up on croc captures. It was a friendship tested and retested in the bush. Through the years both men had numerous opportunities to save each other’s lives. But nothing had ever happened as dramatically as that night during the flood.

That is another of the attractions of Tramping to nowhere in particular - the finding of somewhere in particular, the striking up of friendships, the discovery of new Springs and waterfalls,unusual pants, rare flowers,strange birds. In the hills a new Vista opens up at every bend in the road. That is what makes me a compulsive walker - new vistas,and the charm of unexpected.

Excuse me?" Annie's voice rises, which is unusual for her. She's the queen of avoiding conflict, and I'm not a fan of it either, which means that the one and only serious argument we've ever been in happened in the fourth grade when she insisted that Howie was the cutest Backstreet Boy (a statement that was categorically false).

A runner must be able to cover a lot of ground in a day, but he is unusually well-treated and cared for; on his discretion and integrity – since he is intrusted with the most confidential matters – the welfare, or more, of his owners may depend. Occasionally a messenger of this kind for the sake of revenge destroys life-long relations of friendship. However, that induces few individuals to learn writing, and thus make themselves independent of their slaves for life;

It is the most unusual friendship: One is pint-sized. Just nine years old and full of life. But she’s not full of life lived. She’s full of dreams and a life yet to live. The other has already lived a beautiful life. At the age of eighty-one, she wonders just where the finish line is and at what speed she’ll cross it.

Even so, most of the stories people told about Amos [Tversky] had less to do with what came out of his mouth than with the unusual way he moved through the world. He kept the hours of a vampire. He went to bed when the sun came up and woke up at happy hour. He ate pickles for breakfast and eggs for dinner. He minimized quotidian tasks he thought a waste of time—he could be found in the middle of the day, having just woken up, driving himself to work while shaving and brushing his teeth in the rearview mirror. “He never knew what time of the day it was,” said his daughter, Dona. “It didn’t matter. He’s living in his own sphere and you just happened to encounter him there.” He didn’t pretend to be interested in whatever others expected him to be interested in—God help anyone who tried to drag him to a museum or a board meeting. “For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like,” Amos liked to say, plucking a line from the Muriel Spark novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. “He just skipped family vacations,” says his daughter. “He’d come if he liked the place. Otherwise he didn’t.” The children didn’t take it personally: They loved their father and knew that he loved them. “He loved people,” said his son Oren. “He just didn’t like social norms. A lot of things that most human beings would never think to do, to Amos simply made sense. For instance, when he wanted to go for a run he . . . went for a run. No stretching, no jogging outfit or, for that matter, jogging: He’d simply strip off his slacks and sprint out his front door in his underpants and run as fast as he could until he couldn’t run anymore. “Amos thought people paid an enormous price to avoid mild embarrassment,” said his friend Avishai Margalit, “and he himself decided very early on it was not worth it.” What all those who came to know Amos eventually realized was that the man had a preternatural gift for doing only precisely what he wanted to do. Varda Liberman recalled visiting him one day and seeing a table with a week’s worth of mail on it. There were tidy little stacks, one for each day, each filled with requests and entreaties and demands upon Amos’s time: job offers, offers of honorary degrees, requests for interviews and lectures, requests for help with some abstruse problem, bills. When the new mail came in Amos opened anything that interested him and left the rest in its daily pile. Each day the new mail arrived and shoved the old mail down the table. When a pile reached the end of the table Amos pushed it, unopened, off the edge into a waiting garbage can. “The nice thing about things that are urgent,” he liked to say, “is that if you wait long enough they aren’t urgent anymore.” “I would say to Amos I have to do this or I have to do that,” recalled his old friend Yeshu Kolodny. “And he would say, ‘No. You don’t.’ And I thought: lucky man!

An unusual book, beautifully written, full of gentle undercurrents that bring floods of emotion. The gorgeous setting is exactly right for the strong theme of friendship, making this a real curl-up-in-your-armchair read.

If you picked mostly Cs: JOSHUA is your Bad Boyz Best Friend Forever!!! He is incredibly loyal and selfless and will go to the ends of the earth to ensure that he’s the BFF who has your back for LIFE! Joshua is super intelligent and ambitious and can intuitively spot your vulnerabilities to know when you really need his help and when you want a little space to yourself for that needed alone time. Although this BFF tends to be generally quiet and unassuming, you’d be surprised to know how passionate Joshua is about his friendships, social issues, and how he stays true to his beliefs and can bravely stand up for what’s right. He is a natural born leader and can astutely talk about all kinds of unusual topics. (Yeah, we said “astutely.” Your vocabulary will definitely grow with this guy around!) Like you, Joshua enjoys fun adventures and the summer months along with all their cool activities. He can’t wait to spend quality time with you, his new BFF. This dude is charming, crazy handsome, and really talented, and he has a great personality. He can hang out with the rich and famous and still make time for the important things in his life, like being the best Bad Boyz BFF EVER!

Andrei always thought there was a fundamental eeriness to names. If a name had an adorable ring to it, like Bonnie or Milo, it was cute to say and hard to be angry at a Bonnie for long. People treated others the way their names sounded. If someone’s name was common, people would mostly see neutral characters—shy, kind, or good-natured. If one’s name was unusual, people had lazier associations and treated them as either a spectacle or an artist. If their name was a title commanding presence, the world’s reaction to them, however subtle, would naturally endow them with a confidence as easily handed to them as their name.

Third, those bonds of professional respect and personal friendship extend out to the hundreds of key people working at Yale’s many investment managers and engage them in unusually beneficial ways,

We sometimes use a friend to prevent or stop ourselves from feeling abnormal (or crazy) for liking or enjoying something (or some of the things) that we like or enjoy.

there is a category of people in life who find comfort in the close company of those with unusual, independent and directing voices that assure and reassure, that soothe and urge, that criticize and support, that acclaim and denounce, that advise and suggest, and that demand and threaten. I call these seekers of a direction in life “The Listeners” or “The Heeders”. Deep within the listeners or the heeders is a conviction that those with directing voices make their fellow human beings understand that we need to heed our inner voices while taking into consideration the rationale outside voices that make us a part of the broader world that we cannot alienate ourselves from.

SHE WENT TO see Madame Cohen the next day at her shop at the end of the Rue des Rosiers. Each had sorrows she never discussed with anyone else. Their camaraderie was unusual and rare. Friendships were usually based on trivial matters, played out over games of cards and cups of coffee, but theirs was rooted in sterner stuff, catastrophe and survival.

Rebecca Gleeson (an everyday schoolgirl on her way to school on the Monday morning eight o’clock train.) The Kingdom of Nought is a time tale legacy: accompanying her on the train Rebecca’s arch nemeses Rona Chadwick, the school bully. Rebecca a fan of poetry and fairy tales. “Tales of kindness and friendship.” She would say to herself. Rebecca was a reader of wonderful books that have a cult following. Unknown to Rebecca far away at the start of the universe dark and evil forces start to unbalance the natural order of day and night, good and evil. Weird things begin to happen as both Rebecca and Rona are transported back in time to The Kingdom of Nought to reinstate the benevolent balance within the kingdom. The adventure for the schoolgirls starts out strange and gets stranger, in the best way possible. Their meeting with the witch Sycorax is as creepy and evocative as you’d hope. The story combines mathematical realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that high-lights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth. As you open the book and turn the pages you enter a strange place out-side time with amazing creatures and spectacular landscapes. An extremely addictive story that will take you to a magical place with a most unusual conclusion.

We’ve been good friends for years. We eat to together once a week on average. We’ve gone on holidays together. We’ve known each other well enough and long enough to have developed a natural ease and familiarity with one another. They’re the kind of people I can quite happily spend time with doing nothing at all. I’m quite serious. It’s not unusual to find us sitting together, all reading books and barely talking for a couple hours or so. We have an unspoken rule that it’s entirely okay to doze off on each other’s couches.

I have the nagging sense that my true friends are waiting for me, beyond college, unusual women whose ambitions are as big as their past transgressions, whose hair is piled high, dramatic like topiaries at Versailles, and who never, ever say "too much information" when you mention a sex dream you had about your father.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the reference manual used by mental health professionals to diagnose psychological problems, defines the avoidant personality disorder by saying that this personality type has the “essential feature of hypersensitivity to potential rejection, humiliation, or shame. . . .” Avoidant people are always afraid of “messing up,” “saying or doing the wrong thing,” “getting caught,” “not being good enough,” and so on. They do anything to save face—even, and this is the extreme, not showing their faces at all. The Manual goes on to describe “an unwillingness to enter into relationships unless given unusually strong guarantees of uncritical acceptance. . . .” Most avoidant people do whatever they can to keep relationships superficial or nonexistent, unless they are sure that the person will accept them without judging them; often, they turn to relatives for emotional support, perceiving them as “safe.” Even if superficial friendships do exist, it is unlikely that an avoidant person will take the perceived risk of sharing intimate thoughts or feelings, for fear that the acquaintance would find “the truth” horrifying or even merely unattractive or unacceptable. “Social withdrawal in spite of desire for affection and acceptance. . . .” Avoidant people may look and act like “loners,” but they’re not. Many of the people I have worked with in my social therapy program start out saying that they are perfectly fine without friends, even though they have sought out treatment for depression or anxiety. The truth is, most people truly want companionship, even if they can’t verbalize the desire. Avoidant people are no exception; the only thing that makes them different is that the fear of rejection we all feel to one degree or another has become so great in their minds that they have trouble controlling it. With effort, though, avoidant people can learn to overcome their fear of rejection and seek out the friendship and even romance that they secretly want. “Low self-esteem.” As I’ve explained, most people who fear rejection act as though they have some terrible secret that would mean instant loneliness if it were discovered. Usually, we are much harder on ourselves than others would ever be. For people whose low self-esteem is a stopper, it seems as though the whole world sees them the way they do, and that only magnifies their poor self-image. “Individuals with this disorder are exquisitely sensitive to rejection, humiliation, or shame. Most people are somewhat concerned about how others assess them, but these individuals are devastated by the slightest hint of disapproval.” So sensitive to disapproval, in fact, that they will avoid it at all costs—even if it means forgoing job opportunities, social events, or intimate relationships that they would truly like to pursue.

When Warren was a little boy fingerprinting nuns and collecting bottle caps, he had no knowledge of what he would someday become. Yet as he rode his bike through Spring Valley, flinging papers day after day, and raced through the halls of The Westchester, pulse pounding, trying to make his deliveries on time, if you had asked him if he wanted to be the richest man on earth—with his whole heart, he would have said, Yes. That passion had led him to study a universe of thousands of stocks. It made him burrow into libraries and basements for records nobody else troubled to get. He sat up nights studying hundreds of thousands of numbers that would glaze anyone else’s eyes. He read every word of several newspapers each morning and sucked down the Wall Street Journal like his morning Pepsi, then Coke. He dropped in on companies, spending hours talking about barrels with the woman who ran an outpost of Greif Bros. Cooperage or auto insurance with Lorimer Davidson. He read magazines like the Progressive Grocer to learn how to stock a meat department. He stuffed the backseat of his car with Moody’s Manuals and ledgers on his honeymoon. He spent months reading old newspapers dating back a century to learn the cycles of business, the history of Wall Street, the history of capitalism, the history of the modern corporation. He followed the world of politics intensely and recognized how it affected business. He analyzed economic statistics until he had a deep understanding of what they signified. Since childhood, he had read every biography he could find of people he admired, looking for the lessons he could learn from their lives. He attached himself to everyone who could help him and coattailed anyone he could find who was smart. He ruled out paying attention to almost anything but business—art, literature, science, travel, architecture—so that he could focus on his passion. He defined a circle of competence to avoid making mistakes. To limit risk he never used any significant amount of debt. He never stopped thinking about business: what made a good business, what made a bad business, how they competed, what made customers loyal to one versus another. He had an unusual way of turning problems around in his head, which gave him insights nobody else had. He developed a network of people who—for the sake of his friendship as well as his sagacity—not only helped him but also stayed out of his way when he wanted them to. In hard times or easy, he never stopped thinking about ways to make money. And all of this energy and intensity became the motor that powered his innate intelligence, temperament, and skills.

Molly and Sylvie had been friends since before either of them really had a concrete idea that they could do unusual things, and had fallen naturally into a gossipy, girlish way of sharing their strange discoveries: Sylvie the places she went when she left herself, Molly the things she saw before they happened. But as they got older, their abilities became a tacit secret, something they realized they couldn't share widely with everyone they knew, binding their friendship further in a kind of collusion.

It is surprising to find that Proust held some extremely caustic views about friendship- in fact, to find that he had an unusually limited conception of the value of his, or indeed anyone's friendships.

Ted Williams idolized John Glenn, in 1953, in 1962, in 1988, in 1998, and prior to his death in 2002.

Ted only batted. 406 in 1941,” Glenn told the crowd at Boston’s Wang Center in 1988. “He batted 1.000 for the Marines and the United States of America.

On the morning of February 20, 1962, Glenn climbed into his space capsule for a twelfth attempted launch. This time, there were no setbacks, no delays, no cancelations. At 8:48 a.m. the Atlas rocket broke free from the ground pad and raced up into the atmosphere, leaving a trail of smoke and fire.

On Tuesday, February 20, 1962, Williams was in Chicago for three days of meetings with Sears, Roebuck executives.

I was proud to know you, John, I can tell you that. “And I wish you all the luck in the world,” he continued. “My greatest regret is that you’re not a Republican.

In the fall, he briefly flew to Northern California to attend his father’s funeral and also spent six weeks training at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico, one of ten thousand Marines training for an amphibious “mock assault” on Onslow Beach, North Carolina.

I began to see how these unusual relationships can also be a provocation—unsettling the set of societal tenets that circumscribe our intimate lives: That the central and most important person in one’s life should be a romantic partner, and friends are the supporting cast. That romantic love is the real thing, and if people claim they feel strong platonic love, it must not really be platonic. That adults who raise kids together should be having sex with each other, and marriage deserves special treatment by the state.