“Acquaintances give us moments; friends give us hours; good friends give us days.”

“Good books are as friends, willing to give to us if we are willing to make a little effort.”

“Friendship is special because it is freely chosen. Our friends want us as their friend for our own sake. No other relationship, either professional or kinship, can give what friendship gives.”

“Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety, and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temparate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.”

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

“Every day, God gives us the sun — and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy.”