Silence can be breathing space and spawn release and wellness in a time of appalling inflation of words. But silence may be intolerably screaming, if it means absence of communication, deficiency in friendship and emotional deficit. (« A gap of silence”)

I want him to be with me because he likes being with me, not because he's forced to be with me or because he wants something from me. That's not how friendship should be." [Ellani]

One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.

I feel a horror for exaggerated love or friendship. It's just too well demonstrated to me that when the moment comes that one asks something, or has need of something, the responce is not worth a biscuit.

Friendship is love as much as any romance. And like any love, it’s difficult and treacherous and confusing. But in the moment when your knees touch, there’s nothing else you could ever want.

For now I sit on my final island of the present as my radius of memory shrinks; lost already are the islands of work, of old friendships...Other islands fade as I brood upon them.

Some of the most beautiful and rewarding relationships come from mutual respect that eventually burned into fervent passion. Don’t take for granted the friendship you are building at the moment, just appreciate it and cherish it for what it is.

Both men accepted that the nature of the request, its intimacy and self-conscious reflection on their friendship, had created, for the moment, an uncomfortable emotional proximity which was best dealt with by their parting without another word.

To love--to fall--is not a question. To touch--to kiss--to speak--those are questions. There is nothing worse than a ruined friendship. There is nothing better than a companion. Somewhere in between lies risk. Somewhere in between, lies.

Thirteen years of friendship had bonded us together more thoroughly than if we had been born of the same mother. Even at this late stage, I was unwilling to let him go.