Often the magical elements in my books are standing in for elements of the real world, the small and magical-in-their-own-right sorts of things that we take for granted and no longer pay attention to, like the bonds of friendship that entwine our own lives with those of other people and places.

The film itself involves a New York City radio storyteller, Gabriel Noone, who strikes up a friendship with one of his fans, an abused 14-year-old teenager who is suffering from AIDS, who does not have much longer to live.

I didn't have any Indigenous friends until I was in my 30s, and I'll always remember and be inspired by the remarkable friendship I had with Connie Bush, an outstanding Indigenous leader from Groot Eylandt on who was on the National Women's Advisory Council with me.

Mary Lincoln provided Elizabeth Keckley with opportunities for social and economic advancement she probably had never imagined during her years as a slave, while Elizabeth offered Mary the loyal, steadfast friendship she craved but had always found so elusive.

I think I deal with my anger toward my relationship or about my relationship or about my friendships or my family - I deal with it on stage in a passive-aggressive way, and that can be very harmful if it gets back to them, which it always does.

“When it comes to abiogenesis; it almost seems certain to me that 'self is the origin of itself' and that 'all diversity is self-desired, self-conceived and self-perceived for the purpose of companionship, friendship, love'. As to science? Truth is strikingly simple. Science is the study of Self. Self studies itself.”

The realization that friendship is greater than love doesn't come when you have real and honest friends around. You realize it when someone whom you have always thought of as a friend, back stabs you. When a friend breaks your trust it hurts more than a lover abandoning you and then you realize friendship is indeed greater than love... While you are still figuring out the depth of your emotional connectivity, the ones who say they would never leave you, have already left. Unfaithful love does breaks heart but an unworthy friend bruises your soul.

So Sonia was not my only or even my first best friend. She was the last. It wasn t that I hadn t made friends since just that I thought myself past the age of that particular kind of friendship. Adult friendship doesn t grant you an exclusive isn t meant to be ranked above romance and family. I couldn t imagine ever living that moment again when you say with a shy and hopeful pride You re my best friend. The other person says it back and there you have chosen each other out of everyone else in the world.

But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends "You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing. At this feast it is He who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, preside. Let us not reckon without our Host.

“What is Friendship when complete?'Tis to share all joy and grief; 'Tis to lend all due relief From the tongue, the heart, the hand; 'Tis to mortgage house and land; For a friend be sold a slave; 'Tis to die upon a grave, If a friend therein do lie.”