What Life Has Taught Me About Friendship

When you consider that you can survive for a while without a lover or spouse, but it’s practically impossible to survive without a friend, it becomes easier to see how friendship is a bigger deal than romance. It’s not pleasant to be without romantic love in your life, but how much worse is it to be without a friend in the world?

I agree with CS Lewis: “After all—though our novels now ignore it—friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, ‘sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.’” Read more…

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Of Falling in Love, and Love Itself

I’ve loved this for so many years, and I’ve decided to share for those who may not have seen it before:

 

“When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.

Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!”

-Louis de Bernières