“I went to see [George] Santayana daily. The talk ranged from autobiography, philosophical theories on world politics, Aristotle’s theory of sensation, Spanish quotations, ideas on Boston, lots of very catty and very good gossip and above all Boston and religion. The meetings were delightful for me and perfect, except that he is deaf and couldn’t hear a word—shouted or whispered—that I said.”

Robert Lowell

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“I want to be your south wind—bringing good and fruitful things only.”

Anaïs Nin

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“It’s good having friends who farm. It’s good to know the names of their cows and the calves that come in the spring. It’s fun to see the new ones when I head up to get eggs from my neighbor. It’s good knowing they would be here in a minute for us anytime day or night, and it’s good knowing they can count on us the same way. We have a 1958 Ford tractor that I love. We have silos and a barn that has been here 100 years. The original house burned down years before we got here. Our house is a little tract house—nothing much at all. But we put on a tin roof and a covered porch and built a masonry bread oven. We have a big garden—man, I’m starting to cry here. It’s not the prettiest farm at all, but it’s the best place I’ve ever lived in my life.”

Lynda Barry

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“Dearest Eudora, what there is to say we have said, in one way or another.”

William Maxwell

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“Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sign that you will recognize it.”

Simone Weil

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“Please never stop writing me letters—they always manage to make me feel like my higher self…”

Elizabeth Bishop

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“We were not children together but we are now.”

Dean Young

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“Into the little port you cannot sail unwelcome at any hour of day or night.”

Emily Dickinson

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“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”

E. B. White

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“I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“The friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the other’s dignity to the point of not wanting anything from him.”

Cyril Connolly

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“Send me a little note, old pal. Remember you occupy one of the top compartments of my heart.”

Saul Bellow

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“True friends. Hardest thing to find, but you never look for them—they find you; you just grow into each other.”

Keith Richards

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“Did it not see me through all my times of trouble and despair?”

Henry Miller

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“People with yuan fen are destined to like one another;
Friendship develops even if a thousand miles apart.
But should yuan fen be absent between two individuals,
They will remain strangers despite sitting face-to-face.”

Adeline Yen Mah

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