Friendship Isn't a Big Thing, It's a Million Little Things. Becca Anderson

the needs of all my varying moods.

      —Esther M. Clark

      There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one’s self, the very meaning of one’s soul.

      —Edith Wharton

      One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about. We never needed best friend gear because I guess with real friends you don’t have to make it official. It just is.

      —Mindy Kaling

      Your best friend can send your spirits soaring one moment and crush you with a word or gesture the next.

      —Colette McBeth

      Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.

      —Sarah Dessen

      The biggest ingredient in a best friend is someone whose actions you respect and who you can truly be yourself around.

      —Renee Olstead

      When you meet your best friend in real life, or you meet your soulmate, you just know it, and you feel it.

      —Lili Reinhart

      The idea of losing your best friend, basically, is the worst thing in world.

      —Phoebe Waller-Bridge

      There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends.

      —Jane Austen

      A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free.

      —Anne Morrow Lindbergh

      As we sail through life towards death, bound unto the same port—heaven,—Friend, what years could us divide?

      —Dinah Craik

      A friend is someone who reaches for your hand but touches your heart.

      —Kathleen Frove

      A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.

      —Jennifer Aniston

      It’s not that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but it’s your best friends who are your diamonds.

      —Gina Barreca

      When you feel someone else’s pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them.

      —Ann Brashares

      Chapter Two

Companions through Thick and Thin

      Husbands and boyfriends are nice accessories, but girlfriends are the essential must-haves of life. It’s our gal pals who get us through both good times and bad. The course of my life has been charted over coffee with the girls, new plans made over a margarita (or two), and many a late-night phone call dedicated to the topic of love. Who else do we turn to for the best advice, gossip, and fashion tips? There are many different aspects of friendship—from sharing secrets to sharing tears, and from being each other’s cheerleaders to comforting one another with hugs and good advice. I once had such a bad breakup that my friend Leslie came over, scooped me up, and installed me in her spare bedroom, where I curled up into a fetal position for days. I was in such bad shape that I couldn’t even speak, but she was there for me and surrounded me with a secure blanket of unconditional love and understanding. No judgment; just support. After a few days, I crawled out of my cocoon. Not exactly a butterfly, but I was wiser, and I learned something far more important than any lesson about the travails of romance. I learned that the bonds of true friendship are stronger than anything. For better or worse, your friends are there for you when you need them.

      Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

      —Helen Keller

      Time spent with friends is healing because we don’t perceive it as time. We just are.

      —Grace Morton

      Trouble is like a sieve through which we sift our acquaintances. Those too big to pass through are our friends.

      —Arlene Francis

      Life’s truest happiness is found in friendships we make along the way.

      —Lauren Ruiz

      Loneliness is the most terrible poverty.

      —Mother Teresa

      Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.

      —Virginia Woolf

      A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.

      —Unknown

      The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away.

      —Barbara Kingsolver

      Parents start you off on life, but friends get you through it.

      —Dee Chou

      A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

      —Donna Roberts

      I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope I can ask you to share my future pluses.