Basically, the only thing we need is a hand that rests on our own, that wishes it well, that sometimes guides us. – Hector Bianciotti, Sans La Misericorde du Christ
[I]f any one had asked what gifts she desired most, she would have answered with a look more pathetic than any shivering child had given her: “I want the sound of a loving voice; the touch of a friendly hand.” – Louisa May Alcott, “Seamstress,” Work: A Story of Experience, 1873
To cement a new friendship, especially between foreigners or persons of a different social world, a spark with which both were secretly charged must fly from person to person, and cut across the accidents of place and time. – Cornelia Otis Skinner