If it’s very painful for you to criticize your friends — you’re safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that’s the time to hold your tongue. – Alice Duer Miller

The function of a friend is not to have a function. – Detlef Cordes, detlefcordes.org

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

Friendship without self-interest is one of the rare and beautiful things of life. – James F. Byrnes