I'm not sure if the title is misleading, or if this author's philosophy is that all people we care about are "lovers" but not necessarily "sexual lovers". This books is about friendship, not about relationships, but I still feel like there is a lot of great information and metaphors in this book. I continue to be impressed by how powerful her words are while being so simply written and quick to read.
"For my friends whom I need not name as they know who they are and what they mean to me."
"Love is short, forgetting's long, and understanding takes longer still."
"Independence carried to the furthest extreme is just loneliness and death, nothing more than another defense, and there is no growth in it, only a safe harbour for a while."
"We are a society of winners where almost everybody feels himself a loser, where but i clothes and size of genitalia as well as make of car tell us who we are. We are youth cult where everyone is made to feel old, a live cult where far too many feel unloved. And because we set up life so it hurts, most of us hurt a lot."
"Perhaps it's because we are all so desperate for love that we believe if ever it comes to us we will be happy evermore, and when it comes along we pay with the self we had for the love we want."
"If you are you, and we are us, then who is it that's I?"
"Marriage has done terrible things to friendship in the name of love."
"The search for the perfect other is always search for what we lack. And the reason that we never find them is because the search goes on as long as we feel inadequate ourselves."
"We all have defenses we use more than wr need, and for everything they protect us from they cost us something more. Defenses come in many forms, many more than I can name, and while some of them are more primitive than others, they all keep the world away from us just the same."
"As the story began to unfold it became clear that the man who he thought was championing his cause was really the problem and that without him it wouldn't exist. The young man was up for promotion, which meant he would pass out of the older man's control, so the older man invented a problem that only he could solve. He told the young man how much opposition there was to his appointment, how many people there were who didn't want him around. And then when the young man was appointed, the older man took a lot of bows for managing the impossible. And the young man felt grateful as well as dependent, so the older professor didn't have to worry about losing his control over him for a while."
"Getting control over others has a lot to do with making them feel weak. You can make them feel indebted or make them feel inadequate in yet some other way."
"Many a person who kept another from growing up and away then found they had to carry that person for the rest of their days."
"We often fear being rejected so very much that we reject ourselves first before anyone else has the chance."
"Some people don't have to wait for others to accept them but accept themselves first, while others - no matter how much love they get - stand begging forever at a door they themselves have closed."
"If you must seek approval, choose the right audience to seek it from, and if you don't like what you hear get another opinion, get two or three. And when someone wants you to be what you aren't or refuses you permission to be who you are, try to understand that is their problem, really, and you don't have to make it yours. And don't let anyone tell you you have to be perfect to be loved, because that simply isn't true. If the people in your life only love you if you put on a false front, they don't love you at all, so you haven't much to lose."
"Some people let others define them because they need their approval so much they are willing to let them call the shots, and others do it because they are so lacking in self-worth they are afraid that if anyone found out who they really were they would be rejected out of hand. But if being honest means that occasionally you give yourself away by acknowledging limitations in yourself that someone might have missed before, well, that's only as bad as you consider it to be."
"There is something terrifying about learning that someone you'd always felt to be much more courageous than yourself has given up the fight."
"It is much easier to be courageous when people are applauding you than when you are in defeat. And many of us who pass as brave when a crowd is all waving hats would crumble if they turned on us and started throwing rocks."
"A girl I know has been married since she was very young to a man she has loved since she was a child, and she has a life that in almost every way is story-book perfect and unblemished by hurt of any kind. But she isn't half as strong within herself as other friends of mine who have had some bad days mixed in with the good. And although I have heard others say they envy her and that they wish their lives had been so blessed, the fact is that she is very insecure at times, and as the years go by she worries more and more about how she would survive if her husband wasn't by her side."
"A lot of people get confused when they listen to a friend about what the purpose of that listening is, and feel they should do something to help out. So they either take their friend's life away from them or, trying so hard to pull them from the hole they're in, fall inside themselves."
"There seem to be three main streams to life - the emotional, the sensual, and the rational - and all of us are made up of all these three, although in differing amounts. ... I don't know how we become lopsided or what causes one skein in the braid to become thicker than the rest - whether we back away from what we are afraid of, or go with the part of us that functions best. I only know that most people grow more in one way than in others, and the side of them which is the most developed, determines their life. And because this is the case, the side of them which is the most developed also dictates the kind of friend they make."
"It takes a long time to understand that there is no relationship which is all-supporting, only those which help you grow stronger in yourself. So a lot of people never realize how important it is to have real friends or how crucial they can be even if you have a mate."
"I wish that men understood better the value of friendship as women are coming to know it now, because too often they still see other people as things to be conquered or held off. Men have allies and they have enemies, but only a few of them really have friends."
"We are an achievement-oriented society, so a lot of men put their energy into getting ahead and being a success, postponing closeness with other human beings as if it were a luxury they couldn't afford just yet, and they complain a lot about all the work there is to do as if the priorities were set by someone else. And many of them think of fulfillment as something to be found in money, wealth, success, and applause and don't learn until it's too late that the only wealth that really counts is having loving friends."
"I don't think you could have done me much more harm if you had hated me. How odd that you should think of that as love."
"You don't get from friends what you give to them, you get what they have to give."
"You will save yourself a lot of grief if you keep in mind that you don't have you for a friend, however much you might wish you did. You have that person out there instead. Perhaps you will take chicken soup to a friend who is sick, and they will forget your birthday just the same. Or maybe you will have them to your parties and they will give none to which you might be asked. But maybe they will hand you a piece of truth one day, in a sentence tossed off with a sidelong glance, and if it's something you couldn't have found inside yourself, you will have been repaid in full."
"Life doesn't consist of total people. It consists of moments, moments which are gifts that you can pick up and hang like pearls around your neck, but no one will hand them to you. You have to supply the string in order to hug them to yourself."
"We are all essentially alone, and sometimes the people whom you love can make it through, and sometimes they can't get to you no matter how much they try."
"The people in one's life are like the pillars on one's porch you see life through. And sometimes they hold you up, and sometimes they lean on you, and sometimes it is just enough to know they're standing by."
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