The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words.

I think women are really good at making friends and not good at networking. Men are good at networking and not necessarily making friends. That’s a gross generalization, but I think it holds in many ways.

What’s really hard is that you could care a lot for someone and not want to live with him anymore.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.

Amour is the one human activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, if ever so slightly, over misery and pain.

I don’t feel that I’m explaining the world or teaching people anything. And I’m not trying to be a mirror, showing them what’s really going on the world. All I’m trying to do is think of stuff that’s funny, just like when I’m kidding around with my friends.

I can’t relate to lazy people. We don’t speak the same language. I don’t understand you. I don’t want to understand you.

You can’t be in love with a Google search.

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.

My father was a mean, controlling and manipulative person for most of his life. He was unpredictable and unstable.

People think, because we’re young, we aren’t complex, but that’s not true. We deal with life and love and broken hearts in the same way a woman a few years older might.

I’m a girls‘ girl. I have guy friends, but the problem with having guy friends is, like, I always get linked to them, and they’ll end up in a slideshow of people I’ve apparently dated on the Internet.

I’ve never been a boyfriend kind of girl.

My mother told me, ‚Son, nobody else but God knows.‘ And that’s what I’m about – reaching out to the people, crying with them, giving them hope. Visiting the hospital, visiting the kids with cancer, visiting the adults, and stuff like that. That’s what I do.

I want to thank God, obviously for the health, for the talent He’s given me, for my family who supports me, for the things that basketball’s taught me on and off the court. For the people that I’ve been able to meet through the game of basketball.

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

I’m a human being and I fall in love and sometimes I don’t have control of every situation.

I’m blessed to have such a tight-knit family that we can talk about anything. Whether we talk frequently or not, since we’re on separate ends of the country, there are a lot of moving parts, and we always stay tight and find that center ground that keeps us together.

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

In the course of a marriage, one accommodates the other.

A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.

Then, when I’m in these relationships with people who are also creative, or creative in their own way, what happens is the attraction is initially there and it’s all unicorns and rainbows. And then they hate me.

I’ve told Billy if I ever caught him cheating, I wouldn’t kill him because I love his children and they need a dad. But I would beat him up. I know where all of his sports injuries are.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

I really thought I was on the way out. My husband Blake saved my life. Often I don’t know what I do, then the next day the memory returns. And then I am engulfed in shame.

I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me ‚understand‘ something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country.

I never smoked. I never drank and I never took drugs. The funny thing is, nothing is more boring, people like this. For me, it’s OK. But most of my friends, at least they smoke and drink.

When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

Patience is key for getting over a breakup. That, and trailing off your interaction after the breakup.

Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.

If you’re talking to a man who wouldn’t fight with you under any circumstances whatsoever, then you’re talking to someone for whom you have absolutely no respect.

Doing Saturday Night Live definitely affects my relationship with my girlfriend and with my family, because you feel so much pressure to do well that night. But I think everyone’s grown to accept that and so they give me my space at the show.

It pays to know the enemy – not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.

Sometimes I’ve been to a party where no one spoke to me for a whole evening. The men, frightened by their wives or sweeties, would give me a wide berth. And the ladies would gang up in a corner to discuss my dangerous character.

I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?

When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, ‚Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.‘

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.

There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.

Life is relationship, living is relationship. We cannot live if you and I have built a wall around ourselves and just peep over that wall occasionally. Unconsciously, deeply, under the wall, we are related.

I like some animals more than some people, some people more than some animals.

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.

There are two kinds of people in this world. ‚I‘ people and ‚we‘ people. I’ve always tried to be a ‚we‘ person.

If I’m gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That’s how it works.

Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.

My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine.

Part of our tradition as black women is that we are universalists. Black children, yellow children, red children, brown children, that is the black woman’s normal, day-to-day relationship. In my family alone, we are about four different colors.

Our affections as well as our bodies are in perpetual flux.

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

True friends stab you in the front.

My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people’s kids than I did my own.

I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

Love is the one wild card.

What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.

I have the people behind me and the people are my strength.

I have rules for a lot of areas of my life. Love is not going to be one of them.