FRIENDSHIP PERFECTIONISM

'We friendship fans have an obvious vice, which is to set the bar too high, unwittingly laying a trap for those who are much more casual about what friendship involves. Falling out is much my fault as theirs, because those poor friends flunked an exam they didn't even know they were sitting.'

Andrew O'Hagan, On Friendship, p.56.

DEATH & FRIENDSHIP

'Death doesn't really end a friendship, it sanctifies it. It makes a closeness permanent. The fact that you won't see the friend again is a bitter loss, but at another level their vital presence may be guaranteed, a friendship that is now safe from the vagaries of human nature and changeable weather. Death is a disaster but also a fixity, I suppose, which traps in aspic every brilliant relationship it touches. There will be no more to add, just a perpetual reflection on the living value of what has been.'

Andrew O'Hagan, On Friendship, p.43.

FRIENDSHIP VS. ROMANCE

'Ironically a friend is someone whom you repay for not wanting to possess you, and it may count among the nuances of love that we cannot extend that same consideration to those we fancy.'

Andrew O'Hagan, On Friendship, p.12.