'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.
