It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. Henri Nouwenįriendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship. You can’t have too many friends because then you’re just not really friends. Anonymousįriendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody.

Read if you: think there should be more love songs about friendship.“Friendship is like a rainbow between two hearts.” – Anonymousįriendship isn’t about who you’ve known the longest, it’s about who walked in to your life, said ‘I’m here for you’ and PROVED it. It is a call to value your friendships in all of their complexity. And that the most important part of a Big Friendship is making the decision to invest in one another again and again.Īn inspiring and entertaining testament to the power of society’s most underappreciated relationship, Big Friendship will invite you to think about how your own bonds are formed, challenged, and preserved. Through interviews with friends and experts, they have come to understand that their struggles are not unique. They have weathered life-threatening health scares, getting fired from their dream jobs, and one unfortunate Thanksgiving dinner eaten in a car in a parking lot in Rancho Cucamonga. And they should know: the two have had moments of charmed bliss and deep frustration, of profound connection and gut-wrenching alienation. In this book, they bring that energy to their own friendship-its joys and its pitfalls.Īminatou and Ann define Big Friendship as a strong, significant bond that transcends life phases, geographical locations, and emotional shifts. As the hosts of the hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend, they’ve become known for frank and intimate conversations. Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their equally messy and life-affirming Big Friendship in this honest and hilarious book that chronicles their first decade in one another’s lives. Anyone will tell you that! But for all the rosy sentiments surrounding friendship, most people don’t talk much about what it really takes to stay close for the long haul. A close friendship is one of the most influential and important relationships a human life can contain.

The big friendship