Whatever will happen will happen, but choose your companions with care. Choose them because you like to look at them and you like the sound of their voices, and they have profound secrets in them that you wish to know. In other words, choose them because you love them. Otherwise you will not be able to bear their company for very long.
Interpretation
Choose your friends wisely, as their presence greatly affects your happiness and well-being.
This quote emphasizes the importance of selecting companions who resonate with you on a deeper level, suggesting that meaningful relationships enrich our lives. It highlights that superficial connections may lead to dissatisfaction, while bonds formed through love and mutual respect foster enduring joy.
In practice
In a speech about the value of friendship, one might quote Anne Rice to highlight the importance of choosing friends wisely.
From my stone pillow I have dreamed dreams of the mortal world above. I have heard its voices, its new music, as lullabies as I lie in my grave. I have envisioned its fantastical discoveries. I have known its courage in the timeless sanctum of my thoughts. And though it shuts me out with its dazzling forms, I long for one with the strength to roam it fearlessly, to ride the Devil's Road through its heart.
We all suffer under a curse, the curse that we know more than we can endure, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing we can do about the force and the lure of this knowledge.
And so this young one, this young one whom I had so loved, I had to forsake, no matter how broken my heart, no matter how lonely my soul, no matter how bruised my intellect and spirit.
Dear God, help me. Do not forget me on this tiny cinder lost in a galaxy that is lost–a heart no bigger than a speck of dust beating, beating against death, against meaninglessness, against guilt, against sorrow.
The vampires have always been metaphors for me. They've always been vehicles through which I can express things I have felt very, very deeply.
In the very depths of Hell, do not demons love one another?
I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That's living.
Goodbye, my friend, goodbye. My dear, you are in my heart. Predestined separation promises a future meeting.
You think I'm a fool?" demanded Harry. "No, I think you're like James," said Lupin, "who would have regarded it as the height of dishonor to mistrust his friends.
Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.
I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.
Admonish your friends privately, but praise them openly.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.