Their combined efforts mean kingdom work is multiplied. Far from being shamed in the city gates, her husband is regarded with greater esteem because he has such a wife. And he is first to sing her praises.

The book of Ruth proves the point. "It is not good for the man to be alone" (Gen 2:18). The point being that men actually need their sisters to step up and answer God's call on their lives.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers.

We're all in this together ... alone.

Leaders must draw the best out of people, and friendship does that far better than prolonged argument or mere logic.

All that I want now is to live out my life in ease in a familiar world, to die in my own bed and be followed to the grave by old friends.

We tiptoed around each other like heartbreaking new friends.

New York gets god awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in the streets.

As we rode in the bus in the weird phosphorescent void of the Lincoln Tunnel we leaned on each other with fingers waving and yelled and talked excitedly, and I was beginning to get the bug like Dean.

And so we picked up our bags, he the trunk with his one good arm and I the rest, and staggered up to the cable-car stop; in a moment rolled down the hill with our legs dangling to the sidewalk from the jiggling shelf, two broken-down heroes of the Western night.