Long-time friendship provides glorious blessings that young people, no matter how precocious they are, can ever attain. I love reminding my friends of things they said to me, seeing their incredulity (when they can’t remember) or their widening eyes (when they can). Once, when I was impoverished and truly heartbroken, I was crashing at a dear friend’s place in Manhattan. One afternoon we were watching the Buffalo Bills on TV and eating Chinese food and whooping and yelling. He saw me smile and said, “Yours is the best possible miserable situation.” I have used that phrase hundreds of times over the decades.

Yesterday a friend and I were talking about times you have to cut things off with a loved one. He reminded me of what I had told him once: “The only decision you have to make now is whether to close the gate softly or to slam it shut.”

That was another good one.