30 Quotes That Capture The Life-Changing Magic of Having a Best Friend (2024)

RD.COM Relationships Friendships

Updated: Jun. 28, 2024

These sweet friendship quotes perfectly sum up the special bond you have with your bestie

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Celebrate your besties with friendship quotes

It’s impossible to fully sum up what your best friends mean to you, but perfectly worded friendship quotes might be as close as you can get in a couple of sentences. Your friends have been there for you through the hard times and the good times, supported you through family drama and made you laugh until you cried, not to mention all the moments in between. Who else could have coached you through your breakups, told you when that halter top didn’t really work for you (but it was the cut—you’re perfect!) and cried proud tears of joy to rival your mom’s when you reached your life goals? Only your besties!

When it comes to romance, love quotes can put your butterflies into words, and family quotes can remind you why your loved ones are awesome (and also challenging sometimes). But best friend quotes really sum up all the feelings for an unconditional love that can last a lifetime. Whether you’re attached at the hip, live on opposite sides of the country, don’t see each other as often as you would like to or talk every single day, there’s a friendship quote on this list for everyone. After all, true best friends can always just pick up right where they left off.

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Best friendship quotes

1. “Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life—and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next.” —Dean Koontz

2. “I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.” —Robert Brault

3. “There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.” —Linda Grayson

4. “Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.” —Oscar Wilde

5. “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.” —A.A. Milne

6. “Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.” —Richard Bach

7. “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” —Oprah Winfrey

8. “How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live ’em. How much love inside a friend depends how much you give ’em.” —Shel Silverstein

9. “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” — Dr. Seuss

10. “Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” —Henry David Thoreau

11. “I would rather walk with a friend in the dark than alone in the light.” —Helen Keller

12. “Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.” —Oscar Wilde

13. “Don’t walk in behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” —Albert Camus

14. “It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.” —J.K. Rowling

15. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature.” —Jane Austen

16. “‘Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.” —Charles Lamb

17. “I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy.” —Charles R. Swindoll

18. “Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves.” —Vincent van Gogh

19. “Ooh you’re the best friend that I ever had / I’ve been with you such a long time / you’re my sunshine / and I want you to know that my feelings are true / I really love you / Oh you’re my best friend.” —Queen, “You’re My Best Friend”

20. “Some people arrive and make such a beautiful impact on your life, you can barely remember what life was like without them.” —Anna Taylor

21. “If you have two friends in your lifetime, you’re lucky. If you have one good friend, you’re more than lucky.” —S.E. Hinton

Share these funny friendship quotes with your bestie to get them giggling.

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Quotes about the beginning of friendship

22. “Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.” —Tennessee Williams

23. “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What, you too? I thought I was the only one!'” —C.S. Lewis

24. “Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.” —Socrates

25. “Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you; spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” —Amy Poehler

26. “The great thing about new friends is that they bring new energy into your soul.” —Shanna Rodriguez

Does your friend need some motivation? Share these inspirational quotes to lift their spirits.

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Quotes about the meaning of friendship

27. “Good friends help you find important things when you have lost them … your smile, your hope and your courage.” —Doe Zantamata

28. “A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.” —Unknown

29. “A sweet friendship refreshes the soul.” —Proverbs 27:9

30. “A good friend is like a four-leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.” —Irish proverb

31. “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” —Woodrow Wilson

32. “The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.” —Samuel Johnson

33. “A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad.” —Arnold H. Glasgow

34. “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” —Anaïs Nin

35. “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” —Walter Winchell

36. “Friends are medicine for a wounded heart, and vitamins for a hopeful soul.” —Steve Maraboli

37. “Friends make you smile—best friends make you giggle till you pee your pants.” —Terri Guillemets

38. “A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out.” —Grace Pulpit

39. “Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.” —Ed Cunningham

40. “Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them, but you know they’re always there.” —Unknown

41. “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” —Marcel Proust

42. “Friendship makes a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession; friendship is never anything but sharing.” —Elie Wiesel

43. “Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” —Muhammad Ali

44. “A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.” —William Shakespeare

45. “A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself—and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to—letting a person be what he really is.” —Jim Morrison

Like these meaningful friendship quotes, these kindness quotes will spread joy and love to your best pals.

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Quotes about childhood friendships

46. “There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.” —Sylvia Plath

47. “There’s not a word yet, for old friends who’ve just met.” —Jim Henson

48. “It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

49. “You don’t have to have anything in common with people you’ve known since you were five. With old friends, you’ve got your whole life in common.” —Lyle Lovett

50. “What I realize now in hindsight is that there is a natural ebb and flow to friendships. There are times you think there’s nothing left between you, that you’ve hit the bottom, but the special ones survive, find ways of restoring themselves.” —Colette McBeth

51. “I still have friends from primary school. And my two best girlfriends are from secondary school. I don’t have to explain anything to them. I don’t have to apologize for anything. They know. There’s no judgment in any way.” —Emma Watson

52. “Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled.” —Ally Condie

After reading through these quotes about friendship, check out these best friend captions for Instagramthe next time you post with your bestie.

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Quotes about true friendship

53. “Only a true friend would be that truly honest.” —Shrek

54. “True friendship is never serene.” —Marquise de Sevigne

55. “Hold a true friend with both your hands.” —Nigerian proverb

56. “A good friend will help you move, but a true friend will help you move a body.” —Steven J. Daniels

57. “True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.” —David Tyson

58. “If you have one true friend, you have more than your share.” —Thomas Fuller

59. “A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.” —Arnold H. Glasgow

60. “True friends are always together in spirit.” —L.M. Montgomery

61. “One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.” —Lucius Annaeus Seneca

62. “Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

63. “If you wanna find out who’s a true friend, screw up or go through a challenging time … then see who sticks around.” —Karen Salmonsohn

64. “A true friend is someone who will always love you—the imperfect, the confused, the wrong you—because that is what people are supposed to do.” —R.J.L.

65. “True friends are like diamonds—bright, beautiful, valuable and always in style.” —Nicole Richie

66. “The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” —Elizabeth Foley

True friends give each other hope. You can share these hope quotes with friends to help them overcome their toughest moments.

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Short friendship quotes

67. “Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit.” —Aristotle

68. “It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” —Marlene Dietrich

69. “No friendship is an accident.” —O. Henry

70. “Friends should be like books: few, but hand-selected.” —C.J. Langenhoven

71. “A friendship that can be ended didn’t ever start.” —Mellin De Saint-Gelais

72. “Friends are the siblings God never gave us.” —Mencius

73. “Friendship’s the wine of life.” —Edward Young

74. “You’ve got a friend in me.” —Toy Story

75. “A friend to all is a friend to none.” —Aristotle

76. “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

77. “Some people go to priests. Others go to poetry. I go to my friends.” —Virginia Woolfe

78. “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12.” —Stephen King

79. “I get by with a little help from my friends.” —The Beatles

80. “Friends are relatives you make for yourself.” —Eustache Deschamps

81. “Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.” —Sicilian proverb

82. “What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” —Aristotle

83. “In my friend, I find a second self.” —Isabel Norton

84. “Life is an ugly, awful place to not have a best friend.” —Sarah Dessen

85. “My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.” —Henry Ford

86. “Are we not like two volumes of one book?” —Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

87. “Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship.” —Dorothy Parker

88. “‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.'” —E.B. White

89. “‘We’ll be friends forever, won’t we, Pooh?’ asked Piglet. ‘Even longer,’ Pooh answered.” —A.A. Milne

90. “Things are never quite as scary when you have a best friend.” —Bill Watterson

Did these friendship quotes tug at your heart? If so, check out these poems about friendshipthat are sweet, relatable and heartfelt.

Additional reporting by Lindsay Tigar.

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Originally Published: June 15, 2021