Josh Billings Quotes

I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him.

I read the Odyssey because it was the story of a man who returned home after being absent for more than twenty years and was recognized only by his dog.

The return makes one love the farewell.

Yes, the meeting of dear friends atones for the regret of separation; and like it so much enhances affection, that after absence one wonders how one has been able to stay away from them so long.

The thing about leaving New York is that you can come back.

Gone for a while Hoping, always, to return If you will let me

People dreamed. People left. And they all came back.

Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence.

A friend of mine once sent me a post card with a picture of the entire planet Earth taken from space. On the back it said, 'Wish you were here.

The shadow of years was not as big on his small body. He knew I was away . But when people left they always came back.

Baby I'll never forget none of that. Girl I told you I was comin back.

When you get to be my age there are more and more people you have known that you miss. Brion [Gysin], Antony Balch, Ian Summerville are ones I think of right away I was quite close to.

More than anything I want to be able to go back to Cuba, to have a house to visit there, to know my roots. Then, at last, I could sing for my people.

It would be ten years before they saw each other again, and their meeting would be thick with birds.

I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you've been doing. It's a hundred years since we've met-it may be another hundred before we meet again.

It is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we beginto keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins.

Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence. Time and distance blur the edges; then suddenly the beloved has arrived, and it's noon with its merciless light, and every spot and pore and wrinkle and bristle stands clear.

Now Spring returns; but not to me returns.

In my experience, ghosts are made up only of the living, people you know are out there but are forever out of range

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.

How delightful it is to see a friend after a length of absence! How delightful to chide him for that length of absence to which we owe such delight.

When we look at a photograph of ourselves or of others, we are really looking at the return of the dead.

I've seen fire and I've seen rain I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend But I always thought that I'd see you again.