Confidants Quotes

“Some of our friends are our friends only because we used to be friends.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism

“Her quiet and kind listening had made it possible to speak his thoughts aloud, and sometimes it was only when he spoke his thoughts that he knew he had them. It was surprising how a man’s mind might remain half in shadow until the right confidant appeared, and Maud had been that confidant.”
― Diane Setterfield, Once Upon a River

“We seldom look up to the person; we usually look up to their persona.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“We ought to readily share our successes with those with whom we readily share our problems.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Good friends are like a winning lottery ticket, wonderful to have but painful to lose.”
― Kevin Ansbro, In the Shadow of Time

“Some confidants have wings and a beak, or four legs and a tail.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, On Friendship: A Satirical Essay

“We often want to hear, not what is true, but what we want to hear.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, On Friendship: A Satirical Essay

“I’ve come to believe that wise people don’t tell us what to do; they start by witnessing our story. They take the anecdotes, rationalizations, and episodes we tell, and see us in a noble struggle. They see the way we’re navigating the dialectics of life—intimacy versus independence, control versus uncertainty— and understand that our current self is just where we are right now, part of a long continuum of growth.

The really good confidants—the people we go to when we are troubled—are more like coaches than philosopher-kings. They take in your story, accept it, but push you to clarify what it is you really want, or to name the baggage you left out of your clean tale. They ask you to probe into what is really bothering you, to search for the deeper problem underneath the convenient surface problem you’ve come to them for help about. Wise people don’t tell you what to do; they help you process your own thoughts and emotions. They enter with you into your process of meaning-making and then help you expand it, push it along. All choice involves loss: If you take this job, you don’t take that one. Much of life involves reconciling opposites: I want to be attached, but I also want to be free. Wise people create a safe space where you can navigate the ambiguities and contradictions we all wrestle with. They prod and lure you along until your own obvious solution emerges into view.

Their essential gift is receptivity, the capacity to receive what you are sending. This is not a passive skill. The wise person is not just keeping her ears open. She is creating an atmosphere of hospitality, an atmosphere in which people are encouraged to set aside their fear of showing weakness, their fear of confronting themselves. She is creating an atmosphere in which people swap stories, trade confidences. In this atmosphere people are free to be themselves, encouraged to be honest with themselves.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen