A well-made Martini or Gibson, correctly chilled and nicely served, has been more often my true friend than any two-legged creature.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the companionship and comfort provided by a well-made drink over human relationships.
In this quote, M. F. K. Fisher expresses a sentiment that a perfectly crafted Martini or Gibson cocktail offers a sense of companionship and solace that can surpass the complexities of human relationships. It illustrates how, in moments of solitude or reflection, the joy derived from a simple yet meticulously prepared drink can feel more genuine and fulfilling than interactions with people.
In practice
This quote could be used during a toast at a cocktail party to highlight the importance of good company, even if it's just a drink.
I sat in the gradually chilling room, thinking of my whole past the way a drowning man is supposed to, and it seemed part of the present, part of the gray cold and the beggar woman without a face and the moulting birds frozen to their own filth in the Orangerie. I know now I was in the throes of some small glandular crisis, a sublimated bilious attack, a flick from the whip of melancholia, but then it was terrifying...nameless...
It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it… and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one.
In spite of all the talk and study about our next years, all the silent ponderings about what lies within them...it seems plain to us that many things are wrong in the present ones that can be, must be, changed. Our texture of belief has great holes in it. Our pattern lacks pieces.
Dining partners, regardless of gender, social standing, or the years they've lived, should be chosen for their ability to eat - and drink! - with the right mixture of abandon and restraint. They should enjoy food, and look upon its preparation and its degustation as one of the human arts.
There's a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk.
...for me there is too little of life to spend most of it forcing myself into detachment from it.
The better part of one's life consists of his friendships.
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
All for one and one for all, united we stand divided we fall.
There is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.
A blessed thing it is to have a friend; one human soul whom we can trust utterly; who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults; who will speak the honest truth to us, while the world flatters us to our face, and laughs at us behind our back; who will give us counsel and reproof in a day of prosperity and self-conceit; but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in days of difficulty and sorrow, when the world leaves us alone to fight our own battle as we can.
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.
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