"people i consider for friends have a quality that i can only call seriousness, adding that this seriousness does not preclude great good humor, whimsy, even clownishness. seriousness has, though, to do with recognizing, if rarely enunciating, that the human drama is about trying to determine what is and is not significant in a finite life. seriousness has to do with attempting to make sense of one's experiences, not least one's sufferings and setbacks. seriousness lends gravity to a man or woman, gravity that, if this not be a physical contradiction, does not weigh them down.

...

i mention this because i sometimes think i no longer have the makings of a best friend. i am, i think, a decent listener, but not much of a confessor. i have a natural sense of reticence, at least when it comes to spilling my own beans... i hold with the novelist cesare pavese that 'one stops being a child when on realizes that telling one's troubles does not make things better.'"
-joseph epstein, friendship: an expose-