Never judge something by whether it is popular or not. You don't have to follow trends. No one thought William Wilberforce was right at first.
We regard America and Europe as old friends. We keep old friends, but we make new friends in Japan, India, and China.
I've never been socially outgoing, but I suspect I've gotten more and more ambivalent about making new friends. I'm irritated by how-do-you-do chit-chat, but that's how new relationships usually begin.
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
When I read 'Absalom, Absalom!,' I remember being really excited about it and telling all my friends they had to read it, especially my writer friends.
Like everyone else, I read newspapers and 'New Scientist' and try to put my finger on the trends which we can just see emerging now that are accelerating and might take off.