11 Lessons About Lasting Friendship

Inspiring Tips from "The Girls From Ames"

Discover the keys to enduring relationships  and being a best friend, forever.

By Jeffrey Zaslow

There's an old Spanish proverb: Tell me who you're with, and Ill tell you who you are.

I now see the great power in that statement, having immersed myself in the lives of 10 women who grew up together in Ames, Iowa. My book about them, The Girls from Ames, traces their 40-year friendship.

Now in their mid-40s, the Ames girls have a lifetime of memories in common, some evocative of their generation, and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend. Here are 11 lessons on friendship that can be learned by these relationships that have spanned four decades.

Read the first friendship lesson.

Jeffrey Zaslow is a Wall Street Journal columnist and bestselling author of The Girls From Ames. He is also coauthor, with Randy Pausch, of The Last Lecture and of  Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters with Chesley B. Sullenberger.