“I have learned much about human relations through long experience. I give it to you in a nutshell: if you are in trouble, go for help and understanding to a person who is also in trouble! If you lose a dear one, if you are afflicted by an incurable disease, or even by a vulgar toothache, you will find real sympathy and understanding only in people with similar pains and miseries. Your best friends, in such cases, usually perform the ritual gestures, they send condolences, they visit you at hospitals with flowers, they recommend to you the best dentists, but their hearts are not involved—they live in another world, in a world where people haven’t lost anybody, aren’t ill, and have no toothache!”
Stanislav Rembielinski (quoted in Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years)