Friendship

The Wikipedia entry on Thirukkural, a Tamil literary masterpiece from nearly two thousand years ago, also features a few of its famous couplets. One of them defines friendship:

As swiftly as the hand moves to seize a slipping garment,
Friendship acts to assuage a friend's distress.

Günter Grass is lucky to have a true friend in John Irving, whose review of Grass's Peeling the Onion is an absolute must-read.