The West's post-Holocaust pledge that genocide would never again be tolerated proved to be hollow, and for all the fine sentiments inspired by the memory of Auschwitz, the problem remains that denouncing evil is a far cry from doing good.

Don't tell a lie to be loved, speak the truth to be hated.

Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn; And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.

Talk without the support of action means nothing.

If you had a friend you refused to talk to, eventually you couldn't keep calling that person a friend anymore.

The American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a man, and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there's no reliable small talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal.