"In any society, fanatics who hate don't hate only me - they hate you, too. They hate everybody."

"We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else."

"Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone."

"I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them. Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly and language became an obstacle. It became clear that it would be necessary to invent a new language... I would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again. I would conjure up other verbs, other images, other silent cries. It still was not right. But what exactly was 'it? 'It was something elusive, darkly shrouded for fear of being usurped, profaned. All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless."

"This day I ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused."

"A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent."

"No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them."

"Not to transmit an experience is to betray it."

"No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions."

"Violence is not the answer. Terrorism is the most dangerous of answers."

"We marched. Gates opened and closed. We continued to march between the barbed wire. At every step, white signs with black skulls looked down on us. The inscription: WARNING! DANGER OF DEATH. What irony. Was there here a single place where one was NOT in danger of death?"

"A disciple came to the celebrated Master of the Good Name with a question. 'Rabbi, how are we to distinguish between a true master and a fake? And the master of the good name said, 'When you meet a person who poses as a master, ask him a question: whether he knows how to purify your thoughts. If he says that he knows, then he is a fake."

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.Never shall I forget that smoke.Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.Never."

"One day when we came to a stop, a worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The worker watched the spectacle with great interest... Years later, I witnessed a similar spectacle in Aden. Out ship's passengers amused themselves by throwing coins to the 'natives,' who dove to retrieve them. An elegant Parisian lady took great pleasure in this game. When I noticed two children desperately fighting in the water, one trying to strangle the other, I implored the lady, 'Please don't throw any more coins!' 'Why not?' said she. 'I like to give charity..."

"It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed."

"And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God's silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against Him. And I nibbled on my crust of bread. Deep inside me, I felt a great void opening."

"One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me."

"The world? The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria..."

"I don't know much about politics, and I don't want to know. That's why I rarely involve myself in politics."

"All my life, until today, I have been content to ask questions. All the while knowing that the real questions, those that concern the creator and his creation, have no answers. I'll go even farther and say that there is a level at which only the questions are eternal, the answers never are. And so, the patient that I am, more charitable, repeats: 'Since God is, He is to be found in the questions as well as in the answers."

"Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair."

"I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason."

"Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds."

"We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark."

"Indifference to me, is the epitome of all evil."

"Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing."

"Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking, loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning."

"The stars were only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes."

"For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."

"Sometimes I am asked if I know the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude HAS a response. What I do know is that there is response in responsibility. When we speak of this era of evil and darkness, so close and yet so distant, responsibility is the key word,The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future."

"Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems."

"Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself."

"We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children, between the ugliness of hate and the will to oppose it. Between inflicting suffering and humiliation on our fellow man and offering him the solidarity and hope he deserves. Or not."

"For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile."

"I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again."

"Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life."

"Historically, I come from Jewish history. I had the classic upbringing in the Yeshiva, learning, learning, and more learning."

"Religion is not man's relationship to God, it is man's relationship to man."

"I was very, very religious. And of course I wrote about it in 'Night.' I questioned God's silence. So I questioned. I don't have an answer for that. Does it mean that I stopped having faith? No. I have faith, but I question it."

"Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another."

"Three days after the liberation of Buchenwald, I became very ill; some sort of poisoning. I was transferred to a hospital and spent two weeks between life and death.One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me."

"Man comes closer to God through the questions he asks Him, he liked to say."

"Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future."

"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silent encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

"For the dead and the living, we must bear witness."

"Now, when I hear that Christians are getting together in order to defend the people of Israel, of course it brings joy to my heart. And it simply says, look, people have learned from history."

"Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil."

"If life is not a celebration, why remember it ? If life --- mine or that of my fellow man --- is not an offering to the other, what are we doing on this earth?"

"Music does not replace words, it gives tone to the words."