"Some stories are true that never happened."

"Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe."

"There are moments when I think it will never end, that it will last indefinitely. It's like the rain. Here the rain, like everything else, suggests permanence and eternity. I say to myself: it's raining today and it's going to rain tomorrow and the next day, the next week and the next century."

"War is like night, she said. It covers everything."

"A mn ages hs enemy because he hates his own hate. He says to himself: I hate him not because he's my enemy, not because he hates me, but because he arouses me to hate."

"Religion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments."

"Man asks and God replies but we don't understand his replies because they dwell in the depths of our souls and remain there until we die."

"Peace is our gift to each other."

"We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear."

"Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other."

"Our backyard looked like a marketplace. Valuable objects, precious rugs, silver candlesticks, Bibles and other ritual objects were strewn over the dusty grounds- pitiful relics that seemed never to have had a home. All this under a magnificent blue sky."

"That is my major preoccupation, memory, the kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it."

"Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings."

"In Jewish history there are no coincidences."

"What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It's close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically."

"Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies."

"I needed to know that there was such a thing as love and that it brought smiles and joy in its wake."

"I write to understand as much as to be understood."

"If the only prayer you say throughout your life is 'Thank You,' then that will be enough."

"There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win."

"I'm a teacher and a writer; my life is words. When I see the denigration of language, it hurts me, and it's easy to denigrate a word by trivializing it."

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."

"Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provisions. thats all we thought about. No thought of revenge, or of parents. Only of bread."

"There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don't see them."

"From Jeff Greenfield: 'I once asked Elie Wiesel 'Are you an optimist or a pessimist?' 'An optimist,' he said. 'I have to be."

"True enemies aren't always the ones who hate each other."

"I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table."

"After all, God is God because he remembers."

"What is the difference between Jew and Christians? We all await the Messiah. You believe He has already come and gone, while we do not. I therefore propose that we await Him together. And when He appears, we can ask Him: were You here before?"

"All this under a magnificent blue sky."

"Man, as long as he lives, is immortal. One minute before his death he shall be immortal. But one minute later, God wins."

"In the beginning there was faith-which is childish; trust-which is vain; and illusion-which is dangerous.We believed in God; trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark from the Shekhinah's flame; that every one of us carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of God's image.THAT was the source if not the cause of all our ordeals."

"Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write."

"I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory."

"There's a long road of suffering ahead of you. But don't lose courage. You've already escaped the gravest danger: selection. So now, muster your strength, and don't lose heart. We shall all see the day of liberation. Have faith in life. Above all else, have faith. Drive out despair, and you will keep death away from yourselves. Hell is not for eternity. And now, a prayer - or rather, a piece of advice: let there be comradeship among you. We are all brothers, and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive."

"My faceless neighbor spoke up:'Don't be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve.I exploded:'What do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet?His cold eyes stared at me. At last he said, wearily:'I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people."

"We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything--death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth."

"Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

"Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories."

"Even in darkness it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. That it is possible to feel free inside a prison. That even in exile, friendship exists and can become an anchor. That one instant before dying, man is still immortal."

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

"He explained to me with great insistence that every question posessed a power that did not lie in the answer."

"A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude."

"At the time of the liberation of the camps, I remember, we were convinced that after Auschwitz there would be no more wars, no more racism, no more hatred, no more anti-Semitism. We were wrong. This produced a feeling close to despair. For if Auschwitz could not cure mankind of racism, was there any chance of success ever? The fact is, the world has learned nothing. Otherwise, how is one to comprehend the atrocities committed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia."

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."

"When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity."

"Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world."