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.

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

Peace is our gift to each other.

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

I write to understand as much as to be understood.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Some stories are true that never happened.

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

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

In Jewish history there are no coincidences.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.

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

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

Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.

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

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

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

Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.

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

After all, God is God because he remembers.

For in my tradition, as a Jew, I believe that whatever we receive we must share.

For me, every hour is grace.

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.

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

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

I believe in superstitions. You don't talk about a child who hasn't been born.

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

I don't like docudramas. Documentaries should not go together with fiction, or half-fiction or quarter-fiction. The two should not go together. They cannot mix.

I have to be self-conscious of what I'm trying to do with my life.

I never felt any attraction towards violence. I never tried to express myself through violence. Violence is a language.

I never teach the same course twice.

I remember, May 1944: I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction.

I wanted to write a commentary on the Bible, to write about the Talmud, about celebration, about the great eternal subjects: love and happiness.

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.

I will say, with memoir, you must be honest. You must be truthful.

I would like to see real peace and a state of Israel living peacefully alongside a state of Palestine.