Elie Wiesel

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.

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

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

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

When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.

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

I write to understand as much as to be understood.

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

Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.

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

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?

I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lies are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men and women are prosecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must--at that moment--become the center of the universe.

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...

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.

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

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.

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.

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