Man comes closer to God through the questions he asks Him, he liked to say. Therein lies true dialogue. Man asks and God replies. But we don’t understand His replies. We cannot understand them. Becaus...
It was the beginning of the war. I was twelve years old, my parents were alive, and God still dwelt in our town.
I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it…
Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible.
How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the...
Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.
Be careful in your relations with those in power; they draw you close or allow you to approach them only when they need you. They are your friends when your friendship is useful to them and affords th...
And then I explained to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliati...
All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek’s soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his...
In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone.
I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from?
Human rights are being violated on every continent. More people are oppressed than free. How can one not be sensitive to their plight? Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.
How can one explain the attraction terror holds for some minds — and why for intellectuals? . . .In a totalitarian and terrorist regime, man is no longer a unique being with infinite possibilities and...
And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all.
A man hates his enemy because he hates his own hate.
I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.
With the years and convulsions of history, the word-as reductionist as the dictionary itself-has undergone absurd metamorphoses. In some countries, they prefer the word destabilization. Poor countries...
Why did I write it? Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history and in t...
No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them....
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.