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

I write to understand as much as to be understood.

My faith is a wounded faith, but my life is not without faith. I didn’t divorce God, but I’m quarrelling and arguing and questioning, it’s a wounded faith.

To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice.

A Jew must be sensitive to the pain of all human beings. A Jew cannot remain indifferent to human suffering… The mission of the Jewish people has never been to make the world more Jewish, but to make it more human.

Every moment is a new beginning.

No human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?

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.

You’re shaking … so am I. It’s because of Jerusalem, isn’t it? One doesn’t go to Jerusalem, one returns to it. That’s one of its mysteries.

The most important question a human being has to face. What is it? The question, Why are we here?

In the beginning there was faith – which is childish; trust – which is vain; and illusion – which is dangerous.

For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. Not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, we are responsible for what we do with those memories

An indifference to suffering makes humans inhuman

Today, as yesterday, a nation is judged by its attitude towards refugees.

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

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

But where was I to start? The world is so vast, I shall start with the country I knew best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No, my home. No, my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself.

God does not send us despair in order to kill us; he sends it in order to awaken us to new life.

Only after you have fallen to the pits of despair, can you fly to the horizon of hope.

Do not despair. The storm shall pass and the sun shall rise once more.

Endings are just new beginnings in the shape of pain and despair.

You must never give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts.

Two criminals were crucified with Christ. One was saved; do not despair. One was not; do not presume.

I’m not going to make movies that tell children, “You should despair and run away”.

Despair is suffering without meaning.