“I write to understand as much as to be understood.”

To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children. Between the ugliness of hate and the will to oppose it. Between inflicting suffering and humiliation on our fellow man and offering him the solidarity and hope he deserves.

Even in darkness it is possible to create light.

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

There is much to be done, there is much that can be done… one person of integrity can make a difference.

Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate – healthy virile hate – for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German.

Bite your lips, little brother…Don’t cry. Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later. The day will come but not now…Wait. Clench your teeth and wait.

Only the guilty are guilty: the children of killers are not killers, but children.

Every moment contains a spark of eternity.

For us it’s not easy to be conformist, I cannot stand to be conformist, I don’t accept what it is, I like to say no. If I see an injustice I scream.

For nearly 3,500 years Exodus has left such an imprint on people’s memories that I cannot imagine it had been invented just as a legend or a tale.

you can do something. You can, even for one person Don’t turn away; help. Because those who suffer, often suffer not because of the person or the group that inflicts the suffering; they seem to suffer because nobody cares.

This is the role of writers: to turn their tears into a story – and perhaps into a prayer.

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

A religious person answers to God, not to the elected or non-elected official.

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.

And when the cold comes, I swear I can feel her in my bones.

Who hears music feels his solitude peopled at once.

And feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce.

It is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is.

It is my dying wish to travel around the world; to feel this hurt in a slightly different way!

If you aren’t gonna say exactly how and what you feel, you might as well not say anything at all.

I can feel the dust of her skin in my skin; and I think maybe that means these bones of mine have grown weary of crying too.

I pause to record that I feel in extraordinary form. Delirium perhaps.