“I was there when God was put on trial. At the end of the trial, they used the word chayav, rather than ‘guilty’. It means ‘He owes us something’. Then we went to pray.”

Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.

My faith is a wounded faith, but it’s not without faith. My life is not without faith.

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

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.

Sometimes even in pain we smile to the world until we think we’re dying.

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

How surely are the dead beyond death. Death is what the living carry with them. A state of dread, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do not remember and nothingness is not a curse. Far from it.

The broken worlds we hide inside; that’s how we start to die!

Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.

I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much.

Most days missing her is my only choice between death and dying.

Yes, as my swift days near their goal, ’tis all that I implore: In life and death a chainless soul, with courage to endure.