Elie Wiesel

I've been fighting my entire adult life for men and women everywhere to be equal and to be different. But there is one right I would not grant anyone. And that is the right to be indifferent.

I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice.

Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death.

Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.

God made man because He loves stories.

Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.

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.

One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.
From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me.
The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.

I have tried to keep memory alive... I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

Once you label a people "illegal", that is exactly what the Nazis did to Jews. You do not label a people "illegal." They have committed an illegal act. They are immigrants who crossed illegally. They are immigrants who crossed without papers. They are immigrants who crossed without permission. They are living in this country without permission. But they are not an illegal people.

From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. . . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminated—ever.

BERISH: I resigned from membership in God—I resigned from God. Let Him look for another innkeeper, let Him find another people, let Him push around another Jew—I’m through with Him!
MARIA: Don’t you worry, Master. You say things, but God isn’t angry How could He be? He isn’t even listening.

The darkness enveloped us. All I could hear was the violin and it was as if Juliek's soul had become the bow. He was playing his life...He played that which he would never play again.

BERISH: Prosecutor. That’s what I am going to be. Prosecutor.
MARIA: What’s that?
AVREMEL: That’s someone nice who has the right to be nasty.

MARIA: Hell? Is he talking about hell? Good. For a moment I was afraid he was making sense.