Elie Wiesel

You would be amazed at the number of doors a Nobel Prize opens.

If I were in the government, I would persuade the prime minister to see the beauty in the fact that people see Israel as a haven - from their sadness to their hope.

I don't like docudramas. Documentaries should not go together with fiction, or half-fiction or quarter-fiction. The two should not go together. They cannot mix.

Historically, I come from Jewish history. I had the classic upbringing in the Yeshiva, learning, learning, and more learning.

In any society, fanatics who hate don't hate only me - they hate you, too. They hate everybody.

When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.

I never teach the same course twice.

I love teaching.

I don't know much about politics, and I don't want to know. That's why I rarely involve myself in politics.

I wanted to write a commentary on the Bible, to write about the Talmud, about celebration, about the great eternal subjects: love and happiness.

When did I learn the Bible? When I was four or five years old. It's still the pull of my childhood, a fascination with the vanished world, and I can find everything except that world.

The Bible is not only laws, it's also stories.

For in my tradition, as a Jew, I believe that whatever we receive we must share.

I have to be self-conscious of what I'm trying to do with my life.

When I was young I lost everything.

Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.

Now, when I hear that Christians are getting together in order to defend the people of Israel, of course it brings joy to my heart. And it simply says, look, people have learned from history.

I'll tell you what: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it.

In the concentration camps, we discovered this whole universe where everyone had his place. The killer came to kill, and the victims came to die.

Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.