Elie Wiesel: My interpretation is different. God asks Cain, "Where is...

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

Elie Wiesel

endeavor serious believe

I listen to music when I write. I need the musical background. Classical music. I'm behind the times. I'm still with Baroque music, Gregorian chant, the requiems, and with the quartets of Beethoven and Brahms. That is what I need for the climate, for the surroundings, for the landscape: the music.

Elie Wiesel

musical writing needs

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.

Elie Wiesel

holocaust trials mean

Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming.

Elie Wiesel

dream night thinking

The Holocaust is a sacred subject. One should take off one's shoes when entering its domain, one should tremble each time one pronounces the word.

Elie Wiesel

entering holocaust shoes

I am not so naïve as to believe that this slim volume will change the course of history or shake the conscience of the world. Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.

Elie Wiesel

yesterday believe book

I remember, May 1944: I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction.

Elie Wiesel

swings stories adventure

God made (human beings) because he loves stories.

Elie Wiesel

thought-provoking love-story stories

I make a difference between genocide and Holocaust. Holocaust was mainly Jewish, that was the only people, to the last Jew, sentenced to die for one reason, for being Jewish, that's all. Genocide is something else. Genocide has been actually codified by the United Nations. It's the intent of killing, the intent of killing people, a community in this culture so forth, but no other people has been really interested.

Elie Wiesel

holocaust differences people

I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.

Elie Wiesel

give-me-strength praying giving

We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.

Elie Wiesel

sparks sacred men

This day I ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused.

Elie Wiesel

contrary accused strong

Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

Elie Wiesel

sky blue children

If enough people are sensitive to the tragedy of Tibet, I think it will produce a change politically as well. But furthermore, it's important for the people in Tibet. Now communication is such [that] people know what is happening. Even Tibetan people would know that the Interfaith or the international group of religious people - that everybody who is religious is taking up their cause. It would help them a lot if we give them courage, and that in itself is enough.

Elie Wiesel

communication religious thinking

Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out, to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship; were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls. It is they who force the writer to tell their stories.

Elie Wiesel

wall writing character

In my little town, Sighet, which is in Romania, Hungary-Romania, but a real shtetl, a little [Jewish] village - and we began with the Chumash [Pentateuch], probably at age four.

Elie Wiesel

four real age

The criminal is not alone when he returns to the scene of the crime; he is joined there by his victim, and both are driven by the same curiosity: to relive that moment which stamped past and future for each.

Elie Wiesel

criminals curiosity past

[The Book of the Law]was lost for so many years. And then Josiah decided to celebrate Passover. The text says that "The Passover sacrifice had not been offered in that way ... during the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah" [2 Kings 23:22]. What do you mean? Not in the days of David and Solomon? Never before? And what of the days of the prophets? What happened? That's what I'm anguishing over. If the Book of the Law could be forgotten for so many years, who knows what was done to it during those years? Maybe it was lost later, too.

Elie Wiesel

kings mean book

I never compared Nazis into communism, but communism was the same thing, the end justifies the means. Whatever the means.

Elie Wiesel

nazi communism mean

Man walks the moon but his soul remains riveted to earth. Once upon a time it was the opposite.

Elie Wiesel

moon dream men

My interpretation is different. God asks Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" [Genesis 4:9] And Cain answers "Lo yadati, "I don't know" or "I didn't know." Then comes a period, followed by "Am I my brother's keeper?"