Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBEwas a Romanian-born American Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. He was the author of 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth30 September 1928
CountryUnited States of America
book home tables
I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.
country home mind
But where was I to start? The world is so vast, I shall start with the country I knew best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No, my home. No, my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself.
children home feet
The only place where I felt at home, on familiar ground, was the Jewish cemetery. And yet I had never set foot in it before. Children had been forbidden to enter.
ghetto home night
Yet another last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night in the train, and, now, the last night in Buna. How much longer were our lives to be dragged out from one 'last night' to another?
canvas eliminate order pages painting reader remove sculpture somehow work writers-and-writing
Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain.
corpse depths eyes left
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.
teacher
I had a teacher that always told me, 'Don't promise, because if you promise, you must keep it.' I promised, so here I am.
believed listen witness
I always believed that to listen to a witness is to become a witness.
detachment examined longer past true
He had so examined his past that he could no longer look at it with enough detachment to tell what was true and what wasn't,
favor free help involved people
I am so in favor of being involved in other people's causes, other people's fights. If a people is oppressed, we must help those people free themselves.
continue learn matter people shall
We are still here. And no matter what, we shall continue to be here to tell people so they can learn from our history.
broken heart hearts means thousand
Better than one heart be broken a thousand times in the retelling, if it means that a thousand other hearts need not be broken at all.
politics
I don't know much about politics, and I don't want to know. That's why I rarely involve myself in politics.
good moments personal poor religion
Religion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments.