I think [Sacrifice of Isaac] is the most important event in the Bible except for Sinai.

My ambition really was, even as a child, to be a writer, a commentator, and a teacher, but a teacher of Talmud.

Except that a human being is both the public and the private. We are both, private and public in the same person.

There is not anti-semitism as an ideology. The civilized world must think that anti-semitism is stupid.

How can one explain the attraction terror holds for some minds — and why for intellectuals? . . .In a totalitarian and terrorist regime, man is no longer a unique being with infinite possibilities and limitless choices but a number, a puppet, with just this difference — numbers and puppets are not susceptible to fear.

Sometimes I think I prefer the storyteller in [Roman Vishniac] to the photographer. But aren't they one and the same?

Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.