We're both [with Elie Wiesel] a long way from the position of the so-called Biblical minimalists. Some of them see no history in the Bible until Josiah.

We know, for instance, of "The Book of the Wars of the Lord." It is mentioned in the text [Numbers 21:14]. There was a book: Where is it? One day you will dig and you will maybe find it. [Laughter]

In Jewish history there are no coincidences.

The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Indifference creates evil. Hatred is evil itself. Indifference is what allows evil to be strong, what gives it power.

I believe in books. And when our people [coughing] - our people of Jerusalem, let's say after the Romans destroyed the temple and the city, all we took is a little book, that's all. Not treasures, we had no treasures. They were ransacked, taken away. But the book - the little book - and this book produced more books, thousands, hundreds of thousands of books, and in the book we found our memory, and our attachment to that memory is what kept us alive.

What would the future of man be if it were devoid of memory?

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.