The darkest days in my life after the war, after the war, was when I discovered that the ... most of the members and commanders of the Einsatz group that were doing the killings, not even in gas chambers, but killing with machine guns, had college degrees from German universities and PhD's and MD's. Couldn't believe it.

Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.

And to write is to sow and to reap at the same time.

I'm not a political person, and their ambitions are not mine. They want power. I don't want power.

For me [Patriarchs] exist. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob exist today. They are people that you see with white beards. I have no doubt of their existence.

We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.

More people are aware of the consequences of hatred. People are aware. Therefore more people are engaged in fighting ... racism and so forth.