Writing should not be routine; writing should actually be the opposite of procedural because otherwise the written word would become a routine word.

There are so many who know more than I do, who understand the world better than I do. I would be truly learned, a great scholar, if only I could retain everything I've learned from those I have known. But then would I still be me? And isn't all that only words? Words grow old, too; they change their meaning and their usage. They get sick just as we do; they die of their wounds and then they are relegated to the dust of dictionaries. And where am I in all this?

Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible.

Some stories are true that never happened.

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?

That is my major preoccupation, memory, the kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it.

[Memory] is a passion no less powerful or pervasive than love. It is [the ability] to live in more than one world, to prevent the past from fading, and to call upon the future to illuminate it.