Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn't know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night that should only be said by day.

What is being lost is the magic of the word. I am not an image person. Imagery belongs to another civilization: the caveman. Caveman couldn't express himself so he put images on walls.

My students are very special. They are my source of pride, my source of joy, my source of hope. I am terribly fond of my students.

Fanaticism is the greatest threat today. Literally, the 21st century threatened by fanatics, and we have fanatics in every religion, unfortunately, and what can we do against them? Words nothing else, I'm against violence but only words.

The Jewish tradition of learning-is learning. Adam chose knowledge instead of immortality.

Which is better, truth that is a lie or the lie that is truth?

Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate - healthy virile hate - for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German.