Suffering pulls us farther away from other human beings. It builds a wall made of cries and contempt to separate us.

I was involved in trying to save the Rwandan people and Sudan now. It's a mass murder. Mass murder is a terrifying word. We don't have to go further than that. Cambodia came close to, but what was it, Cambodians killing Cambodians after all. So therefore I think we should be very careful with vocabulary.

I belong to a tradition that believes that the death of a single child is a blemish on creation.

Better that one heart be broken a thousand times in the retelling, he has decided, if it means that a thousand other hearts need not be broken at all.

I feel very close to French culture and to the French humanism, which occasionally one finds, even in the highest places. And therefore, all of my books have been written in French.

It's easier to be conformist naturally; it's easier except for those who don't like conformism.

The Holocaust is not a cheap soap opera. The Holocaust is not a romantic novel. It is something else.