Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.

That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life - that is what is abnormal.

If there is a single theme that dominates all my writings, all my obsessions, it is that of memory-because I fear forgetfulness as much as hatred and death.

I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.

It has become increasingly clear that Hungarian authorities are encouraging the whitewashing of tragic and criminal episodes in Hungary's past, namely the wartime Hungarian governments' involvement in the deportation and murder of hundreds of thousands of its Jewish citizens. I found it outrageous that the Speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly could participate in a ceremony honoring a Hungarian fascist ideologue

I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it . . .