The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual - when it begins to ignore the passions, the emotions - it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance.

As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right.

The ghetto was not only a place of refuge for a persecuted minority but a great experiment in peace, in self-discipline and in humanism. As such it still exists and refuses to give up in spite of all the brutality that surrounds it. I was brought up among those people.

No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but it is only once removed from the true world.

No lepidopterist's collection in the entire world...full if iridescent wings, is worth the life of a single butterfly.

All is foreseen but the choice is given.

Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.