When a human being kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice.

The Yiddish mentality is not haughty. It does not take victory for granted. It does not demand and command but it muddles through, sneaks by, smuggles itself amidst the powers of destruction, knowing somewhere that God's plan for Creation is still at the very beginning.

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.

Literature is the memory of humanity.

I believe in God but people are liars. It's those people who say they are appointed by God who I don't believe in.

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.

Two important things are to have a genuine interest in people and to be kind to them. Kindness, I've discovered, is everything.