Quotes from Elie Wiesel

One that most horrible day, even among all those other bad days, when the child witnessed the hanging (yes!) of another child who, he tells us, had the face of a sad angel, he heard someone behind him groan: For God's sake, where is God? And from within me, I heard a voice answer: Where He is? This is where - hanging here from this gallows.

Man comes closer to God through the questions he asks Him, he liked to say. Therein lies true dialogue. Man asks and God replies. But we don't understand His replies. We cannot under-stand them. Because they dwell in the depths of our souls and re-main there until we die. The real answers, Eliezer, you will find only within yourself. And why do you pray, Moishe? I asked him. I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions.

Never shall I forget these things, even if I'm condemned to live as long as God himself.

The one I await. You don't think he'll come? I do. He promised. That's my power over him; without me his fate would be incomplete. Whether he likes it or not, I am the keeper of his promise. Should I die before him, without first returning to him his bond and his freedom, his secret would lose its meaning.

Our ethics are not meant to be created in our childhoods and shoved in a box somewhere; they must be reshaped daily, as we encounter scenarios that challenge our beliefs.

Don't be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve." I exploded: "What do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet?" His cold eyes stared at me. At last, he said wearily: "I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people."

Behind the shutters, our friends of yesterday were probably waiting for the moment when they could loot our homes.

My father, an enlightened spirit, believed in man. My grandfather, a fervent Hasid, believed in God. The one taught me to speak, the other to sing. Both loved stories. And when I tell mine, I hear their voices. Whispering from beyond the silenced storm, they are what links the survivor to their memory.

One of his [Rebbe Mikhal of Zlotchev] prayers: I have but one request; may I never use my reason against truth.

most of us turn to religion for our ethics because we don't know where else to find them.

He was silent. "Let's be evacuated with the others," I said. He didn't answer. He was looking at my foot. "You think you'll be able to walk?" "Yes, I think so." "Let's hope we won't regret it, Eliezer." After the war, I learned the fate of those who had remained at the infirmary. They were, quite simply, liberated by the Russians, two days after the evacuation.

Do not make fun of God, even if He is making fun of you.