“Suffering pulls us farther away from other human beings. It builds a wall made of cries and contempt to separate us.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“The sky is so close to the sea that it is difficult to tell which is reflected in the other, which one needs the other, which one is dominating the other.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“I learned that man lives differently, depending on whether he is in a horizontal or vertical position. The shadows on the walls, on the faces, are not the same.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“Man prefers to blame himself for all possible sins and crimes rather than come to the conclusion that God is capable of the most flagrant injustice. I still blush every time I think of the way God makes fun of human beings, his favorite toys.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“man carries his fiercest enemy within himself. Hell isn’t others. It’s ourselves. Hell is the burning fever that makes you feel cold.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“In fact, the question has haunted me for a long time: Does life have meaning after Auschwitz? In a universe cursed because it is guilty, is hope still possible? For a young survivor whose knowledge of life and death surpasses that of his elders, wouldn’t suicide be as great a temptation as love or faith?”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“He struggles to understand why fate has spared him and not so many others. Was it to know happiness? His happiness will never be complete. To know love? He will never be sure of being worthy of love. A part of him is still back there, on the other side, where the dead deny the living the right to leave them behind. His recovery will be a road into exile, a journey in which the touch of the woman he loves will matter less than the image of his grandmother buried under a mountain of ashes.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“A man who has suffered more than others, and differently, should live apart. Alone. Outside of any organized existence. He poisons the air. He makes it unfit for breathing. He takes away from joy its spontaneity and its justification. He kills hope and the will to live. He is the incarnation of time that negates present and future, only recognizing the harsh law of memory. He suffers and his contagious suffering calls forth echoes around him.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“That said, certain episodes here are true—that is, taken from life. The accident actually happened to me. I didn’t see the taxi coming. The possibility of a suicidal impulse was invented for the sake of the story. In fact, the question has haunted me for a long time: Does life have meaning after Auschwitz? In a universe cursed because it is guilty, is hope still possible? For a young survivor whose knowledge of life and death surpasses that of his elders, wouldn’t suicide be as great a temptation as love or faith?”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“Suffering is given to the living, not to the dead,” he said looking right through me. “It is man’s duty to make it cease, not to increase it. One hour of suffering less is already a victory over fate.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“I tried to put on a smile but, being too cold, I could only manage a grin. That’s one reason why I don’t like winter: smiles become abstract.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“Suffering brings out the lowest, the most cowardly in man. There is a phase of suffering you reach beyond which you become a brute: beyond it you sell your soul—and worse, the souls of your friends—for a piece of bread, for some warmth, for a moment of oblivion, of sleep. Saints are those who die before the end of the story. The others, those who live out their destiny, no longer dare look at themselves in the mirror, afraid they may see their inner image: a monster laughing at unhappy women and at saints who are dead…”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“All right, I told myself. I’ll also have to learn to eat. And to love. You can learn anything.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“I thought he was talking about my grandmother. I didn't want to see her. I knew she had died - of thirst, maybe - and I was afraid she wouldn't be as I remembered her. I was afraid she wouldn't have the black shawl on her head, nor those burning tears in her eyes, nor that clear, calm expression that could make you forget you were cold.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“Do you believe in God, Doctor?” My question took him by surprise. He stopped suddenly, wrinkling his forehead. “Yes,” he answered. “But not in the operating room. There I only count on myself.” His eyes looked deeper. He added, “On myself and on the patient. Or, if you prefer, on the life in the diseased flesh. Life wants to live. Life wants to go on. It is opposed to death. It fights. The patient is my ally. He fights on my side. Together we are stronger than the enemy. Take the boy last night. He didn’t accept death. He helped me to win the battle. He was holding on, clinging. He was asleep, anesthetized, and yet he was taking part in the fight…” Still motionless, he”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
“I'm serious," she said. "I read your articles. They are written by a man who has come to the end of his life, to the end of his hopes."
"That is a sign of youth," I answered. "The young today don't believe that someday they'll be old: they are convinced they'll die young. Old men are the real youngsters of our generation. They at least can brag about having had what we do not have: a slice of life called youth.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Day
Elie Wiesel
Born place: in Sighet, Romania
Born date September 30, 1928
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“Simon, we’re destined to win. I know our armies are in retreat everywhere and we’ve no navy. But the great sweep of human desire fights on our side, and we cannot be defeated.” He pointed out the cabin door and said, “Look at him. The new American.” And there stood Captain Turlock, barefooted, grimy from working on his ship, clothed in near rags, but ready to storm his way into Bristol port if asked. “Why did you choose him for your captain?” Franklin asked. “Because he knows … he knows what a ship can do.”
― James A. Michener, quote from Chesapeake
“I discovered that my obsession for having each thing in the right place, each subject at the right time, each word in the right style, was not the well-deserved reward of an ordered mind but just the opposite: a complete system of pretense invented by me to hide the disorder of my nature. I discovered that I am not disciplined out of virtue but as a reaction to my negligence, that I appear generous in order to conceal my meanness, that I pass myself off as prudent because I am evil-minded, that I am conciliatory in order not to succumb to my repressed rage, that I am punctual only to hide how little I care about other people’s time. I learned, in short, that love is not a condition of the spirit but a sign of the zodiac.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Memories of My Melancholy Whores
“Me and Evil Harry go way back," said Cohen, rolling a cigarette. "I knew him when he was starting up with just two lads and his Shed of Doom."
"And Slasher, the Steed of Terror," Evil Harry pointed out.
"Yes, but he was a donkey, Harry," Cohen pointed out.
"He had a very nasty bite on him, though. He'd take your finger off as soon as look at you.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from The Last Hero
“With the exception of Hunter West, who's been my own personal porn since that fateful night Mom's Porsche broke down, I don't find that many men attractive. Maybe I am a lesbian, but I don't think so.”
― Ella James, quote from Selling Scarlett
“We all live day to day completely oblivious to the fact that we’re a part of a much larger and stranger reality than we can possibly imagine.”
― Blake Crouch, quote from Dark Matter
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