Elie Wiesel · 339 pages
Rating: (3.1K votes)
“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget this concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I hear that particular piece by Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the pale and melancholy face of my Polish comrade bidding farewell to an audience of dying men.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“Had the situation not been so tragic, we might have laughed.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar?”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“True enemies aren't always the ones who hate each other.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“Sometimes I am asked if I know the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude HAS a response. What I do know is that there is response in responsibility. When we speak of this era of evil and darkness, so close and yet so distant, responsibility is the key word,
The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“Hubiera querido agregar: ¿por qué agradecerle? Hacía mucho que no comprendía qué había hecho el buen Dios para merecer al hombre.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“The God of impotence made her eyes flame. Mine too. I thought: I am going to die. Whoever sees God must die. It is written in the Bible. I had never quite understood that: why should God be allied with death? Why should He want to kill a man who succeeded in seeing Him? Now, everything became clear. God was ashamed. God likes to sleep with twelve-year old girls. And He Doesn't want us to know. Whoever sees it or guesses it must die so as not to divulge the secret. Death is only the guard who protects God, the doorkeeper of the immense brothel that we call the universe. I am going to die, I thought. And my fingers, clenched around my throat, kept pressing harder and harder, against my will.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“Dead souls have more to say than living ones.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“I did another commercial. Don't lose your loved ones, I wrote, because of excessive radioactivity. Don't be a wallflower at the dance because of strontium 90 in your bones. Don't be a victim of fallout. When the tart on Thirty-sixth Street gives you the big eye does your body stride off in one direction and your imagination in another? Does your mind follow her up the stairs and taste her wares in revolting detail while your flesh goes off to Brooks Brothers or the foreign exchange desk of the Chase Manhattan Bank? Haven't you noticed the size of the ferns, the lushness of the grass, the bitterness of the string beans, and the brilliant makings on the new breeds of butterflies? You have been inhaling lethal atomic waste for the last twenty-five years and only Elixircol can save you.”
― John Cheever, quote from The Stories of John Cheever
“We have loyalty, fidelity, honor--
All three are overrated. The only chance you have to demonstrate any of them is to deny yourself something or someone you desire.”
― Kresley Cole, quote from Kiss of a Demon King
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, quote from The Salmon of Doubt
“You know how to steer a yacht?" Mr. McIntyre asked Ian worriedly.
"I was born knowing how to steer a yacht," Ian said. Then a stricken look came over his face. "But–do you suppose Jonah prepaid the full amount for renting this? Once my dad hears what Natalie and I did, he'll cancel our credit cards."
"You mean we're...we're poor now?" Natalie gasped.
"Penniless," Ian said grimly.
"Actually," Mr. McIntyre said, "I should have mentioned this before the others left. Grace had an addendum to her will regarding everyone who made it through the gauntlet. There were eight of you–you will all receive double the amount you turned down to get the first clue."
"It was a million dollars originally," Ian said. "So Natalie and I each get two million dollars? I suppose we could live on that."
Natalie beamed.
"That is such a relief!" she said. "Being poor wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be, but still–"
"You were only poor for about two seconds!" Dan protested, rolling his eyes.”
― Margaret Peterson Haddix, quote from Into the Gauntlet
“The things you think are the disasters in your life are not the disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it.”
― Hilary Mantel, quote from Bring Up the Bodies
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