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I wrote my first book, I published it in 1955, it was in Yiddish and it was called And The World Was Silent.

Elie Wiesel

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Elie Wiesel
Age: 87 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 30
Died: 2016
Died: July 2
Autobiographer
Humanist
Journalist
Judaic Scholar
Novelist
Philosopher
Political Activist
Professor
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Sighetu Marmaţiei
Eliezer Wiesel
A-7713
Élie Wiesel
World
Yiddish
Published
Wrote
Silent
Called
Firsts
Book
First

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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I want to go back to the child I used to be, and to read with the same naiveté [the Pentateuch]. I want to leave science aside and go back to the pure perception offered to me in the text that is waiting there for me year after year.
Elie Wiesel
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Whether every story that's there [in the Bible] is a historic truth ... Again, I'm not concerned.
Elie Wiesel
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The act of writing is for me often nothing more than the secret or conscious desire to carve words on a tombstone: to the memory of a town forever vanished, to the memory of a childhood in exile, to the memory of all those I loved and who, before I could tell them I loved them, went away.
Elie Wiesel
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The whole community must be saved [in Tibet].
Elie Wiesel
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I don't believe in collective guilt. The children of killers are not killers, but children.
Elie Wiesel
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Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.
Elie Wiesel
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I don't think I should accept other people's suffering because I suffered. Just the opposite, because I suffered I don't want others to suffer.
Elie Wiesel
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I cannot cure everybody. I cannot help everybody. But to tell the lonely person that I am not far or different from that lonely person, that I am with him or her, that's all I think we can do and we should do.
Elie Wiesel
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Philosophy is a slow process of logic and logical discourse: A bringing B bringing C and so forth. In mysticism you can jump from A to Z. But the ultimate objective is the same. It's knowledge. It's truth.
Elie Wiesel
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Naturally, the human being wants to forget pain.
Elie Wiesel
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Only the guilty are guilty: the children of killers are not killers, but children.
Elie Wiesel
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I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.
Elie Wiesel
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Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.
Elie Wiesel
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Music does not replace words, it gives tone to the words
Elie Wiesel
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He wants to see whether we are capable of overcoming out base instincts, of killing the Satan within ourselves. We have no right to despair. And if he punishes us mercilessly, it is a sign that He loves us that much more.
Elie Wiesel
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I am looking for the word which is there and shouldn't be there. I wonder, why is it there? Or I look for problems: the Akedah [the Binding of Isaac - Genesis 22]. It still baffles me. Each time I read it - and I read it at least twice a year - each time I discover new layers in it. Always. So this is of more concern to me than the minimalists.
Elie Wiesel
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[Moishe] explained to me, with great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer.... 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.
Elie Wiesel
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Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out, to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls. It is they who force the writer to tell their stories.
Elie Wiesel
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When you die and go to heaven our maker is not going to ask, 'why didn't you discover the cure for such and such? why didn't you become the Messiah?' The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is 'why didn't you become you?'
Elie Wiesel
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Writing should not be routine writing should actually be the opposite of procedural because otherwise the written word would become a routine word.
Elie Wiesel