What a curious power words have.

And I think about my cell at the Pawiak prison. During the first week I felt I would not be able to endure a day without a book, without the circle of light under the parafin lamp in the evening, without a sheet of paper, without you. . . .

I smile and I think that one human being must always be discovering another - through love. And that this is the most important thing on earth, and the most lasting.

It is the camp law: people going to their death must be deceived to the very end. This is the only permissible form of charity.

Real hunger is when one man regards another man as something to eat.

neither poems nor prose just a length of rope just the wet earth -- that's the way home. neither vodka nor bread just bursts of rage just more new graves -- that's youth and that's love. neither sleep nor waking neither joy nor laughter just tears in the night -- so the rope, paper, knife.