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.

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

What a curious power words have.

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.

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. . . .

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.