Elie Wiesel Quotes

Author Image

Elie Wiesel

Profession : Novelist

Birth : September 30, 1928

We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.

Elie Wiesel

I don't know much about politics, and I don't want to know. That's why I rarely involve myself in politics.

Elie Wiesel

When did I learn the Bible? When I was four or five years old. It's still the pull of my childhood, a fascination with the vanished world, and I can find everything except that world.

Elie Wiesel

Moses was the greatest legislator and the commander in chief of perhaps the first liberation army.

Elie Wiesel

You would be amazed at the number of doors a Nobel Prize opens.

Elie Wiesel

I have to be self-conscious of what I'm trying to do with my life.

Elie Wiesel

The Bible is not only laws, it's also stories. It begins, 'In the beginning God created Heaven.' If I had written these words, I wouldn't have written anything else; it's just enough.

Elie Wiesel

It used to be said that when the Baal Shem Tov came into a town, his impact was so strong, he didn't have to speak. His disciples had to dance or to sing or to preach to have the same effect. I think a real messenger, myself or anyone, by the very fact that he is there as a person, as a symbol, could have the same impact.

Elie Wiesel

I never felt any attraction towards violence. I never tried to express myself through violence. Violence is a language.

Elie Wiesel

I'll tell you what: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it.

Elie Wiesel

I write to understand as much as to be understood.

Elie Wiesel

I believe in superstitions. You don't talk about a child who hasn't been born.

Elie Wiesel

That is my major preoccupation, memory, the kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it.

Elie Wiesel

I never teach the same course twice.

Elie Wiesel

I wanted to write a commentary on the Bible, to write about the Talmud, about celebration, about the great eternal subjects: love and happiness.

Elie Wiesel

I don't like docudramas. Documentaries should not go together with fiction, or half-fiction or quarter-fiction. The two should not go together. They cannot mix.

Elie Wiesel

For in my tradition, as a Jew, I believe that whatever we receive we must share.

Elie Wiesel

The Bible is not only laws, it's also stories.

Elie Wiesel