Night Quotes

Quote 1: "'What can we expect? It's war....'" Chapter 1, pg. 4

Quote 2: "'I wanted to come back to Sighet to tell you the story of my death. So that you could prepare yourselves while there was still time. To live? I don't attach any importance to my life any more. I'm alone. No, I wanted to come back, and to warn you. And see how it is, no one will listen to me....'" Chapter 1, pg. 5

Quote 3: "'The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don't die of it....'" Chapter 1, pg. 9

Quote 4: "A prolonged whistle split the air. The wheels began to grind. We were on our way." Chapter 1, pg. 20

Quote 5: "The doors were nailed up; the way back was finally cut off. The world was a cattle wagon hermetically sealed." Chapter 2, pg. 22

Quote 6: "'Men to the left! Women to the right!'" Chapter 3, pg. 27

Quote 7: "Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight short, simple words. Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother." Chapter 3, pg. 27

Quote 8: "'Do you see that chimney over there? See it? Do you see those flames? (Yes, we did see the flames.) Over there-that's where you're going to be taken. That's your grave, over there.'" Chapter 3, pg. 28

Quote 9: "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never." Chapter 3, pg. 32

Quote 10: "The night was gone. The morning star was shining in the sky. I too had become a completely different person. The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames. There remained only a shape that looked like me. A dark flame had entered into my soul and devoured it." Chapter 3, pg. 34

Quote 11: "[W]as there a single place here where you were not in danger of death?" Chapter 3, pg. 37

Quote 12: "I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted His absolute justice." Chapter 3, pg. 42

Quote 13: "I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time." Chapter 4, pg. 50

Quote 14: "'Bite your lip, little brother....Keep your anger and hatred for another day, for later on. The day will come, but not now....Wait. Grit your teeth and wait....'" Chapter 4, pg. 51

Quote 15: "I was thinking of my father. He must have suffered more than I did." Chapter 4, pg. 56

Quote 16: "If it could only have lasted ten times ten hours!" Chapter 4, pg. 57

Quote 17: "'Where is He? Here He is-He is hanging here on this gallows....'" Chapter 4, pg. 62

Quote 18: "Whose was that tear? Mine? His?...We had never understood one another so clearly." Chapter 5, pg. 65

Quote 19: "Whenever I dreamed of a better world, I could only imagine a universe with no bells." Chapter 5, pg. 69-70

Quote 20: "'I've got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He's the only one who's kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.'" Chapter 5, pg. 77

Quote 21: "Yet another last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night in the train, and, now, the last night in Buna. How much longer were our lives to be dragged out from one 'last night' to another?" Chapter 5, pg. 79

Quote 22: "We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything-death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth." Chapter 6, pg. 83

Quote 23: "I shall always remember that smile. From which world did it come?" Chapter 6, pg. 86

Quote 24: "How could I forget that concert, given to an audience of dying and dead men!" Chapter 6, pg. 90

Quote 25: "When they withdrew, next to me were two corpses, side by side, the father and the son. I was fifteen years old." Chapter 7, pg. 96

Quote 26: "We were all going to die here. All limits had been passed. No one had any strength left. And again the night would be long." Chapter 7, pg. 98

Quote 27: "I probably brought him more satisfaction than I had done during my whole childhood." Chapter 8, pg. 101

Quote 28: "But I had no more tears. And, in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have found something like-free at last!" Chapter 8, pg. 106

Quote 29: "After my father's death, nothing could touch me any more." Chapter 9, pg. 107

Quote 30: "From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me." Chapter 9, pg. 109