The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

Love yourself, whatever makes you different, and use it to make you stand out. Mine is my voice and the fact that I'm gay: well, the fact that I'm flamboyantly gay.

I realized I was gay in the shower one day with Barbra Streisand. It happened while I was lathering, rinsing, and repeating with Pert Plus. As I was belting out the chorus to my favorite song from 'Funny Girl,' 'Oh my man, I love him so, he'll never know...' it hit me.

There are so many funny people and so many talented people, but the one thing nobody else has is my take on the world. So, when I'm developing my show, that's going to be the focus.

I love unique things that not everyone has. I believe its all about how you wear an outfit, not how much it costs or where it's from. Elegance is the key.

I put things in perspective and trust that everything is in its right place, be grateful that I'm healthy. Then throw on a cap and some killer red lipstick and gloss, that always seems to do the trick.

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.

If I were in the government, I would persuade the prime minister to see the beauty in the fact that people see Israel as a haven - from their sadness to their hope.

My greatest disappointment is that I believe that those of us who went through the war and tried to write about it, about their experience, became messengers. We have given the message, and nothing changed.

Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.

Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

Religion is not man's relationship to God, it is man's relationship to man.

Religion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments.

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.

Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.

I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.

Man, as long as he lives, is immortal. One minute before his death he shall be immortal. But one minute later, God wins.

No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions.

Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.

It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.

Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.

Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.

After all, God is God because he remembers.

In any society, fanatics who hate don't hate only me - they hate you, too. They hate everybody.

When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity.

What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It's close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.

I'm a teacher and a writer; my life is words. When I see the denigration of language, it hurts me, and it's easy to denigrate a word by trivializing it.

Peace is our gift to each other.

Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.

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

I would like to see real peace and a state of Israel living peacefully alongside a state of Palestine.

Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.

Historically, I come from Jewish history. I had the classic upbringing in the Yeshiva, learning, learning, and more learning.

Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone.

I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.

Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.

No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.

I was very, very religious. And of course I wrote about it in 'Night.' I questioned God's silence. So I questioned. I don't have an answer for that. Does it mean that I stopped having faith? No. I have faith, but I question it.

I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.