SURVIVAL
"[W]as there a single place here where you were not in danger of death?" Chapter 3,
pg. 37
"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
"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
"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
FAITH
"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
"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
"'Where is He? Here He is-He is hanging here on this gallows....'" Chapter 4, pg. 62
"I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted His absolute justice." Chapter 3, pg. 44
RELATIONSHIPS
"After my father's death, nothing could touch me any more." Chapter 9, pg. 107
"I was thinking of my father. He must have suffered more than I did." Chapter 4, pg.
56
"'Men to the left! Women to the right!” 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
"I probably brought him more satisfaction than I had done during my whole childhood."
Chapter 8, pg. 101
"Whose was that tear? Mine? His?...We had never understood one another so clearly."
Chapter 5, pg. 65
DEHUMANISATION
"'The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don't die of it....'" Chapter 1, pg. 9
"The doors were nailed up; the way back was finally cut off. The world was a cattle wagon
hermetically sealed." Chapter 2, pg. 22
"'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
"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
“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
"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
COURAGE
"'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
"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
"Whenever I dreamed of a better world, I could only imagine a universe with no bells." Chapter
5, pg. 69-70
The Meaning of the Title of the Novel
Wiesel's experiences during the holocaust, one of the darkest periods in human
history, are like a journey into a night of total blackness. During his stay in the various
concentration camps, Wiesel witnesses and endures the worst kind of man's
inhumanity to his fellow men, as prisoners are beaten, tortured, starved, and
murdered. Darkness and evil reigned. When Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Peace, he condemned the silence and apathy of those who did not cry out and
condemn the criminal atrocities of Hitler and his dark forces.
As a symbol, night does not merely represent physical darkness; it also stands for the
darkness of the soul. It was obvious that the Nazis were dark and evil; but Wiesel also
felt that his heart was darkened by the evil around him. In the book, he says about
himself, "There remained only a shape that looked like man. A dark flame had entered
into my soul and devoured it." Obviously, throughout the holocaust, Wiesel was
living through a long "night" of terror and torture, where he could see no light at the
end of the tunnel, only perpetual darkness.