“Thus for me, the principal meaning of being a Jew was something people reliably held against me, a barrier to overcome. ”

“Being reliable is something. Being good.”

“If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example.”

“People that are lazy don't get anything accomplished. It's People like me that are reliable.”

“This is part of what it means to be a God, that You are a general principal of Being, instantiated throughout all of Being.”

“[F]or me, being a Jew means feeling the tragedy of yesterday as an inner oppression. On my left forearm I bear the Auschwitz number; it reads more briefly than the Pentateuch or the Talmud and yet provides more thorough information. It is also more binding than basic formulas of Jewish existence. If to myself and the world, including the religious and nationally minded Jews, who do not regard me as one of their own, I say: I am a Jew, then I mean by that those realities and possibilities that are summed up in the Auschwitz number.”