# Quote — Elie Wiesel, Night

> The absent no longer entered our thoughts. One spoke of them who knows what happened to them? but their fate was not on our minds. We were incapable of thinking. Our senses were numbed, everything was fading into a fog. We no longer clung to anything. The instincts of self-preservation, of self-defense, of pride, had all deserted us. In one terrifying moment of lucidity, I thought of us as damned souls wandering through the void, souls condemned to wander through space until the end of time, seeking redemption, seeking oblivion, without any hope of finding either.

- Author: [Elie Wiesel](https://www.leafyquotes.com/elie-wiesel.md)
- Book: [Night](https://www.leafyquotes.com/elie-wiesel/night.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel#Night_(1960)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/elie-wiesel/night/the-absent-no-longer

## More from this book

> "Yisgadal, veyiskadash, shmey raba...May His name be celebrated and sanctified..." whispered my father.
>
> For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/elie-wiesel/night/yisgadal-veyiskadash-shmey.md)

> Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
>
> Never shall I forget that smoke.
>
> Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
>
> Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
>
> Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
>
> Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
>
> Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
>
> Never.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/elie-wiesel/night/never-shall-i-forget.md)

> One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.
>
> From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me.
>
> The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/elie-wiesel/night/one-day-when.md)