Thomas Keneally Quotes

“Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”

Thomas Keneally book Schindler's Ark

Source: Schindler's List

“Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't”

Thomas Keneally

“The principle was, death should not be entered like some snug harbor. It should be an unambiguous refusal to surrender.”

Thomas Keneally book Schindler's Ark

Source: Schindler's List

“In times like these, he said, it must be hard for the churches to go on telling people that their Heavenly Father cared about the death of even a single sparrow. He'd hate to be a priest, Herr Schindler said, in an era like this, when life did not have the value of a packet of cigarettes. Stern agreed but suggested, in the spirit of the discussion, that the Biblical reference Herr Schindler had made could be summed up by a Talmudic verse which said that he who saves the life of one man, saves the entire world.”

Thomas Keneally book Schindler's Ark

The references are to Matthew 10:29 (or Luke 12:6) and Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:8 (37a).
Source: Schindler's Ark (1982), Ch. 2.

“The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All round its cramped margins lies the gulf.”

Thomas Keneally book Schindler's Ark

Source: Schindler's Ark (1982), Ch. 31.

“Fatal human malice is the staple of narrators, original sin the mother-fluid of historians. But it is a risky enterprise to have to write of virtue.”

Thomas Keneally book Schindler's Ark

Prologue.
Schindler's Ark (1982)