“Auschwitz cannot be explained.”

“"Auschwitz cannot be explained." And yet, it doesn’t take a Wittgenstein to notice that the sentence is faulty even from the point of pure linguistic logic;”

“The sentence "Auschwitz cannot be explained" is faulty simply from a formal point of view, for anything that is has an explanation, even if by necessity a merely self-serving faulty, so so explanation.”

“Paradoxes explain everything. Since they do, they cannot be explained.”

“Someday I will understand Auschwitz. This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz.”

“It seemed as impossible to conceive of Auschwitz with God as to conceive of Auschwitz without God. Therefore, everything had to be reassessed because everything had changed. With one stroke, mankind's achievements seemed to have been erased. Was Auschwitz a consequence or an aberration of "civilization"? All we know is that Auschwitz called that civilization into question as it called into question everything that had preceded Auschwitz. Scientific abstraction, social and economic contention, nationalism, xenophobia, religious fanaticism, racism, mass hysteria. All found their ultimate expression in Auschwitz.”

“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.”

“Auschwitz, I told her, appears to me in the image of a father; yes, the two terms, Auschwitz, and father, resonate the same echoes in me, and if the observation is that God is an exalted father, then God, too is revealed to me in the image of Auschwitz.”

“If something has an explanation, you can explain it. If it has no explanation, you should explain why you cannot explain it.”

“Death cannot explain itself. The earnestness consists precisely in this, that the observer must explain it to himself.”