A Quote by Elie Wiesel

I write to understand as much as to be understood.

Elie Wiesel

Quote Topics

Much Understand Understood Write

Quote Author

Elie Wiesel
American - Writer
September 30, 1928 - July 2, 2016

First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.

C. S. Lewis

'It's much better to understand than to be understood,' from my mom.

Cara Santana

Life is such a mystery, no one can understand it, and one who claims that he understands it is simply ignorant. He is not aware of what he is saying, of what nonsense he is talking. If you are wise, this will be the first realization: life cannot be understood. Understanding is impossible. Only this much can be understood - that understanding is impossible.

Rajneesh

Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.

Alain de Botton

We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.

C. Day Lewis

We write to understand our deepest secrets to ourselves, to understand. We write in an outpouring of love. We write in secret, either for publication or for a journal no one will see, or we write poems to be privately printed for the eyes of friends alone - this is not our choice. The urge is to create. The outcome belongs to God.

Sophy Burnham

Mexico is a very complex, mysterious country. I will never understand it fully, and that's why I write so much about it, in order to try to understand it.

Carlos Fuentes

We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.' What is that, grandmother?' To understand other people.' Yes, grandmother. I must be fair - for if I'm not fair to other people, I'm not worth being understood myself. I see.

George MacDonald

In my lifetime I was to write only one book, this would be the one. Just as the past Lingers in the present, all my writings after night, including those that deal with biblical, Talmudic, or Hasidic themes, profoundly bear it's stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works. Why did I write it? Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of the madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind?

Elie Wiesel

I'm sorry,' said the shopkeeper. 'I can't understand your ridiculous accent.' 'My accent?' 'It is quite silly.' 'So you can't understand me?' 'Not a word.' 'Then how did you understand that?' 'I didn't.' ''You didn't understand what I just said?' 'That's right.' 'You understood that, though.' 'Not at all.' The American glowered.

Derek Landy

When I meet with any persons who write obscurely or converse confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things; first, that such persons do not understand themselves; and secondly, that they are not worthy of being understood by others.

Charles Caleb Colton

You know, I used to not understand fashion, a lot of it, but I completely understood being a playwright or a screenwriter and suddenly having an actor say your words and making them come to life. That I can understand. Finally, I'm starting to understand this.

Reese Witherspoon

When I was a young man, I understood that poetry was two things - it was difficult to understand, but you could understand that the poet was miserable. So for a while there, I wrote poems that were hard to understand, even by me, but gave off whiffs of misery.

Billy Collins

Thoroughly understand what it is to understand, and not only will you understand the broad lines of all there is to be understood but also you will possess a fixed base, an invariant pattern, opening upon all further developments of understanding.

Bernard Lonergan

As much as a man would like to believe that he understands women, there is simply that much that he can write from their point of view or really understand them.