Home > Work > The Choice / The Librarian of Auschwitz / The Child of Auschwitz
1 " It’s a dangerous game to play what-if with the past. "
― Edith Eger , The Choice / The Librarian of Auschwitz / The Child of Auschwitz
2 " Before you say or do something, ask, Is it kind? Is it important? Does it help? "
3 " I was having a flashback, that the unnerving physical sensations—racing heart, sweaty palms, narrowing vision—I experienced that day (and that I will continue to experience many times in my life, even now, in my late eighties) are automatic responses to trauma. This is why I now object to pathologizing post-traumatic stress by calling it a disorder. It’s not a disordered reaction to trauma—it’s a common and natural one. But I wish I had known that I wasn’t a damaged person, that I was suffering the fallout of an interrupted life. "
4 " … running away doesn’t heal pain. It makes the pain worse. "
5 " When we buried my child, you told me two things that I’ve never forgotten. You said, ‘Life will be good again.’ And you said, ‘If you can survive this, you can survive anything.’ I’ve said those phrases to myself over and over. "
6 " … feelings, no matter how powerful, aren’t fatal. And they are temporary. Suppressing the feelings only makes it harder to let them go. Expression is the opposite of depression. "
7 " All your ecstasy in life is going to come from the inside "
8 " … to be free is to live in the present. If we are stuck in the past, saying, ‘If only I had gone there instead of here,’ or ‘If only I had married someone else,’ we are living in a prison of our own making. Likewise. if we spend our time in the future, saying, ‘I won’t be happy until I graduate,’ or ‘I won’t be happy until I find the right person.’ The only place where we can exercise our freedom of choice is in the present. "
9 " There are an infinite number of things you could have done differently in your life. Those choices are done, the past is gone, nothing can change that. "
10 " It’s important to assign blame to the perpetrators. Nothing is gained if we close our eyes to wrong, if we give someone a pass, if we dismiss accountability. But as my fellow survivors taught me, you can live to avenge the past, or you can live to enrich the present. You can live in the prison of the past, or you can let the past be the springboard that helps you reach the life you want now. "
