Top 116 Quotes & Sayings by Greg Boyle - Page 2

Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez - these are people whose thoughts are so important.

The highest religious and spiritual ideals of any faith would invite us to a compassion for all lives destroyed by the violence that plagues us.

I want to be prophetic and take stands and stand with those on the margins, and I want to laugh as much as I can.

I didn't take my vows to the LAPD.

I know now that gang warfare is not the Middle East or Northern Ireland. There is violence in gang violence, but there is no conflict. It is not 'about something.' It is the language of the despondent and traumatized.

The employer is not going to choose the gang member who's just been released from prison: they're going to choose the person with the skills.

I'm not opposed to success.

People have started to see that 'smart on crime' rather than 'tough on crime' makes sense.

Me wanting a gang member to have a different life would never be the same as that gang member wanting to have one.

You don't really get Jesus saying very often there'll be pie in the sky when you die. He's really talking about now and today, and it's supposed to be like that. You're supposed to delight in what's right in front of you.

So complex are all the ingredients that cause gang membership that it seems virtually impossible to isolate one solution that can address them all and thereby manufacture a hope for the future upon which these kids can rely.

The idea that any law enforcement agency or person would ever know these gang members better than Homeboy Industries is impossible.

We need a pope to usher in a new era of inclusion, the end of a sinful clericalism, and a strong sense of duty to those on society's margins. The 1 billion faithful long for a leader who is fearless and driven - not by terror but by love.

We don't need a specialized gang unit. We need patrol officers who specialize in knowing their community.

People have to see that there is a high degree of complexity about belonging to a gang. It's a symptom, not a problem.

The business of second chances is everybody's business.

Most employers just aren't willing to look beyond the dumbest or worst thing someone has done.

Young people can change and grow. Every parent knows that.

In my barrio, jobs work and money saves lives. When I have had the funds to place a gang member on a job site and pay his salary, I've seen him stop banging. When, on the rarest of occasions, an employer has offered a job to one of these youth, I've witnessed kids suddenly have a reason to get up in the morning.

The powers, conditions, and desires that propel Mexicans and Central Americans into this country are so fundamental, so vast, that no action, legislative or other-wise, can discourage this flight.

I work with gang members, and I feel a kind of affinity and gift, even. But who would've thunk it, you know? I mean, I didn't anticipate it.

We can't just settle for the low bar of pope as media-savvy, canny Curia manager.

It has become an accepted tenet that kids will rarely listen to their parents but seldom fail to imitate them. Communicating the message has never been a good substitute for 'showing up' and embodying the message.

I know two L.A.s. Half my life was around the house my folks had for 46 years at 3rd and Norton. The other half was in Boyle Heights on the Eastside, working with gang members.

Most citizens viewing the tape of Rodney G. King being beaten by police officers were stunned and uncomprehending. Most citizens, that is, but the urban poor.

I feel called to be faithful.

Kids are different from adults. They are not as developed as far as brain science, controlling impulses, and maturity, and fall prey to all kinds of pressures.

The Church should say, 'I'm frightened that women will be ordained;' that's honest, say that. But don't say, 'It's a grave sin,' because that's nonsense.

Relapse happens, especially when you're dealing with folks who are frankly the least likely to succeed based on their own pasts and difficulties. We can work with the most likely to succeed. I'm not interested in that.

God seems to be an unwilling participant in our efforts to pigeonhole Him.

I spent the summers of 1984 and 1985 as an associate pastor at Dolores Mission Church, the poorest parish in the Los Angeles archdiocese. In 1986, I became pastor of the church.

I have never seen a hopeful person join a gang.

We need a pope to oversee not simply a modernization of the church but its total transformation.

Children find themselves adrift not because the informational signposts are illegible, but because there is no one around to guide and accompany them.

The power of community policing is in the relationship. This can happen only if an officer sticks around for a while.

Jesus did not only serve the needs of the people, but truly hoped that the people and Jesus would be one.

We can't get at crime unless we know what language it speaks. Otherwise, we are just suppressing the cough, not curing the disease.

The church needs a pope who can call us to conversion and lead us to take seriously what Jesus did.

What is ultimately compelling for our children in helping them conjure images of a future for themselves is our willingness to walk with them as they do it.

We ought not to demonize a single gang member, and we ought not to romanticize a single gang.

My church is in the detention facilities where I preside and celebrate the Eucharist. To me that's the church. That's the people of God.

I'm not going to be here forever. I don't plan on going anywhere, but I don't know anybody for whom death is an exception.

At its best, an injunction creates a kind of vigilant heat that moves kids toward the light.

Anyone who knows gangs knows that lawmakers cannot conceive of a law that would lead a hard-core gang member to 'think twice.'

The arms of God reach to embrace, and somehow you feel yourself just outside God's fingertips.

I founded Homeboy Industries in 1988 after I buried my first young person killed in our streets because of gang violence.

I think that any program that's born from below rather than on high is going to survive.

We are among the handful of countries that has difficulty distinguishing juveniles from adults where crime is concerned. We are convinced that if a child commits an adult crime, that kid is magically transformed into an adult. Consequently, we try juveniles as adults.

In Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world, we have 1,100 gangs and 120,000 gang members so it is a daunting, complex social dilemma.

Gangs are born of a lethal absence of hope, and hope has an address: 130 W. Bruno St. in Los Angeles, CA 90012.

We are less than honest and commit a grave error if we insist that what happened to Rodney G. King was isolated and an exceptional case. The poor know better.

If the Los Angeles Police Department had enough officers, it could focus on one part of the community and stay there long enough to know and respect the people the officers are called on to protect and serve.

Close both eyes see with the other one. Then we are no longer saddled by the burden of our persistent judgments our ceaseless withholding our constant exclusion. Our sphere has widened and we find ourselves quite unexpectedly in a new expansive location in a place of endless acceptance and infinite love.

If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives.

God can get tiny, if we're not careful.

Even gang members imagine a future that doesnt include gangs.