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" 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. "

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" For over twenty years, Homeboy Industries has chosen to stand with those on the margins and those whose burdens are more than they can bear; it stands with the poor and the powerless, with the easily-despised and the readily-left out. "

" I do believe in lessons learned. I have learned that you work with gang members and not with gangs; otherwise, you enforce the cohesion of gangs and supply them oxygen. "

" Don't forget, you are the hero of your own story. "

" I would hope that government officials have a healthy respect for the complexity of the gang problem. They should never lose sight of the fact that there are human beings involved. There is no single solution. "

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

" The draconian spirit that seeks to enhance penalties and to lower the age at which juveniles will be tries as adults, is part of the 'whole cloth' of three strikes. Our failure to address the depair of our inner-city youth is only delayed by our over-confidence in a stance that is 'tougher than thou.' "

" You stand with the least likely to succeed until success is succeeded by something more valuable: kinship. You stand with the belligerent, the surly and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

" I kinda don't do guilt. I gave it up for Lent years ago. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I'm the priest who has been mistaken for an ATM machine. "

" Homeboy Industries has chosen to stand with the 'demonized' so that the demonizing will stop; it stands with the 'disposable' so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away. "

" The wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be lives out there that matter less than other lives. "

" Showing up in the lives of children is everything. "

" We need the disruption of categories that lead us to abandon the difficult, the disagreeable, and the least likely to go very far. "

" Gang members aren't frightened into acceptable behavior by increased penalties, enhanced punishments, and the promise of new detention facilities. "

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

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

" No kid is seeking anything when he joins a gang; he's always fleeing something. He's not being pulled; he's being pushed by the circumstances in which he finds himself. "

" I'm not always optimistic, but I am hopeful. "

" 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. "

" I love movies. "

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

" 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. "