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

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

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

" I don't believe in mistakes. Everything belongs, and, as the homies say, 'It's all good.' "

" 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. "

" The business of second chances is everybody's business. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" The highest hallmark of a civilized society is not the rapidity by which it exacts vengeance, but its ability to hold victim and victimizer in its compassionate heart. "

" 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. "

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

" What do we know to be true about gang violence? We know we will fail if we fixate on the symptoms and not address what undergirds it. "

" Gangs are bastions of conditional love, and one of the ways to counteract it is to offer community, which will always trump gang, and that's what happens at Homeboy Industries. "

" I think not everything that works helps, and not everything that helps works. "

" I wouldn't trade my life for anybody's. "

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

" 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.' "

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" 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've never met an evil person ever. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" Businesses have come and gone at Homeboy Industries. We have had starts and stops, but anything worth doing is worth failing at. We started Homeboy Plumbing. That didn't go so well. Who knew? People didn't want gang members in their homes. I just didn't see that coming. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" If you are paying attention, then the day is going to be pretty joyful, and a lot of delight will fill it. "