Quotes from Helen Prejean

There are spaces of sorrow only God can touch.

Mercy is "stronger and more God-like than vengeance".

When you try, God is there and you get the grace you need to get you through.

I realize that I cannot stand by silently as my government executes its citizens. If I do not speak out and resist, I am an accomplice.

Lavish love on others receive it gratefully when it come to you. Cultivate friendship like a garden. It is the best love of all.

people are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives

There are spaces of sorrow only God can touch.

Patrick had asked why people wanted to kill Mr. Sonnier. Because they say he killed people, Bill had answered. But, Dad, Patrick had asked, then who is going to kill them for killing him? (p. 60)

It would take me a long time to understand how systems inflict pain and hardship in people's lives and to learn that being kind in an unjust system is not enough.

Writing is like praying, because you stop all other activities, descend into silence, and listen patiently to the depths of your soul, waiting for true words to come. When they do, you thank God because you know the words are a gift, and you write them down as honestly and cleanly as you can.

if we believe that murder is wrong and not admissible in our society, then it has to be wrong for everyone, not just individuals but governments as well. And I end by challenging people to ask themselves whether we can continue to allow the government, subject as it is to every imaginable form of inefficiency and corruption, to have such power to kill. (p. 130)

I keep thinking of the gifts of my own upbringing, which I once took for granted: I can read any book I choose and comprehend it. I can write a complete sentence and punctuate it correctly. If I need help, I can call on judges, attorneys, educators, ministers. I wonder what I would be like if I had grown up without such protections and supports. What cracks would have turned up in my character?

The death penalty costs too much. Allowing our government to kill citizens compromises the deepest moral values upon which this country was conceived: the inviolable dignity of human persons. (p. 197)

there's no such thing as being apolitical. If we sit back and do nothing, leaving all the policy making to others, that is, in fact, a position of support for the status quo, which is a very political stance to take.

Who killed this man [Patrick Sonnier]? Nobody. Everybody can argue that he or she was just doing a job - the governor, the warden, the head of the Department of Corrections, the district attorney, the judge, the jury, the Pardon Board, the witnesses to the execution. Nobody feels personally responsible for the death of this man. (p. 101)

If we believe that murder is wrong and not admissible in our society, then it has to be wrong for everyone, not just individuals but governments as well.

I guess when you're not awake, you're not awake. Waking up to the suffering of people who are different from us is a long process, and has a whole lot to do with what community we belong to and whose consciousness and life experiences impact our own on a daily basis. I have a hunch I'm going to be waking up until the moment I die.

I'm taking a fresh look at the American Dream and who gets to live it and who doesn't.

I watch what I'm doing to see what I believe.

The prospect that a person will be killed according to the policy he promulgates prompts the [priest] to urge clemency, an incomprehensible position logically.

It is easy to forgive the innocent. It is the guilty who test our morality. People are more than the worst thing they have ever done.

My wife, she's a good Christian woman, and she supports the death penalty, and believe me, you can't find a better Christian

People are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives.

We are not the worst moments of our lives. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking.