Quotes About Hope

Despite everything, he likes being alive.

I've seen bad things, too," he assures her. "Yeah?" He nods. "I guess you wouldn't be on top of this train if you hadn't.

Lydia knows she's increased their chances of survival. She needs to take encouragement where she can find it. She mustn't despair at the enormity of the task yet ahead. She should focus only on the immediate next steps.

He can prolong the moment of irrational hope that maybe some sliver of yesterday's world is still intact.

Only one out of three will make it to your destination alive. Will it be you?" He points at a man in his fifties with a neatly trimmed beard and a fresh T-shirt.

She's wondered with the sort of detached fascination of the comfortable elite how dire the conditions of their lives must be wherever they come from, that this is the better option. That these people would leave their homes, their cultures, their families, even their languages, and venture into tremendous peril, risking their very lives, all for the chance to get to the dream of some faraway country that doesn't even want them.

That love is so vast I sometimes fear it," he said. "I can never hope to earn it, so I fear it will disappear, it will consume me. And at the same time, it's the only good thing I've ever done in my life.

Every one of them, once or twice at least, every one of them despairs. The only thought that sustains them is the notion that each moment they endure this misery is one less moment they have yet to endure.

The worst will either happen or not happen, and there's no worry that will make a difference in either direction.

Hope cannot survive the poison of her recent proof: the world is a terrible place. San Pedro Sula was terrible, Mexico is terrible, el norte will be terrible. Even her gold-dappled memories of the cloud forest are beginning to rot and decay.

Everything we've been through?" Soledad says. "It'll all be worth it. We'll leave it behind and have a new beginning." Rebeca looks at the floor but her eyes are unfocused. "Like it never happened," she says. They

So we're leaving today, Papi. We are already gone. And you must be very careful and look after yourself, please. We are taking you with us in our hearts, and we will call you when we get to el norte, Papi. And we'll send for you when we have jobs, and you can come to us, and you can bring Mami and Abuela, too, and we will all be together again as it is meant to be.

for every wickedness, there is an equal and opposite possibility of redemption.

She's donated money. She's wondered with the sort of detached fascination of the comfortable elite how dire the conditions of their lives must be wherever they come from, that this is the better option. That these people would leave their homes, their cultures, their families, even their languages, and venture into tremendous peril, risking their very lives, all for the chance to get to the dream of some faraway country that doesn't even want them.

he can put off knowing what he already knows. He can prolong the moment of irrational hope that maybe some sliver of yesterday's world is still intact.

When at last they begin to move, instead of happiness or relief, they all feel a tentative, miniature suspension of dread.

There are twenty-three migrants here, and despair has settled into their features like a powdery dust.

into tremendous peril, risking their very lives, all for the chance to get to the dream of some faraway country that doesn't even want them.

Era la sed y el hambre, y tú fuiste la fruta. Era el duelo y las ruinas, y tú fuiste el milagro. —Pablo Neruda, "La canción desesperada

Luis Alberto Urrea, Óscar Martínez, Sonia Nazario, Jennifer Clement, Aída Silva Hernández, Rafael Alarcón, Valeria Luiselli, and Reyna Grande.

Pero no te preocupes, mi reina del alma—tu sufrimiento será breve.

that life was exciting, that there was always the possibility of something, or someone, previously undiscovered.

this is the one thing all migrants have in common, this is the solidarity that exists among them, though they all come from different places and different circumstances, some urban, some rural, some middle-class, some poor, some well educated, some illiterate, Salvadoran, Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Indian, each of them carries some story of suffering on top of that train and into el norte beyond.

migra. When has she ever