“Most of the time it's not the Europeans who belittle us. What happens when we look at them is that we belittle ourselves. When we undertake the pilgrimage, it's not just to escape the tyranny at home but also to reach to the depths of our souls. The day arrives when the guilty must return to save those who could not find the courage to leave.”

“It's a very brave thing for anyone to do, offering love to another person. We make ourselves so vulnerable when we do it, don't we? We give that other person such power to hurt us and to rob us of our dignity. No one should ever belittle that gift, nor the giver.”

“It's easy to get caught up in how our figures look when we stand naked in front of the mirror. But we must remember that we are more than how we look. We are not boobs who happen to have hearts, minds, and souls; rather, we are souls that just happen to have mounds of flesh protruding from our chests.”

“Who watches over us when we leave?  Who remembers our names when disappear ourselves from home? Who hears the absence of our voices?  Who misses the sound of our stories?”

“We are full of things which take us out of ourselves. Our instinct makes us feel that we must seek our happiness outside ourselves. Our passions impel us outside, even when no objects present themselves to excite them. External objects tempt us of themselves, and call to us, even when we are not thinking of them. And thus philosophers have said in vain, " Retire within yourselves, you will find your good there." We do not believe them, and those who believe them are the most empty and the most foolish.”

“When we struggle for human rights, for freedom, for dignity, when we feel that it is a ministry of the church to concern itself for those who are hungry, for those who have no schools, for those who are deprived, we are not departing from God’s promise. He comes to free us from sin, and the church knows that sin’s consequences are all such injustices and abuses. The church knows it is saving the world when it undertakes to speak also of such things.”