Helen Prejean Quotes

#1. 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)

Helen Prejean

#2. Allowing our government to kill citizens compromises the deepest moral values upon which this country was conceived: the inviolable dignity of human persons.

Helen Prejean

#3. 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.

Helen Prejean

#4. no government is ever innocent enough or wise enough or just enough to lay claim to so absolute a power as death. (p. 21)

Helen Prejean

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

Helen Prejean

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

Helen Prejean

#7. 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.

Helen Prejean

#8. I saw the suffering and I let myself feel it ... I saw the injustice and was compelled to do something about it. I changed from being a nun who only prayed for the suffering world to a woman with my sleeves rolled up, living my prayer.

Helen Prejean

#9. There are spaces of sorrow only God can touch.

Helen Prejean

#10. The death penalty is a poor person's issue. Always remember that: after all the rhetoric that goes on in the legislative assemblies, in the end, when the deck is cast out, it is the poor who are selected to die in this country.

Helen Prejean

#11. I stand morally opposed to killing: war, executions, killing of the old and demented, the killing of children, unborn and born. . . . I believe that all of life is sacred and must be protected, especially in the vulnerable stages at the beginning of life and its end.

Helen Prejean

#12. Remorse presupposes enough self-forgetfulness to feel the pain ofothers.

Helen Prejean

#13. The movement to abolish the death penalty needs the religious community because the heart of religion is about compassion, human rights, and the indivisible dignity of each human person made in the image of God.

Helen Prejean

#14. 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)

Helen Prejean

#15. 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.

Helen Prejean

#16. If you are going to do something for the poor, the abused, or the imprisoned, above all be faithful. People with broken lives often come from lives with broken promises.

Helen Prejean

#17. The important thing is that when you come to understand something you act on it, no matter how small that act is. Eventually it will take you where you need to go.

Helen Prejean

#18. Once you inject fear into a society of people, they become more and more afraid because they don't cross over the neighbourhoods and the only information they get about other people is through the media.

Helen Prejean

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

Helen Prejean

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

Helen Prejean

#21. Time rushes by and yet time is frozen. Funny how we get so exact about time at the end of life and at its beginning. She died at 6:08 or 3:46, we say, or the baby was born at 4:02. But in between we slosh through huge swatches of time
weeks, months, years, decades even.

Helen Prejean

#22. Do they deserve to die?" but "Do we deserve to kill them?

Helen Prejean

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

Helen Prejean

#24. 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.

Helen Prejean