Luis J. Rodriguez Quotes

#1. When you win, we win; but when you go down, you go down alone.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#2. I'm sorry young man but the classes you chose are filled up.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#3. Wich is the ultimate struggle, the one fight really worth fighting.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#4. Vive La Vida LOCA (Live the crazy life)

Luis J. Rodriguez

#5. In order to stay out of trouble I worked in industry. You can't even do that nowadays; there were all those factories.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#6. It doesn't work that way

Luis J. Rodriguez

#7. Cry, child, for those without tears have a grief which never ends.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#8. Oh,you'll get over it ... eventually-la payasa de lomas

Luis J. Rodriguez

#9. Gangs exist when there are lots of empties in a person, in family, in community. It points out how we need to do more to bring real art, passions, teachings, caring, and resources into the emptiness of young peoples' lives.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#10. We need more leaders among our gente - more teachers, politicians, businesspeople, organizers, and such. Turn the energy that many young people are putting into "war" and "death" and put it into life and true justice.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#11. I moved into the garage at my mom's house, she wouldn't let me into the house, and the garage didn't have any running water. It did have electricity though, but it didn't have any running water, no bathroom. But, you know, it was great for me because I had my books there.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#12. There are choices you have to make not just once, but everytime they come up.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#13. Men need to be strong, but not bullies. They need to know how to not get emotionally lost in situations, but not be cold and emotionless. They need to know the full variety of emotions as well as thinking and acting. Not just the most limited ways of doing things.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#14. I was arrested and put in murder's row. They were trying to get me for some murders I didn't do. They had me in a cell next to Charles Manson; he was going to trial at the time. And it was all a row of black and brown guys and one white guy: Charles Manson.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#15. The judge gave me a break. He was like: wow, we've never heard of this. So he gave me time served in the county jail, I didn't even get a felony. I have yet to get a felony, which is so crazy. I think Lindsey Lohan has more felonies than me.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#16. I was kind of a weird homie; I was a weird kid. Nobody in my family loved books. I'm the only one.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#17. Eventually I went back to high school. I went to a coaching center in my neighborhood. I had to leave the homeless situation because it was so bad and I knew that I was falling deeper and deeper.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#18. It is the violent peotry of the times written in the blood of the youth

Luis J. Rodriguez

#19. They say of the poet and the madmn we all have a little

Luis J. Rodriguez

#20. I'm not really anti-gang - I was a gang member and so was my son. I'm pro-youth, pro-community, pro-family, pro-arts, and pro-peace.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#21. go ahead and kill us,we're already dead...

Luis J. Rodriguez

#22. Nobody had books at home. My dad was a very educated person, so he would have books at home. All Spanish books. That helped. Most of my homies had no books at home.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#23. My task is to make you hear,to make you feel ,and ,above all,to make you see,that is all,and it is everything

Luis J. Rodriguez

#24. To go against gangs or drugs is meaningless unless this is mostly done by filling in the empties, the vacuums, and stop the neglect and harm we do as detached, mean, irresponsible adults and communities. The answer is in our hands.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#25. Gangs have always existed - they are primarily a community a young men trying to find intensity, meaning, a path to the outer world (outside of home) that most tribal groupings addressed with rituals, rites of passage, initiation ceremonies. We've lost this knowledge as a culture.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#26. I've always been prepared to write about the hard things. Only for healing, teaching, and enlightening purposes not to hurt or disparage anyone.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#27. Nobody supported me; my family thought I had gone crazy. They thought, you crazy gangster, you crazy drug addict, now you want to be a writer? That's it! They totally gave up on me after that.

Luis J. Rodriguez

#28. Friendship is greater than the colonial and dominating race ideologies of hundreds of years." -"Some of My Best Friends

Luis J. Rodriguez

#29. You dont have solo rights to anything anymore,not even your crazy life

Luis J. Rodriguez

#30. I had to find meaning in it. So I go through this, I see all these homies die; I see all this terrible devastation, people sitting in prison. I've been saved from prison, from death, and from heroine addiction. What am I going to do with that?

Luis J. Rodriguez

#31. You 'will never belive it.

Luis J. Rodriguez