Helen Prejean Quotes & Sayings

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

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

Do they deserve to die?" but "Do we deserve to kill them? — Helen Prejean

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

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? — Helen Prejean

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

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

Nonviolence and nonaggression are generally regarded as interchangeable concepts - King and Gandhi frequently used them that way - but nonviolence, as employed by Gandhi in India and by King in the American South, might reasonably be viewed as a highly disciplined form of aggression. If one defines aggression in the primary dictionary sense of "attack," nonviolent resistance proved to be the most powerful attack imaginable on the powers King and Gandhi were trying to overturn. The writings of both men are filled with references to love as a powerful force against oppression, and while the two leaders were not using the term" force" in the military sense, they certainly regarded nonviolence as a tactical weapon as well as an expression of high moral principle." Susan Jacoby (p. 196) — Helen Prejean

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

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

I tell myself that I had simply better accept the fact that the death penalty is here to stay in our society, at least for a while, and there is nothing I can do about it. Maybe, in time- after how many executions? - people will come to realize the futility of randomly selecting a few people to die each year. — Helen Prejean

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) — Helen Prejean

Don't you miss having a man? Don't you want to get married?"
He [Patrick Sonnier] is simple and direct. I'm simple and direct back.
I tell him that even as a young woman I didn't want to marry one man and have one family, I always wanted a wider arena for my love. But intimacy means a lot to me, I tell him. "I have close friends - men and women. I couldn't make it without intimacy."
"Yeah?" he says.
"Yeah," I say. "But there's a costly side to celibacy, too, a deep loneliness sometimes. There are moments, especially on Sunday afternoons, when I smell the smoke in the neighborhood from family barbecues, and feel like a fool not to have pursued a "normal" life. But, then, I've figured out that loneliness is part of everyone's life, part of being human - the private, solitary part of us that no one else can touch." (p. 127) — Helen Prejean

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

Remorse presupposes enough self-forgetfulness to feel the pain ofothers. — Helen Prejean

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

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

Well, ma'am that's hard to do because Vernon Harvey keeps holding these press conferences, mouthin' off about how he can't wait to see me fry. Personally, I think the guy is his own worst enemy. He just needs to let it go, man. The girl's dead now, and there's nothin' he can do to bring her back. Even watchin' me fry ain't gonna bring her back, but he won't let it go and he's just makin' himself miserable, in my opinion. — Helen Prejean

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

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

There are spaces of sorrow only God can touch. — Helen Prejean

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

In sorting out my feelings and beliefs, there is, however, one piece of moral ground of which I am absolutely certain: if I were to be murdered I would not want my murderer executed. I would not want my death avenged. Especially by government
which can't be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill. — Helen Prejean

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

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

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

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

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

When people of color are killed in the inner city, when homeless people are killed, when the "nobodies" are killed, district attorneys do not seek to avenge their deaths. Black, Hispanic, or poor families who have a loved one murdered not only don't expect the district attorney's office to pursue the death penalty -which, of course, is both costly and time consuming- but are surprised when the case is prosecuted at all. — Helen Prejean

People are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives — Helen Prejean

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

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