Quotes & Sayings About Colombia

We have a bad image in the world, I've got to admit. I just want people to think twice about Colombia. Don't go by the first impression. — Camilo Villegas

Marquez was not born in Colombia.
He was born in Macondo,
And his Macondo is his La Mancha. — Dejan Stojanovic

Suppose that the US really is trying to get rid of drugs in Colombia. Does Colombia then have the right to fumigate tobacco farms in Kentucky? They are producing a lethal substance far more dangerous than cocaine. More Colombians die from tobacco-related illnesses than Americans die from cocaine. Of course, Colombia has no right to do that. — Noam Chomsky

Colombians might live in one of best places in the world to grow coffee beans, yet their cups of coffee come from dehydrated granules in tiny plastic packages. This is the definition of tragedy. — Bryanna Plog

She calls herself Fleet 'cause she used to be a flute player, back in the day. BC, you know?"
"British Colombia?"
He looked sad. "No, Before Crack. — Nalo Hopkinson

We've built six schools in Colombia and do work in South Africa and Haiti. We teach 5,000 students. — Shakira

I prefer to be in the grave in Colombia than in a jail cell in the United States. — Pablo Escobar

And the art was in every corner and wall ... a Mural of the Century of Progress in Colombia South America is rich in detail, painted by a student of the Fine Arts Academy of Chicago named Santiago Martinez; a name to remember ... — Santiago Martinez Delgado

Working with kids in Soweto in South Africa, it's rough out there. But the bottom line is you've got to go to know. In Cambodia, there are 10,000 landmines. Same in Afghanistan, same in Colombia. I'm totally addicted to traveling. — Quincy Jones

In Colombia, education is sometimes considered a luxury, not a human right. And it's not a priority in the agendas of many leaders. — Shakira

In Colombia today we have 16% of the population, which is a very small amount of the population owning 90% of the land and 20 years ago it wasn't like that. — Ingrid Betancourt

It was apparent that the ladies vying to be Miss Colombia had to first go through a stringent competition of poise, talent, and debate on who had the best abs and biggest breasts to win the right to represent their department. They received lots of cheers from the crowds - and lots of open stares from all the police guarding the boulevard. — Bryanna Plog

Europe would be well advised to pay more attention to Latin America. The emerging economies are the engines of the global economy. Colombia has done too little to improve its reputation in Europe. — Juan Manuel Santos

Amnesty International, which was opening its yearlong campaign to protect human rights defenders in Colombia in response to the country's horrifying record of attacks against human rights and labor activists and mostly the usual victims of state terror: the poor and defenseless. — Noam Chomsky

I'm a really big advocate of ethical fashion. I actually have a travelling boutique called Maison de Mode, which is all about ethical fashion. I also like Maiyet from Paris. They're very Celine-esque in their silhouettes. I love their back story, too: they work with orphans in Colombia and India. — Amanda Hearst

Hallucinatory - that's just the way everyday life is, in Colombia. All the time, you say to yourself, did I just see that? — Barbet Schroeder

Political events are part of everyday life [in Colombia], so art and politics came to me as a natural thing, something that has been very much present in my life from the start. — Doris Salcedo

The problem was that Panama technically belonged to Colombia, which refused to sign a treaty leasing it to the United States. So Roosevelt sent a gunboat filled with marines down to Panama, just on the off chance that a revolution might suddenly break out, and darned if one didn't, two days later. Not only that, but the leaders of the new nation of Panama-talk about lucky breaks!-were absolutely thrilled to have the United States build a canal there. 'Really, it's our pleasure,' they told the marines, adding, 'Don't shoot.' — Dave Barry

Whatever America needs, the world will supply. Cocaine? Colombia steps to the plate. Shortage of farmworkers, corn detasselers? Thank God for Mexico. Baseball players? Viva Dominica. Need more interns? India, Philippines zindabad!" I — Abraham Verghese

With that in mind, Luke closed his eyes and thought determinedly of Dominic's smile. The next morning, his father's helicopter crashed in Colombia. — Alessandra Hazard

Einstein said if somebody time and again does something, or tries to do something, with the same negative results, and continues to insist on doing so, then he's a fool. This strategy carried out, applied by the United States in Colombia, has been a total failure. — Rafael Correa

Between 1831 and 1891, US armed forces - usually the Marines - invaded Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Brazil, Haiti, Argentina, and Chile a total of thirty-one times, a fact not many of us are informed about in school. The Marines intermittently occupied Nicaragua form 1909 to 1933, Mexico from 1914 to 1919, and Panama from 1903 to 1914. To 'restore order' the Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, killing over two thousand Haitians who resisted 'pacification.' — Michael Parenti

Suppose that, say, China established military bases in Colombia to carry out chemical warfare in Kentucky and North Carolina to destroy this lethal crop [tobacco] that is killing huge numbers of Chinese. — Noam Chomsky

A Colombia without coca and without conflict was an impossible dream just a few years or decades ago, and today I can tell you it is a real possibility. Just imagine it. We have already begun discussion of the last two substantive points: victims and the end of the conflict. — Juan Manuel Santos

The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador attain liberty, and inspired our forefathers to shed their blood for the United States' independence, cannot die. Today, this spirit of solidarity must and will empower all of us to rebuild Haiti. — Jean-Bertrand Aristide

We have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. Our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and maintain social stability for our investments. This tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and Peru. Increasingly the role our nation has taken is the role of those who refuse to give up the privileges and pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment. — Martin Luther King Jr.

In Colombia, where I was born and raised, women like my mother considered their appearance and personal grooming a matter of principle. There was never an occasion where she didn't show up looking picture-perfect. — Nina Garcia

Colombia is in a risky position. They've got a peace process that's going nowhere, and a drug production problem that's skyrocketing. — Barry McCaffrey

Colombia's advance to first rank among the criminal states in "our little region" is in part the result of the decline in US-managed state terror in Central America, which achieved its primary aims as in Turkey 10 years later, leaving in its wake a "culture of terror" that "domesticat[es] the expectations of the majority" and undermines aspirations towards "alternatives different to those of the powerful," in the words of Salvadoran Jesuits, who learned the lessons from bitter experience; those who survived the US assault, that is. — Noam Chomsky

I felt the calling to serve my country. My parents came to the United States from Mexico and Colombia, and this country treated them well. It gave my sisters and me the opportunity to get an education and succeed. I wanted to repay my country for how they treated my family and ensure that our values and freedom are intact for future generations. — Ruben Gallego

I realized that I hated politics. I mean that is you know ... I realized being in the jungle that what I had thought I could do, I mean changing the way politics were being done in Colombia, was not possible the way I wanted to do it - by confronting, by denouncing. — Ingrid Betancourt

I've been following what's happening in Colombia because it's the country of my childhood. — Barbet Schroeder

I was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, and I came to attend high school in Massachusetts when I was about 15 years old. — Nina Garcia

Listen, I didn't know how to make coffee when I came to the United States. Because in Colombia the maids do it. — Sofia Vergara

If you liked El Salvador, you're going to love Colombia. It's the same death squads, the same military aid, and the same whitewash from Washington. — Carlos Salinas De Gortari

B.C. sat back in his chair. Whatever America needs, the world will supply. Cocaine? Colombia steps to the plate. Shortage of farmworkers, corn detasselers? Thank God for Mexico. Baseball players? Viva Dominicana. Need more interns? India, Philippines zindabad — Abraham Verghese

Am I good enough to be No. 1? Sure, but who's gonna break Tiger's legs? I want to be the best. Can I? Oh, believe me, I will be trying. Hard. You grow up in Colombia, and everything is limited. Then, I come here, and you have everything. A trainer, nutritionist, coach. I'm very lucky. Many doors open, and I have a path to take. — Camilo Villegas

Travelling to make television programmes means I have some unusual food memories. In Pasto, Colombia, I was taken to a restaurant where I chose my meat for the evening from a cage of white rats. It tasted perfectly good - like rabbit. — Jonathan Dimbleby

I am trying to make my accent so it won't bother anyone, but I am not going to drive myself crazy trying to pretend I am an American girl when I am from Colombia. — Shakira

No one can feel as the owner of the country and no one can feel excluded from the right of property. We must all suffer Colombia. — Alvaro Uribe

People are not depressed in Colombia the same way people are in America. — Shakira

The left is being funded primarily by the drug traffickers who provide this tax money and that's why the guerrillas in Colombia, unlike the guerrillas anywhere else in Latin America, have been able to survive for 40 years because they have a hard, solid source of income. — Alma Guillermoprieto

What we have in Colombia is a war against the poor and the guerillas from the left side are against the poor. — Ingrid Betancourt

May God fill this beautiful land of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador with his peace and love. — Juan Luis Guerra

Colombia has a huge variety of plant and animal species, and we have enormous potential. Small and mid-sized companies should come to Colombia. From here, they have access to the entire Latin American market. — Juan Manuel Santos

I just want to serve Colombia. — Alvaro Uribe

In Colombia maybe 95% of the population follow Formula One. It's crazy. — Juan Pablo Montoya

Colombia has been the leading western recipient of U.S. arms and training as violence has grown through the '90s. — Noam Chomsky

Those in Argentina, Mexico and Peru,
Colombia and the Caribbean
Bear La Mancha and Quixote in their hearts
For he is an ultimate and overlooked Don Juan. — Dejan Stojanovic

As nearly two dozen Secret Service agents and members of the military were punished or fired following a 2012 prostitution scandal in Colombia, Obama administration officials repeatedly denied that anyone from the White House was involved. — Carol D. Leonnig

I started the Pies Descalzos foundation in Colombia when I was 18, and since then I have been very involved in the crusade for education. — Shakira

Everything within takes place after Jack died and before my mom and I drowned in a burning ferry in the cool tannin-tinted Guaviare River, in east-central Colombia, with forty-two locals we hadn't yet met. It was a clear and eyeblue day, that day, as was the first day of this story, a few years ago in January, on Chicago's North Side, in the opulent shadow of Wrigley and with the wind coming low and searching off the jagged half-frozen lake. — Dave Eggers

The international community has to overcome its differences and find solutions to the conflicts of today in South Sudan, Syria, Central African Republic and elsewhere. Non-traditional donors need to step up alongside traditional donors. As many people are forcibly displaced today as the entire populations of medium-to-large countries such as Colombia or Spain, South Africa or South Korea, — Antonio Guterres

So what if those stupid roosters don't want to crow?
If we've learned to live without men, we can learn to live without cocks. — James Canon

stepping out of the airport into coastal Colombia is like getting bludgeoned with a sack of wet laundry. — Brian Kevin

Like Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Paraguay and others, Mexico believes that we should evaluate internationally agreed upon policies and search for a more effective and comprehensive response — Jose Antonio Meade Kuribrena

When you have a strong conservative streak in your society," Zeyk would say, "which detaches itself from the progressive streak, that's when you get the worst kinds of civil wars. As in the conflict in Colombia that they called La Violencia, for instance. A civil war that became a complete breakdown of the state, a chaos that no one could understand, much less control. — Kim Stanley Robinson

There is no logical basis for the prohibition of marijuana. $7.7 billion is a lot of money, but that is one of the lesser evils. Our failure to successfully enforce these laws is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Colombia. I haven't even included the harm to young people. It's absolutely disgraceful to think of picking up a 22-year-old for smoking pot. More disgraceful is the denial of marijuana for medical purposes. — Milton Friedman

When we first invested in Colombia, we were buying a lot of coal from Colombia. We were dealing with them daily. I knew their guys at the port, I knew their guys at the mine, I had a feel of the country. — Ivan Glasenberg

Bye, bye! I'm from Colombia! I'm Sofia Vergara! — Giuliana Rancic

I grew up with a lot of exiles from Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Colombia - I grew up with them, and I gained a family; I gained friends. — Gael Garcia Bernal

Ecuador has about 700 kilometers of border with Colombia, and a lot of it is impenetrable jungle. — Rafael Correa

I remember in 2000, when President Clinton came to Cartagena just before Plan Colombia started, the country was on the verge of becoming a failed state. Today, we are one of the most solid democracies, where institutions are working, where the scandals such as false positives have come to light because of those functioning institutions. — Juan Manuel Santos

I don't think anyone would look at Colombia today and say that it is failing. This positive outcome is an example of the effective application of smart power - it is succeeding. — James G. Stavridis

Democracy is like three oxen pulling a plough. The oxen are the independent powers, but you have to walk in the same direction; otherwise, you cannot plough and that is what was happening in Colombia. One ox was walking in one direction, the other in another direction, so the democracy was not working. — Juan Manuel Santos

We expect 'Narcos' will be an enormous success throughout everywhere in the world and maybe out-index in Latin America, given the Brazilian star and Brazilian director and heavy Latin American cast and that we shot the show entirely on location in Colombia. — Ted Sarandos

I started the 1998 World Cup with Teddy Sheringham up front but always planned for Michael Owen to face Colombia in our final group game because they defended square and a quick striker would be able to exploit the space behind them. — Glenn Hoddle

Free trade with Colombia is something that's a no-brainer. — John McCain

Drugs flow as effortlessly through the harbour as through los esteros, but the government and the DEA view drug trafficking as more of a hazard to society when it moves through the poor area, with its dirty waters and seeming chaos, than when it has to do with corporate boardrooms and the main harbour. And for the FARC, it is becoming easier and easier to convince the city's Afro-Colombian majority that the focus of the war on drugs is not primarily on the flow of drugs, but on what kind of people are involved in it. — Magnus Linton

I left Colombia because Univision brought me to the United States. — Sofia Vergara

The government is shutting down the coal industry, they say it's cheaper to draw nuclear power off the French grid and cheaper to buy coal from Colombia. — Martin Cruz Smith

Elaine complained about this at night, in her matrimonial bed, and then complained that in Colombia all the citizens were political but no politician wanted to do anything for the citizens. — Juan Gabriel Vasquez

Whenever it dipped under 80 degrees, it was cause for celebration - time to write home with the news, dig my jacket out of the closet, and try to quell the impulse to sing Christmas carols. — Bryanna Plog

When Harvard University opened its doors in 1636, there were already well-established universities in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. — Oscar Arias

I never wanted to get into high end in Colombia - the percentage of people who can afford it is very small, and they can shop abroad anyway. It's just not what I had in mind. I wanted to bring international fashion to as many people here as possible, who don't usually get exposed to such styles. — Esteban Cortazar

If my goal is to change Colombia, which it is because I really think Columbia has to change in many, many ways - I think it has to be a very profound, nearly spiritual maturing process in the Colombian society because I think you have to first be aware of what's happening and it's not easy because many people don't want to see what's happening. — Ingrid Betancourt

Colombia is not how people think it is. We used to eat fish every Sunday at the beach. In the town where I grew up, people did not tell lies. — Shakira

Plan Colombia was supposed to reduce Colombia's cultivation and distribution of drugs by 50 percent, but 6 years and $4.7 billion later, the drug control results are meager at best. — Jan Schakowsky

Had drugs been decriminalized, crack would never have been invented and there would today be fewer addicts ... The ghettos would not be drug-and-crime-infested no-man's lands ... Colombia, Bolivia and Peru would not be suffering from narco-terror, and we would not be distorting our foreign policy because of it. — Milton Friedman

Since the advent of the atomic bomb, the United States has always needed two kinds of enemies. On one level, it has needed a tactical enemy that it can go out and fight in the field in a shooting war. Since 1945, these enemies have been created and appeared as North Korea, North Vietnam, Grenada, El Salvador, Panama, Iraq and now Colombia. On another level, however, the US needs a strategic enemy that will justify outrageous expenditures of capital for strategic weapon systems like ICBMs, Trident submarines and "Star Wars" missile defence systems. — Michael Ruppert

It's in the interest of the U.S. to maintain a strong democracy in Colombia. — Juan Manuel Santos

A majority of my blind students at the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs in Trivandrum, India, a branch of Braille Without Borders, came from the developing world: Madagascar, Colombia, Tibet, Liberia, Ghana, Kenya, Nepal and India. — Rosemary Mahoney

When I was growing up, Forest Park was full of integrated families. It was amazing. One my best friends was Vietnamese. Another one was half-Mexican, half-black. Another one was from Colombia. Another one was born in the U.S., but his mom was from Germany and spoke with a German accent. So we all had multiple identities. — Dinaw Mengestu

At family gatherings in the United States, two off-limit subjects are almost always put together in the same phrase: no religion or politics. While in Colombia, the former was embraced ("What do you mean you aren't Catholic?") but the latter was taboo. While it may be the only reason that Colombia (or Columbia) makes the international news outside of prostitution or scandals, Colombia's political problems, drug trade, and civil conflicts are forbidden subjects for most Colombians. — Bryanna Plog

Well, in Colombia everybody's very voluptuous, and you're supposed to be. You don't want to be skinny when all of your cousins are mermaids. You grow up thinking that's how beauty is. — Sofia Vergara

Kate could not have looked any more stunned if he'd just proposed that they move to Colombia State together and become coffee bean farmers. — Marissa Meyer