Greg Boyle Quotations

I work with gang members, and I feel a kind of affinity and gift, even. But who would've thunk it, you know? I mean, I didn't anticipate it.

Even gang members imagine a future that doesnt include gangs.

You stand with the least likely to succeed until success is succeeded by something more valuable: kinship. You stand with the belligerent, the surly and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear.

The wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be lives out there that matter less than other lives.

You are exactly what God had in mind when he made you.

I always have a funny story at communion time that underscores that no one is perfect, and that communion is not for perfect people but for hungry people.

People have to see that there is a high degree of complexity about belonging to a gang. It's a symptom, not a problem.

Gangs are bastions of conditional love, and one of the ways to counteract it is to offer community, which will always trump gang, and that's what happens at Homeboy Industries.

When the vastness of God meets the restriction of our own humanity, words can't hold it. The best we can do is find the moments that rhyme with this expansive heart of God.

I want to be prophetic and take stands and stand with those on the margins, and I want to laugh as much as I can.

There is no 'them' and 'us.' There is only us.

The margins don't get erased by simply insisting that the powers-that-be erase them.

I kinda don't do guilt. I gave it up for Lent years ago.

Jesus did not only serve the needs of the people, but truly hoped that the people and Jesus would be one.

Homeboy Bakery is an alternative to kids who have found themselves, regrettably, in gangs and want to redirect their lives.

We need the disruption of categories that lead us to abandon the difficult, the disagreeable, and the least likely to go very far.

Does God feel like that same-sex marriage could happen? I don't think anybody who has a connection to God and God's understanding and depth of compassion who's gonna say 'no.'

God seems to be an unwilling participant in our efforts to pigeonhole Him.

Redemption is possible, and it is the measure of a civilized society.

At its best, an injunction creates a kind of vigilant heat that moves kids toward the light.

Kids are different from adults. They are not as developed as far as brain science, controlling impulses, and maturity, and fall prey to all kinds of pressures.

You don't really get Jesus saying very often there'll be pie in the sky when you die. He's really talking about now and today, and it's supposed to be like that. You're supposed to delight in what's right in front of you.

We lose our right to be surprised that California has the highest recidivism rate in the country if we refuse to hire folks who have taken responsibility for their crimes and have done their time.

Homeboy Industries has chosen to stand with the 'demonized' so that the demonizing will stop; it stands with the 'disposable' so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.

I have never seen a hopeful person join a gang.

You are so much more than the worst thing you've ever done.

The poor evangelize you about what's important and what is the Gospel, and that that's where the joy is.

Businesses have come and gone at Homeboy Industries. We have had starts and stops, but anything worth doing is worth failing at. We started Homeboy Plumbing. That didn't go so well. Who knew? People didn't want gang members in their homes. I just didn't see that coming.

I don't save people. God saves people. I can point them in the right direction. I can say, 'There's that door. I think if you walked through it, you'd be happier than you are.'

I think that any program that's born from below rather than on high is going to survive.

People have started to see that 'smart on crime' rather than 'tough on crime' makes sense.

The arms of God reach to embrace, and somehow you feel yourself just outside God's fingertips.

My church is in the detention facilities where I preside and celebrate the Eucharist. To me that's the church. That's the people of God.

Most employers just aren't willing to look beyond the dumbest or worst thing someone has done.

W a gang member, and especially in a Latino gang, gets jumped in, and then he's given a name, and he has that name forever, but it's not so much the name as being called by name.

We ought not to demonize a single gang member, and we ought not to romanticize a single gang.

Don't forget, you are the hero of your own story.

Ours is a God who waits. So who are we not to?

The business of second chances is everybody's business.

Young people can change and grow. Every parent knows that.

All politics are local, and so in church.

In Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world, we have 1,100 gangs and 120,000 gang members so it is a daunting, complex social dilemma.

I know two L.A.s. Half my life was around the house my folks had for 46 years at 3rd and Norton. The other half was in Boyle Heights on the Eastside, working with gang members.

I'm the priest who has been mistaken for an ATM machine.

If you are paying attention, then the day is going to be pretty joyful, and a lot of delight will fill it.

I think not everything that works helps, and not everything that helps works.

The employer is not going to choose the gang member who's just been released from prison: they're going to choose the person with the skills.

The Church should say, 'I'm frightened that women will be ordained;' that's honest, say that. But don't say, 'It's a grave sin,' because that's nonsense.

The desire of God's heart is immeasurably larger than our imaginations can conjure.

God can get tiny, if we're not careful.

If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives.

Close both eyes see with the other one. Then we are no longer saddled by the burden of our persistent judgments our ceaseless withholding our constant exclusion. Our sphere has widened and we find ourselves quite unexpectedly in a new expansive location in a place of endless acceptance and infinite love.