I sincerely believe that everything - everything - is grace, and you have to stick around long enough to see it through. I'm a very optimistic person.

People, although having their own cross to carry, can minister to others through their own pain.

I still believe in the nonviolent Jesus and the basic human goodness present in all of us.

It doesn't really matter how much of the rules or the dogma we accepted and lived by if we're not really living by the fundamental creed of the Catholic Church, which is service to others and finding God in ourselves and then seeing God in everyone - including our enemies.

My first civil disobedience arrest for social justice was in 1986 for protesting the SDI.

We are not asked to do great things. We are asked to do all things with great care.

If all of the issues that I have worked on were depending on some measure of success, it would be a total failure. I don't anticipate success. We're not asked to be successful, we are only asked to be faithful. I couldn't even tell you what success is.