Rusty Young > Quotes

“Part of being a man is doing what is right, no matter what people think of you. That is the sacrifice you must make.”
― Rusty Young, Colombiano

“The war was like a slow-burning campfire onto which both sides occasionally threw wood. And that’s probably the way it would have continued, if not for the arrival of the Autodefensas.”
― Rusty Young, Colombiano

“To someone who has not had a parent stolen from them, I can only attempt to explain how it feels. It’s like having part of yourself hacked off without warning. Afterwards, they become like a phantom limb: you’re sure they’re still present because you can feel them, you communicate with them, but you just can’t see them.”
― Rusty Young, Colombiano

“Instead, the weak-chinned Padre Guzmán opted for love-thy-neighbour in times of trouble. That might have worked in the big city, where not knowing your neighbours made it easier to love them. But in a town of four thousand people it fooled no one.”
― Rusty Young, Colombiano

“You have fallen badly, señor gringo. Bribery is a very serious crime in this country. You will have to pay.”
― Rusty Young, Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail

“Field by field, farm by farm, person by person, we were wresting the country back from the Guerrilla’s clutches. Every kidnap we prevented meant one fewer family devastated and one fewer Guerrilla bargaining chip against the government. Every bag of rice confiscated from Buitre’s logistics network made the Guerrilla hungrier and more demoralised.”
― Rusty Young, Colombiano

“The stillness and silence shrouding Papá was the most complete I’d ever experienced. The silence came from where his breathing used to be. But it wasn’t only his breathing that was missing. It was his presence.”
― Rusty Young, Colombiano

“San Pedro prison, apart from being a social microcosm, is also a microeconomy that operates under basic capitalist principles. In fact, it’s probably more efficient than the whole Bolivian national economy. And more democratic, too, but I’ll explain the prison election system to you another day.”
― Rusty Young, Marching Powder: A True Story of a British Drug Smuggler In a Bolivian Jail

“Hope is the last thing to die. It keeps us going through the darkest times,”
― Rusty Young, Marching Powder

“this”
― Rusty Young, Colombiano