Ingrid Betancourt

I was beginning to think that in life there might be some suffering that was worth enduring.

Now I realized that life supplies us with everything we need for the journey. Everything I had acquired either actively or passively, everything I had learned either voluntarily or by osmosis, was coming back to me as the real riches of my life, even though I had lost everything.

If you believe what you say, words become reality.

The relationship with time changes when you're captive.

After six years without seeing one, I love just seeing a smile - every smile I see gives me hope.

We can't continue with a justice of vengeance. Peace will require us to accept a certain degree of impunity it's inevitable.

I have to forget in order to find peace in my soul and be able to forgive.

The only thing I've settled in my mind is that I want to forgive, and forgiveness comes with forgetting.

Forgiveness is a very personal and intimate thing. Forgiveness is not something that you can speak for others because it includes not only your desire and will, your reflection and intellect, but also your emotions.

As a Colombian, the only way I can relate to my country is through suffering. I hope that my children and my grandchildren will relate to the beautiful country in a way that it is positive and loving.

We're humans. Why always turn human attitude into political behaviours? I hate that.

I knew of no instruction manual for reaching a higher level of humanity and a greater wisdom. But I felt intuitively that laughter was the beginning of wisdom, as is was indispensable for survival.

I already knew that I had the ability to free myself from hatred, and I viewed this as my most significant conquest.

I am alone. I am here. No one is watching me. In these hours of silence that I cherish, I talk to myself and reflect. That past, entrenched in time, motionless and infinite, has vanished onto thin air. None of it remains. Why, therefore, am I hurting so much? Why did I bring back with me this nameless pain? I followed the path I set for myself, and I have forgiven. I do not want to be chained to hatred or resentment. I want to have the right to live in peace.

I was discovering that the most precious gift someone can give us is time, because what gives time its value is death.

The book in my hands became my trusted companion. What was written there had so much power that it forced me to stop avoiding myself, to make my own choices as well. And through some sort of vital intuition, I understood that I had a long way to go, that it would bring about a profound transformation within me, even though I could not determine it's essence, or its scope. In that book there was a voice, and behind that voice threw was an intelligence that sought to establish contact with me. It was not merely the company of written words that distiller my boredom. It was a living voice, speaking. To me.