Tom Catena Quotes

I am sort of drawn toward places in the world where there is struggle and conflict.

I lived through the garbage. I might as well dine on the caviar.

Of course I am frustrated with regard to extreme poverty, to violence that never seems to cease.

I've lived places these guys can't defecate in.

First of all, war is a very, very difficult thing to deal with, even on the good days.

I had seen people who had lost everything and everyone they loved to war, famine, and natural disasters.

Verdiana was the child of poor though well-born parents, and her knowledge of the sufferings of the poor from her own experience in early years made her ever full of pity for those in need.

One man’s exile is but a drop in the sea of human misery

This is a hard job to do …. We represent the underdog, and that makes the top dogs angry.

They had been brought up in the School of Hard Knocks.

Many Palestinians have been living for decades in camps, disconnected from the environment in which they grew up, wallowing in poverty, in neglect, alienation, bitterness, and a deep, unrelenting sense of humiliation.

Courage is soldiers fighting on the front line, or people living on the bread line.

I am just back from South Sudan, one of the world's most fragile nations. For years, I have been moved by the kind people who maintain hope that they will live to see peace. My heart has ached for them, as they have endured pain and violence that make such hope feel out of reach.

I'm from Colombia, and we've been through a lot of hard situations.

Losing a game is not a tragedy after experiencing border raids and having to eat beetles because you are out of rations.

Every person you meet is waging his or her own war against a callous universe that is plotting against them.

There is a saying that no man has tasted the full flavor of life until he has known poverty, love, and war.

War had the effect of encouraging people to try to stay alive. Poverty, too. Survival was simply too hard-won to be given up lightly.

My dad grew up in a mud hut and studied by candlelight. He was 14 when he got a scholarship to Russia. He was super clever - the cleverest person. He landed in 5ft of snow, and was alone at 14, studying science and engineering. He didn't have a bed, and he slept on a table.

In many parts of the world, especially Pakistan and Afghanistan, terrorism, war and conflict stop children to go to their schools. We are really tired of these wars. Women and children are suffering.

Poverty makes you wise but it's a curse.

Adversity is the first path to truth.

When people see what I have now, they have no idea of where I came from and how I didn't have anything growing up.

It's what the Iraqi people are going through right now. They have encountered a victorious, hostile force-but, you know, there they still are. There their culture is, there their history is, they're not going anywhere.

Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.