a homeless person QUOTES

1 " Let your love be the kindness to make a homeless person believe that a soul needs something more than just four walls and a ceiling. "

― Munia Khan

2 " For the mentally disturbed, Marie knew these sandwich visits might be the only dependable moments in their lives. She also knew she delivered the sandwiches for her own sanity. Something would crumble inside of her if she ever walked by a homeless person and pretended not to notice. Or simply didn't care. In a way, she believed that homeless people were treated as Indians had always been treated. Badly. The homeless were like an Indian tribe, nomadic and powerless, just filled with more than any tribe's share of crazy people and cripples. So, a homeless Indian belonged to two tribes, and was the lowest form of life in the city. The powerful white men of Seattle had created a law that made it illegal to sit on the sidewalk. That ordinance was crazier and much more evil than any homeless person. Sometimes Marie wondered if she worked so hard at anything only because she hated powerful white men. She wondered if she went to college and received good grades just because she was looking for revenge. "

― Sherman Alexie , Indian Killer

3 " Although both home and mental illness are complex, modern ideas, we have fallen into the habit of using phrases such as " housing the homeless" and " treating the mentally ill" as if we knew what counts as housing a homeless person or what it means to treat mental illness. But we do not. We have deceived ourselves that having a home and being mentally healthy are our natural conditions, and that we become homeless or mentally ill as a result of " losing" our homes or our minds. The opposite is the case. We are born without a home and without reason, and have to exert ourselves and are fortunate if we succeed in building a secure home and a sound mind. "

4 " The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you.

You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child.

If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper.

So you do it.

But you don't just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and that child....

There are all kinds of good Catholic things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done.

And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God. "

― Catherine de Hueck Doherty

5 " If a homeless person has a funny sign, he hasn't been homeless for that long. A real homeless person is too hungry to be funny. "

― Chris Rock

6 " Whenever a homeless person speaks to me in the USA, I always assume that I am speaking to a police officer and play along with the suspected charade. "

― Steven Magee

7 " He made a good salary but he did not flaunt it. He’d been raised in Chicago proper by a Lithuanian Jewish mother who had grown up in poverty, telling stories, often, of extending a chicken to its fullest capacity, so as soon as a restaurant served his dish, he would promptly cut it in half and ask for a to-go container. Portions are too big anyway, he’d grumble, patting his waistline. He’d only give away his food if the corners were cleanly cut, as he believed a homeless person would just feel worse eating food with ragged bitemarks at the edges – as if, he said, they are dogs, or bacteria. Dignity, he said, lifting his half-lasagna into its box, is no detail. "

― Aimee Bender , The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake