Quotes by Emmanuel Jal

Sometimes words are not needed, and the simplicity of expressing yourself through an art form is one of the best ways of communication.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

Only a coward will use a gun to protect and get respect for themselves.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

I don't take modern hip-hop as real. It's entertaining, it's fake, like James Bond.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

When people know you've been a soldier, they judge you: you are a thief, a lost boy.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

I still have nightmares of dead comrades, a long time ago, talking to me. 'Emmanuel, don't forget about us, don't give up, keep telling our story.'

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

I'm still a soldier, fighting with my pen and paper for peace till the day I cease.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

Rap music is amazing, it's beautiful. But the problem is the lyrics. The person who writes the lyrics - that's the problem.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

We lack role models who can inspire our young people to make change.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

Any child soldier has to go through a lot of love, care and understanding to become normal.

— Emmanuel Jal

Love

I lost my childhood. I didn't play football or video games. Or have birthdays or the love of a family.

— Emmanuel Jal

Love

When I was in south Sudan, people used to rap in my village. But the rapping was more in the mother tongue, Nuer.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

I don't know anywhere where the people are hungrier for education than South Sudan.

— Emmanuel Jal

Education

I'm constantly seen as a 'foreigner,' and I need my passport to prove my identity, to keep moving and to carry on my work.

— Emmanuel Jal

Success

Knife crime and gun crime is poverty-driven, and poverty leads to insecurity.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

There's no pride in having been a child soldier.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

Violence in Darfur is cataclysmic.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

When you don't educate the people, you're crippling them. You are, you're not giving them ways to survive.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

As a child, I didn't know what they mean by 'to die.' So I grew up in a place where people used to die all the time, but a child is not allowed to see a dead body. When you ask, 'Where is so-and so?' you're told, 'He's gone to another world where we all go to live in the future.'

— Emmanuel Jal

Hope

The only foreign policy advice I heard from China was when they said to Sudan, 'Don't go back to war.' That's all they said. They didn't push anything else.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

War destroys people's souls. Most people focus on physical injuries, but the invisible injuries can take a lifetime to heal and affects the lives of generations to come.

— Emmanuel Jal

Life

A cold heart is my protection mechanism. I don't really feel anything for anyone.

— Emmanuel Jal

Love

Education is the only solution for peace.

— Emmanuel Jal

Education

I was shocked when I came to New Orleans. I never knew there were beggars on the streets here. I didn't know that there were poor people. I thought this was Heaven, you know?

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom

I am proof that one person can rise above any challenge, and if I can, then so will others if they are given the chance.

— Emmanuel Jal

Wisdom