"the United States, a badly called state, not that, because in the Senate of the United States, although they claim to represent brown and black peoples, no black can enter nor anyone suspect of having a black grandfather."

"the mobilization in Puerto Rico for Korea has taken 8,000 men, and it is a vile act of the U.S. government to pretend to mobilize by force the Puerto Rican nation so that it can pick up a front for the U.S. in Korea."

"if the United States feels obligated to intervene in Korea with all their weapons, let them mobilize themselves. Let them go fight for their interests, instead of taking advantage of Puerto Rico's defenselessness to make it go to defend the sordidness and the iniquity of their policy before the world, that is shamelessness."

"If registrations were good for Puerto Rico, the yanquis would never have inscriptions and elections here, nor would we ever have them. Registrations in Puerto Rico and elections are the trap to make Puerto Ricans keep turning the millstone."

"You pay taxes to maintain an educational system in which the Puerto Rican is no longer Puerto Rican, to tear the Puerto Rican heart out."

"there's no money to bring a loaf of bread to Lares, but for a jail in Lares there will be money. So, lots of money for jails in Lares and all Puerto Rico-for schools, yes, because they are to destroy the heart and mind of the Puerto Rican, denaturalize him, prostitute him, corrupt him for that there will be money. There's money to have the Health Department in Puerto Rico inject the youth of Puerto Rico with any disease that the U.S. government desires, to kill them on a long-term basis, there's yes, money for that but to kill hunger in Lares, Jayuya, Utuado, in Comerío, in the whole nation there's not a penny because hunger is the policy of the United States. The yanqui believes that when a human being is deprived of his loaf of bread, he will surrender and humiliate himself to be kicked by anyone. He will turn in his mother, his wife, his own dignity, so as not to suffer hunger. That's the policy of the United States."

"He who does not respect the truth does not respect his own mother."

"The armed forces of the United States have a privilege here. They can't be tried by any judicial authority, not even the so-called Federal Court of the United States. A U.S. Marine can kill anyone in the streets of San Juan and he cannot be tried by the District Court of San Juan or by the Federal Court, no, he has to be tried by a U.S. Navy court-martial...and why this privilege? Because killers need immunity. When one hires somebody else to kill, the first thing is to guarantee to him that he won't lose his skin, in any case. Well, are the armed forces here to defend Puerto Ricans? To kill Puerto Ricans!! That's the only government here, the rest are scoundrels, and all that crowd of bootlickers say that this is a democracy-the yanquis laugh at them."

"It makes me laugh when the yanquis talk about a police state in other governments. There's no police state like the yanqui system."

"The Law of the Funnel, the agreement that Puerto Ricans accept that political slavery of the United States, that's the agreement"

"Today PIP members are caught in the trap of the century, their sons mobilized for the draft-the PIP members quiet, the Populares quiet, the Statehooders quiet, everybody is quiet but the Nationalist Party."

"Why bring the viruses, the microbes of this disease to experiment here in Puerto Rico? Oh, it's because it can spread and if it spreads here, what's the difference-they're Puerto Ricans. Didn't they kill a few thousands in Korea?"

"no army is a charitable institution, armies are established to kill, and this is in the charge of the U.S. Army."

"The Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico was the first party to raise Guanica, to protest the invasion of the gringos as should be. In these as in many of the struggles for freedom of our people, the Nationalist Party was at the vanguard of its time. The Young Lords Party follows the example of Don Pedro Albizu Campos and the Nationalist Party and declares that for us Guanica is a day of national protest, and will be a day of national protest until we drive the Puerto Rican lombrices like ferre, the Cuban gusanos, and yankee amerikkkans into the sea."

"The new slavery arrived with the amerikkkans and the only ones in this century who truly confronted that empire was the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, and for a time, the Socialist Party. Don Pedro was the defender of our nationality. Don Pedro assured with his struggle that at a later time in the future, men and women, poor and humble, capable of liberating Puerto Rico, would arise."

"We in the Young Lords Party also follow the teachings of Don Pedro. We know that since the amerikkkan invasion of Puerto Rico in 1898, the united states has controlled the press, radio, television. They control the schools. Every day, our people are bombarded with more and more amerikkkan propaganda. More than 25,000 amerikkkan troops occupy our territory. With those forces of repression, it is impossible to talk of free elections. As the National Liberation Front of Vietnam says-first, the amerikkkans should get out, then we will be able to have free elections."

"We express our solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico and their great leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, who, in another act of hypocrisy, has been set free at the age of seventy-two, almost unable to speak, paralyzed, after spending a lifetime in jail. Albizu Campos is a symbol of the as yet unfree but indomitable Latin America. Years and years of prison, almost unbearable pressures in jail, mental torture, solitude, total isolation from his people and his family, the insolence of the conqueror and its lackeys in the land of his birth--nothing broke his will. The delegation of Cuba, on behalf of its people, pays a tribute of admiration and gratitude to a patriot who confers honor upon our America."

"In looking at the Puerto Rican movement as a whole and the positive contributions that we made in the seventies and early eighties, first we need to point out that we built on our legacy of struggle. We stood on the shoulders of such Nationalists as Ramón Emeterio Betances, Pedro Albizu Campos, Lolita Lebrón, and such communists as Luisa Capetillo, Jesús Colón, Bernardo Vega, Julia de Burgos, Juana Colón, Evelina Antonetti, Antonio Corretjer, Genoveva Clemente, Gerena Valentín, and many others."

"...Puerto Ricans treasure their citizenship and are faithful to democratic principles, but “We are, above everything, Puerto Ricans first and foremost.""

"The people from Puerto Rico already decided they want to be permanently linked to the United States. There's nothing else to be said about that matter."

"I have never felt like a second-class citizen. I consider myself a U.S. citizen. I appreciate and treasure my U.S. citizenship. I would never renounce or consider losing that citizenship. I want my children and their children to always have it."

"We should not be forced to give up our children's U.S citizenship so that we can get a fuller measure of self-government."

"My theory was that a city without a newspaper is a city without a soul."

"The most important things in my life have been being governor of Puerto Rico and eliminating the old tradition that was established by [former Gov. Luis] Muñoz himself of being a boss. He was the boss of the government and there was no opposition in Puerto Rico. That was the thing I broke to make Puerto Rico a two-party system, a truly democratic society."

"Revolutionary in my ideas, liberal in my objectives and conservative in my methods."

"The scholars and critics all called it kitsch, everyone thought I was crazy to buy them."

"Not only are Puerto Ricans citizens by birth, but one would be hard-pressed to find a Puerto Rican without a sister in New York or a son in Chicago, a cousin in Orlando or a daughter in Honolulu or Oklahoma City."

"I am concerned that many young people in the Hemisphere seem to envision the United States as a nation intoxicated by power, addicted to warfare, controlled by a military-industrial complex, and determined to preserve the status quo, that we are against rapid economic and social growth."

"Industry is not a collection of machines and tools and buildings. It is a social entity that has the responsibility of realizing the happiness of those who work in it."

"La razón no grita, la razón convence."

"I hope I will live to see a final meeting of the minds between Puerto Rico and statehood, but [even] if I don't live that long, I am certain it will happen."

"We speak Spanish but we think American. We don't want to be a colony, we don't want to be inferior. We want to be equal."