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

— Ingrid Betancourt

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.

— Ingrid Betancourt

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.

— Ingrid Betancourt

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

— Ingrid Betancourt

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. Furthermore, I want to have the right to live in peace.

— Ingrid Betancourt

If you believe what you say, words become reality.

— Ingrid Betancourt

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

— Ingrid Betancourt

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 it been indispensable for survival.

— Ingrid Betancourt

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

— Ingrid Betancourt

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

— Ingrid Betancourt