Alex Kotlowitz Quotes

United States, Journalist
March 31, 1955

Alex Kotlowitz is an American journalist, author, and filmmaker. His 1991 book There Are No Children Here was a national bestseller and received the Christopher Award and Helen Bernstein Award. He is a two-time recipient of both the Peabody Award and the Dupont Award for journalism. He co-produced the 2011 documentary The Interrupters, based on his New York Times Magazine article, which received an Independent Spirit Award and Emmy Award.

Also known as Author, Film Maker

The only thing you can do is love, because it is the only thing that leaves light inside you, instead of the total, obliterating darkness.

Alex Kotlowitz
- Love
- Light
- Inside
Do you directly target the violence because it so discourages any kind of economic development? Or do you bring in jobs and rehab homes, knowing that with a sense of opportunity the violence will diminish?

Alex Kotlowitz

Her hope—and mine—was that a book about the children would make us all hear, that it would make us all stop and listen.

Alex Kotlowitz
- Book
- Hope
- Hear
Freedom is like holding a small bird. If you squeeze it too hard, you will kill it. But if you don't hold it firmly enough, it will fly away. Indeed, freedom can be both fragile and elusive, and so-as the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum so powerfully reminds us-it requires our eternal vigilance, our willingness, our ability, our conviction to stand up for that which we think is right.

Alex Kotlowitz
People have a capacity to keep going even when their world has been shattered. We all long for connection, for affirmation that our lives matter.

Alex Kotlowitz
- World
- Matter
- Lives
They’ve seen too much to be children.

Alex Kotlowitz
- Children
- To Be
- Seen
I tend to write about people. I look at things from the bottom up and from the perspective of outsiders. A part of me just identifies with them. It's my messed up internal nature that I always feel like an outsider. It's just my nature. At film festivals, I was an outsider for sure, but I always felt like one as well. I have that feeling at parties, too. I don't belong there.

Alex Kotlowitz
- People
- Write
- Outsider
In a nation that likes to see itself as forgiving, we are mulishly unforgiving of those who have committed a felony...

Alex Kotlowitz
- Nation
- Forgiving
- Felony

I’m going to share something I learned since I been here and that is us as people when we have difficulty on our journey of life we tend to focus on what we need at the moment that we forget what we already have…

Alex Kotlowitz
- Moment
- Need
- Difficulty
Some of the worst neighborhoods are so physically isolated, and more than anything, they're spiritually isolated. They're so close and yet so far. A lot of Chicagoans might not spend any time there, and what contact they do have is through what they see in the news, which is a little unsettling.

Alex Kotlowitz