The only difference between me and my
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
A country is in a bad state, which is
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
The worst of prison life, he thought,
The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
A sick person is a prisoner.
A sick person is a prisoner.
The punishment can be remitted; the
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
I never told a victim story about my
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
The power of punishment is to silence,
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
It is the deed that teaches, not the
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.
Law is merely the expression of the will
Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.
We're in a war. People who blast some
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
Intellectual despair results in neither
Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.
I was put into jail as I was going to
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
No obligation to justice does force a
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
You stuff somebody into the American
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but
Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.
We who live in prison, and in whose
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
