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.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Justice renders to every one his due.
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
The severest justice may not always be the best policy.
Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
