Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
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.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!
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.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.
The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.
Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows.
