Prison Quotes

In the case of Albertine, I felt that I should never discover anything, that, out of that tangled mass of details of fact and falsehood, I should never unravel the truth: and that it would always be so, unless I were to shut her up in prison (but prisoners escape) until the end.

~ Marcel Proust

Being in prison for seven years was like being in an army that never drilled, never deployed, and only fought itself.

~ Raegan Butcher

You are as free as a prisoner in an open air prison

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

I Feel like a prison holding myself, bounded by the judgements of people I care and chained by the rules of the society I live in. If I would let the person who speaks inside me out, he would tell you a different story than what you have seen all these years. Sometimes I see myself crying, screaming and trying to tear myself into pieces when I stand in front of the mirror so that I could finally be free from myself. But the demons I have created inside me to guard beats me down and laughs at me, watching me bleed.

~ Akshay Vasu

When I first went to prison, I made the best out of it. From the streets, I was hearing reports of Rebellions going to prison and getting do in [beat up]. Our fellas had no say, couldn’t even open up their mouths. When I went up there for the first time, I turned that prison into a place that everyone could say that the Rebellions were running it after that. I wouldn’t say I did it alone, but I help set the groundwork to give the Rebellions a say in prison. Scrooge, former leader of the Rebellion Raiders street gang that once boasted of having some ten thousand members

~ Drexel Deal

It was cruel. Like opening a birdcage to let the bird fly out, whilst all the while it's tethered by the leg, and freedom is only an illusion.

~ Laini Taylor

As a society, our decision to heap shame and contempt upon those who struggle and fail in a system designed to keep them locked up and locked out says far more about ourselves than it does about them.

~ Michelle Alexander

As I stood in the room looking at it for the last time, I felt again the cold metal of the handcuffs on my wrists and remembered the physical suffering and mental anguish I had endured while fighting with all the willpower and intellect God had given me for that rare and elusive thing in a Communist country called justice. Pg. 351

~ Nien Cheng

In prison it must be made rich Library, people must educate their self there. Not to go stupid and more.

~ Deyth Banger

All the best! You are a local legend in a Brisbane and Australia...you probably don't realise just how much...you will get released from that hell hole...you will come home...and discover your 'celebrity status'...which you will probably find nearly as hard to cope with...a different version of hell...anonymity to global fame...what a remarkable journey your life is. Keep safe...head down...this will pass.

~ Paige Garland

Escape is very difficult to negotiate, underwater.

~ Darion D'anjou

The greatest prison in the universe is an ignorant mind.

~ Matshona Dhliwayo

The only thing that had saved her then was knitting. In prison she had become a compulsive knitter. Knitting allowed her to unite, to connect, to integrate. With every stitch she held on to dear life. Threads hold us together.

~ Laura Esquivel

I think the only reason I never lost my mind is that I knew I was innocent. That wasn't a happy thought, so the dementors couldn't suck it out of me...but it kept me sane and knowing who I am...helped me keep my powers...

~ J.k. Rowling

Yet our ability to exercise free will and transcend the most extraordinary obstacles does not make the conditions of our life irrelevant. Most of us struggle and often fail to meet the biggest challenges of our lives. Even the smaller challenges—breaking a bad habit or sticking to a diet—often prove too difficult, even for those of us who are relatively privileged and comfortable in our daily lives. In fact, what is most remarkable about the hundreds of thousands of people who return from prison to their communities each year is not how many fail, but how many somehow manage to survive and stay out of prison against all odds.

~ Michelle Alexander

We care (about prison education), very simply, because (prisoners) get out. Almost everyone who is locked up now is going to be set free one day. If we treat prisoners like animals the whole time they are locked up, that's what we'll get when they're back on the streets: wild, dangerous animals.

~ Christopher Zoukis

Prison is a second-by-second assault on the soul, a day-to-day degradation of the self, an oppressive steel and brick umbrella that transforms seconds into hours and hours into days.

~ Mumia Abu-Jamal

Only prisoners were ever granted easy passage into a prison.

~ Scott Lynch

Who cut him?' Sam liked saying things like 'Who cut him?' It reminded him of being a kid and watching prison movies, which is probably why prisoners talked like that, too.

~ Tod Goldberg

He reads every book in his home but it is not enough. The country boy craves stories. He devours every poem and fable in his school and library. Still he hungers. For stories.

~ Jennifer Lanthier

How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure.

~ Alexandre Dumas

Kaladin frowned. “Wait. Are you wearing cologne? In prison?”“Well, there was no need to be barbaric, just because I was incarcerated.”“Storms, you’re spoiled,” Kaladin said, smiling.“I’m refined, you insolent farmer,” Adolin said. Then he grinned. “Besides, I’ll have you know that I had to use cold water for my baths while here.”“Poor boy.

~ Brandon Sanderson

To Cassidy, the panopticon wasn't a metaphor. It was the greatest failing on everything she was, a prison she had built for herself out of an inability to appear anything less than perfect. And so she ghosted on, in relentless pursuit of escape, not from society, but from herself. She would always be confined by what everyone expected of her because she was too afraid and too unwilling to correct our imperfect imaginings.

~ Robyn Schneider

I was most happy when pen and paper were taken from me and I was forbidden from doing anything. I had no anxiety about doing nothing by my own fault, my conscience was clear, and I was happy. This was when I was in prison.

~ Daniil Kharms

Prison is like high school with knives.

~ Raegan Butcher

The drug war is a total scam, prescription drugs kill 300K a year, while marijuana kills no one, but they spend billions/year 'fighting' it, because pot heads make for good little slaves to put into private prisons, owned by the banks who launder the drug money, and it's ALL DOCUMENTED.

~ Alex E. Jones

Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

During the days I felt myself slipping into a kind of madness. Solitary confinement has an astonishing effect on the mind. The trip was to stay calm and keep myself occupied. I spent hours working out how to break free. But trying to escape would have been instant suicide.

~ Tahir Shah

Cage an eagle and it will bite at the wires, be they ofiron or of gold.

~ Henrik Ibsen

THE CURSEMay they neverReturn home at night...May you have no part of eventide,May you have no room of your own,Nor road, nor return.May your days be all exactly the same,Five Fridays in a row,Always an unlucky Tuesday,No Sunday,May you have no more little worries,Tears or inspiration,For you yourself are the greatest worry on earth:Prisoner!

~ Visar Zhiti

Abolition is not some disstant future but something we create in every moment when we say no to the traps of empire and yes to the nourishing possibilities dreamed of and practiced by our ancestors and friends. Every time we insist on accessible and affirming health care, safe and quality education, meaningful and secure employment, loving and healing relationships, and being our full and whole selves, we are doing abolition. Abolition is about breaking down things that oppress and building up things that nourish. Abolition is the practice of transformation in the here and now and the ever after.

~ Eric A. Stanley

you do your own time in prison. You don't do anyone else's time for them.

~ Neil Gaiman

I'm the smartest man in the world. Once I wore a cape in public, and fought battles against men who could fly, who had metal skin, who could kill you with their eyes. I fought CoreFire to a standstill, and the Super Squadron, and the Champions. Now I have to shuffle through a cafeteria line with men who tried to pass bad checks. Now I have to wonder if there will be chocolate milk in the dispenser. And whether the smartest man in the world has done the smartest thing he could do with his life.

~ Austin Grossman

IN OUR CELLSThey keep us in our cellsFor a long time...And, if we get out,We lug them with us on our shoulders,Like a porter with a chest of goods.

~ Visar Zhiti

Handcuffs weigh much more than gravestones.(from Gratitude)

~ Visar Zhiti

The massive prison construction represents a commitment by our nation to plan for social failure by spending billions of dollars to lock up hundreds of thousands of people while at the same time cutting billions of dollars from programs that would provide opportunity to young Americans.

~ Steven Donziger

...the court, as now constituted, would be meaningless without the jail which gives it its power. But if there is anything I have learned by being in jail, it is that prisons are wrong, simply and unqualifiedly wrong.

~ Barbara Deming

I need a kid like I need a bad heart. A pretty kid is a ticket to trouble... and I'm too old to ask for that. Shit, I haven't even booked Tommy the Face in two years. I'm turning into a jack-off idiot.

~ Edward Bunker

I cannot be critical of an infant whose only possible source of nourishment can be found in the dugs of a wolf.

~ Jack Henry Abbott

The primary obligation of any prisoner is to escape. Whether that means actually leaving or simply figuring out a way to handle things so you don't go crazy is up to you.

~ Emmanuel Goldstein