Quotes from Patricia McConnell

One of the principle things life has taught me is that we always have a choice. When we say we "can't," we usually mean we're just not willing to pay the price.

I was addicted to amphetamines at the time I got busted, but I tend to think I was on a determined, self-destruct course that had little to do with the effect of Benzedrine.

The loss of a sexual life is one of the worst things about getting really old. The worst thing.

I'm actually a lowlife. On the street at fifteen and also in jail for the first time at that age, and off and on the street until my mid-twenties.

The fact that educated white women automatically assume that we have similar backgrounds annoys me. We don't. I feel like I'm in a certain kind of drag.

My friends in prison were mostly women more like myself: not historical figures who I did not relate to as peers, but hookers and addicts.

I can say now is that sneaking up on people is a major delight in my old age, but it always has been. A desire, even a need, to shock.

I don't believe anyone can go through the prison experience without being changed by it. The experience becomes part of your identity forever.