Quotes from Anthony Ray Hinton

I witnessed other inmates' time run out, and I'd be lying if I said you don't ask yourself, 'Wow, is that going to happen to me?'

To stay sane, I lived in my head, where I could travel and imagine. In my mind, I played a championship game with the Knicks. I won Wimbledon five times. If the Yankees needed a home run, I came to bat.

The State of Alabama let me down tremendously.

I am a joyful person.

It's hard to explain exactly what it feels like to be judged. There's a shame to it. Even when you know you're innocent. It still feels like you are coated in something dirty and evil.

I hope that America will do away with the death penalty. I truly believe we are better than that.

I shouldn't have sat on death row 30 years. All they had to do was test the gun. But when you think you are high and mighty and you're above the law, you don't have to answer to nobody, but I've got news for you.

When every court was saying 'no,' I believe God was still saying yes. I had to somehow find that faith and reach deep down in my soul and believe in the teaching that my mother taught me as a young boy, that God can do everything but fail.

I was born with a mother who loved me unconditionally and with a sense of humor.

The last time I saw my mom was in 1997. My mom started getting sick, and my mom finally passed away in 2002. My mom was my world. My mom was everything to me. We didn't have money. We didn't have a whole lot of materialistic things, but one thing I can truly say, that my mother loved me and all of her children unconditionally.

It took me a little while to remember how to use a fork. You know, we don't use forks in the penitentiary. You get a spoon.

Black, poor, without a father most of my life, one of 10 children - it was actually pretty amazing I had made it to the age of 29 without a noose around my neck.

What do you say to a person who is going to their death? Normally, we would just say, 'Hang in there, keep your hope up,' because there is hope until the very last second.

Justice should be one of the things that's colorblind.

My only crime was being born black - or being born black in Alabama.

The state of Alabama can take my freedom, the state of Alabama can take my future, but the state of Alabama cannot take my joy.

When the very people that you been taught to believe in - the police, the D.A., these are the people that are supposed to stand for justice - and when you know that they lied to you, it's hard for you to have trust in anybody.