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Quotes About Prison

I had intended to write this book anonymously, using my prison number only. But when the manuscript was completed, I saw that as an anonymous publication it would lose half its value, and that I must have the courage to state my convictions openly. I therefore refrained from deleting any of the passages, in spite of an intense dislike of exhibitionism.
~ Viktor E. Frankl
I am here through an error—not in this prison, specifically—but in this whole terrible, striped world;
~ Vladimir Nabokov
I have journeyed back in thought --with thought hopelessly tapering off as I went-- to remote regions where I groped for some secret outlet only to discover that the prison of time is spherical and without exits. Short of suicide I have tried everything.
~ Vladimir Nabokov
I am here through an error—not in this prison, specifically—but in this whole terrible, striped world; a world which seems not a bad example of amateur craftsmanship, but is in reality calamity, horror, madness, error—and look, the curio slays the tourist, the gigantic carved bear brings its wooden mallet down upon me.
~ Vladimir Nabokov
There are events, strange happenings, that strike The mind as emblematic. They are like Lost similes adrift without a string. Attached to nothing. Thus that northern king, Whose desperate escape from prison was Brought off successfully only because Some forty of his followers that night Impersonated him and aped his flight -
~ Vladimir Nabokov
Please! … You can't just walk away and leave me in this shithole!?" Gideon paused next to Lucan. "hold up. Did he just insult my work?" Fangs bared, he swung around and stalked back in front of the gleaming bars. "Fuck you, calling this a shithole. This entire cell is a bloody technological work of art, you ignorant wanker.
~ Lara Adrian
She pressed her fingertips against the glass and thanked him for his insight. Supermax
~ Laura Lippman
Cartagena and the priest, watched the spectacle from their island prison.
~ Laurence Bergreen
Winter, in London, was thrown into prison for deserting the captain general.
~ Laurence Bergreen
À medida que as penas forem mais brandas, quando as prisões já não forem a horrível mansão do desespero e da fome, quando a piedade e a humanidade penetrarem nas masmorras, quando enfim os executores impiedosos dos rigores da justiça abrirem os corações à compaixão, as leis poderão contentar-se com indícios mais fracos para ordenar a prisão.
~ Cesare Beccaria
Reality is a prison, where one vegetates and always will. All the rest --thought, action --is just a pastime, mental or physical. What counts then, is to come to grips with reality. The rest can go.
~ Cesare Pavese
I often said that when they put me in jail in 1981 it was not the FBI's intent, but they saved my life. They only have seven days in a week, and by the time I went to jail I was drinking eight.
~ Charles Brandt
Why would anyone write a poem in this wrecked world? And really, how could they? Massive doubt, failed love, shitty thoughts, empty spirit, a dead history compelling a transfixed vision, these are devastations that might overwhelm and silence anyone; and silence, for a poet, is a prison. It's where the descent hits bottom, it's where the poet either faces or does not face all the risks of failed comprehension.
~ Charles D'Ambrosio
The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shews in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven: and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.
~ Charles Dickens
This was a vagrant of sixty-five, who was going to prison for not playing the flute; or, in other words, for begging in the streets, and doing noting for his livelihood. In the next cell, was another man, who was going to the same prison for hawking tin saucepans without a licence; thereby doing something for his living, in defiance of the Stamp-office.
~ Charles Dickens
On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils, stands the Spy and prison-sheep. He looks into the first of them: not there. He looks into the second: not there. He already asks himself, "Has he sacrificed me?" when his face clears, as he looks into the third. "Which is Evremonde?" says a man behind
~ Charles Dickens
Carton left him there; but lingered after a little distance, and turned back to the gate again when it was shut, and touched it. He had heard of her going to the prison every day. 'She came out here,' he said, looking about him, 'turned this way, must have trod on these stones often. Let me follow in her footsteps.
~ Charles Dickens
Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul...
~ Henry Van Dyke
There is a prison," Alfred began grimly, "in a more ancient part of the world. A pit where men are thrown to suffer and die. But sometimes a man rises from that darkness. Sometimes the pit sends something back.
~ Greg Cox
doubt they had ever heard anyone sing in that dungeon before.
~ Greg Laurie
The things you learn growing up in and out of prison, Allander thought. A practical education.
~ Gregg Hurwitz
He glanced at his watch. "I'm heading up to Ressler to interview the prison shrink." Travers was quiet. "I guess you can come," he said. "Just try not to talk too much." "Won't be hard with you around.
~ Gregg Hurwitz
Have you been worried since he broke out?" Jade asked. "Well, I suppose worried isn't quite the word for it. Concerned. Concerned is a better word.
~ Gregg Hurwitz
If there was no American prison in Iraq, there would be no Islamic State now.
~ Gwynne Dyer