Prisoners Quotes

“If you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal who hasn't done anything? They should use prisoners who have been convicted of murder or rape instead. So, rather than seeing if perfume irritates a bunny rabbit's eyes, they should throw it in Charles Manson's eyes and ask him if it hurts.”
― Ellen DeGeneres, My Point... And I Do Have One

“We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.”
― Khalil Gibran

“Prison is like high school with knives.”
― Raegan Butcher

“If the prisoner is beaten, it is an arrogant expression of fear.”
― Ghassan Kanafani, All that's Left to You: A Novella and Other Stories

“And Adam ruled, for he was the King. Until the day his will to be King deserted him. Then he died, food for a stronger. And the strongest was always the King, not by strength alone, but King by cunning and luck and strength together. Among the rats.”
― James Clavell, King Rat

“Handcuffs weigh much more than gravestones.

(from "Gratitude")”
― Visar Zhiti, The Condemned Apple: Selected Poetry (Green Integer)

“It is not only the prisoners who grow coarse and hardened from corporeal punishment, but those as well who perpetrate the act or are present to witness it.”
― Anton Chekhov

“The longer we confine ourselves to a place the more it imprisons us.”
― Sarah Noffke, Defects

“IN OUR CELLS

They keep us in our cells
For 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, The Condemned Apple: Selected Poetry (Green Integer)

“I was always mortified.Didn't they know they were tying thier mothers to the ground? Weren't chains ashamed of their prisoners?”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“Instead of making prisoners out of our students, we ought to make students out of our prisoners.”
― Paul W. Silver, The Dangerous Dream

“A—ris—ta?” Degan asked, sounding horse. “What is it?”
“A rat bit me,” she said, once again shocked by her own rasping voice.
“Jasper does that if—” Gaunt coughed and hacked. After a moment, he
spoke again. “If he thinks you’re dead or too weak to fight.”
“Jasper?”
“I call him that, but I’ve also named the stones in my cell.”
“I only counted mine,” Arista said.
“Two hundred and thirty-four,” Degan replied instantly.
“I have two hundred and twenty-eight.”
“Did you count the cracked ones as two?”
“No.”
― Michael J. Sullivan, Heir of Novron

“Ako nisam kriv, onda su pogriješili, zatvorili su nedužna čovjeka. Ako me puste, priznaće svoju grešku, a to nije ni lako ni korisno. Niko pametan ne može od njih tražiti da rade protiv sebe. Zahtjev bi bio nestvaran, i smiješan. Onda ja moram biti kriv. A kako da me puste ako sam kriv? Razumiješ li? Ne treba da budemo suviše nepravedni. Svako polazi sa svoga stanovišta i smatramo da je u redu kad tako mi činimo, ali kad to oni čine, onda nam smeta. Priznaćeš da je to nedosljedno.”
― Meša Selimović, Death and the Dervish

“Murderers — serving life sentences — were caring for their dying fellow inmates. Washing their bed-sore covered bodies, changing their diapers, holding their hands while they took their last breath. It was the other side of death, not the one at the end of a sudden muzzle flash, but the slow and wrenching kind, leaving plenty of time for hard reflection.”
― Lisa R. Cohen

“Sometimes I doubt that anyone with a philosophical turn of mind is fit to judge anyone. He never comprehends the concept of guilt.”
― Jack Henry Abbott, In the Belly of the Beast: Letters From Prison

“I was just a shell of the person I used to be-hard on the outside and empty on the inside. Those marks were my own personal tombstonr, reminding me every day that I was just as dead as the one I'd murdered.”
― Tabatha Vargo, Slammer

“Going into any prison is deeply confusing if you know anything about the racial demographics of America. The extreme overrepresentation of people of color, the disproportionate sentencing of racial minorities, the targeted prosecution of drug crimes in poor communities, the criminalization of new immigrants and undocumented people, the collateral consequences of voter disenfranchisement, and the barriers to re-entry can only be fully understood through the lens of our racial history.”
― Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

“If life is a prison, then some people are prisoners who have too much freedom.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“It's a free country. Inmates once bought this. Thus, they're inmates.”
― Brian Spellman, We have our difference in common 2.

“There were no doors. No lights.

No sounds. Not even a trickle of water.

But I could feel them.

I could feel them sleeping, pacing, running hands and claws over the other side of the wall.

They were ancient, and cruel in a way I had never known, not even with Amarantha. They were infinite, and patient, and had learned the language of darkness, of stone.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“A prisoner hears, “You are sentenced to life”; Nazareth felt that now, more sharply than she had ever had to feel it before. But she would learn. Every woman was a prisoner for life; it was not some burden that she bore uniquely. She would have all the company she could ever need.”
― Suzette Haden Elgin, Native Tongue

“Prisons by Stewart Stafford

There are prisons of bars and jailers,
There are dungeons of the mind,
And of family blackmailers.

Some sit manacled in a marriage cell,
Thunderous isolation next door,
All aflame in loveless hell.

Misery, with no parole in poverty's trap,
While in privileged ivory towers nearby,
Elite confinement in luxury's lap.

Inmates break free to a new golden age,
Other jailbirds await merciful luck,
Destined never to escape the cage.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“When a loved one is incarcerated, it's like an atom bomb falls on them, obliterating everything in an instant. Their freedom, their movement, their livelihood, gone. But the bomb's shock waves spread out and envelop close family and friends too. The prison industrial complex eats incarcerated people as the main course but also feasts on their relatives, relationships, and communities. Its appetite is voracious.”
― Wajahat Ali, Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American

“We are all prisoners of our own illusions. The illusions we embrace determine the lives we lead.”
― Paulo Coelho

“Freedom is a prison for some prisoners.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“مسجون المخدرات جريمته هي حرمان الشعب من الوعي، والمسجونون السياسيون جريمتهم محاولة إعادة الوعي إلى الشعب !”
― مصطفى أمين, سنة رابعة سجن

“أكثر قرارات الافراج عن المسجونين السياسيين لا تصدر عادة من الحكام وإنما تصدر من السماء!”
― مصطفى أمين, سنة رابعة سجن

“I answered the summons of the grand jury with pleasure, because I longed to help those of God's most unfortunate children whom I had left prisoners behind me. If I could not bring them that boon of all boons, liberty, I hoped at least to influence others to make life more bearable for them.”
― Brad Ricca, Ten Days in a Mad-House

“Three of us?” says the woman on my left. “There are more than three of us. Everyone, say hi to Number Eleven.”

Sad whispers fill the air. “Hello, Number Eleven.”

“Hi, Number Eleven.”

“I’m sorry, Number Eleven.”
― Lilith Vincent, Pageant

“After all we all are prisoners. Of our memories, our desires, our limitations, our disappointments… in the end we are terribly tragic creatures.”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights