Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent; one waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other- things that are of no real consequence- the door is shut, and can be opened only from the outside.',Letters from Prison - November 21, 1943.

If life was fair ... One third of the people would comprise of judges and lawyers ... One third of police and prison officials ... And one third of legislators ... And one third more to make the other three thirds make any sense at all .... Thank goodness for no fair.

You are in prison. If you wish to get out of prison, the first thing you must do is realize that you are in prison. If you think you are free, you can't escape.

Well I certainly have learned and I hope I'm moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment.

Everyone in prison has an ideal of violence, murder. Beneath all relationships between prisoners is the ever-present fact of murder. It ultimately defines our relationship among ourselves.

I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there, in prison, that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. I certainly wasn’t seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My home made education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me from London asking questions. One was, “What’s your alma mater?” I told him, “Books.” You will never catch me with a free fifteen minutes in which I’m not studying something I feel might be able to help the black man.

People who are detained (held in prison) are locked up by their past, and because you are locked up by your past you are held hostage by your yesterdays. And if you are held hostage by your yesterdays, you cannot see your tomorrows. -- Rev. Earl Smith, author, Death Row Chaplain, creator of IMPACT (Incarcerated Men Putting Away Childish Things).

It was clearly a prisoner's craftwork; that is, the most painstaking work in the world, for prisoners have nowhere to hurry to.

I’ve only been to jail a few times, but in several different countries, at that. No, I've only been to jail a few times. But I still claim the ability to write a 'serious' novel.

You spend a lot of time thinking about how awful the prison is rather than envisioning your future.