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Prison Quotes

Browse 2429 quotes about Prison.

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Prison Quotes

“In prison, I fell in love with my country. I had loved her before then, but like most young people, my affection was little more than a simple appreciation for the comforts and privileges most Americans enjoyed and took for granted. It wasn't until I had lost America for a time that I realized how much I loved her.”

PeopleLittlesCountryAmericaYoungLostSimpleComfortPrisonPrivilegeAffectionAppreciationI RealizedGrantedEnjoyedTook For Granted
Author:John McCain
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“For a year after that was done to me I wept every day at the same hour and for the same space of time. That is not such a tragic thing as possibly it sounds to you. To those who are in prison tears are a part of every day's experience. A day in prison on which one does not weep is a day on which one's heart is hard, not a day on which one's heart is happy.”

YearsHeartDoeHardDoneSoundHoursSpaceTearsPrisonTragic
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis,
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“During the first day, curious at having outsiders among them, a long stream of inmates came over and talked with me. Remarkably, according to what they told me, nearly every inmate in the prison didn't do it. Several thousand people had been locked up unjustly and, by an incredible coincidence, all in the same prison. On the other hand, they knew an awful lot about how to knife somebody.”

PeopleFirstsLongHandsThousandPrisonIncrediblesCuriousAwfulStreamsKnivesLockedOutsidersCoincidenceLocked UpInmates
Author:Alan Alda
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“I suppose that it was inevitable that my word-base broadened. I could now for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading in my bunk. You couldn’t have gotten me out of my books with a wedge...Months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.”

IfsThinkingWorldFirstsBookMomentsFactsReadingLeftDealsImagineMonthsPicksFirst TimeLet MePrisonLibraryInevitableNew WorldWedgesBunk
Author:Alex Haley
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“We experience ourselves our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.”

InspirationalKindPersonsFeelingsSpiritualDesireNatureCommunitySpaceAnimalConsciousnessCompassionIdentityCreaturesPrisonAffectionPhysicsDelusionVegetarianVeganAnimal RightsEcologyOur ThoughtsTime And SpaceVegetarianismOur CommunityRelativitySelf ConsciousnessSelf CompassionThoughts And FeelingsInterconnectedAnimal WorldPantheismSave Mother EarthSeparatenessInterconnectionParadigm ShiftSpace TimeAnimal CompassionCommon HumanitySave The EnvironmentOne With NatureAnimals In NatureKindness To AnimalsPersonal OpinionsGlobal CommunityHuman CompassionModern PhysicsPersonal FeelingsEnvironmental PollutionPersonal DesireLiving RightPersonal ConnectionGod NatureNature RelatedDeep EcologyKind PersonCaring And CompassionEarth Community
Book:Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century
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“This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's world contracted, day by day, into the microcosmic single festive household, each with its own rituals and obsessions, rules and dreams. You didn't feel you could call people. They didn't feel they could phone you. How does one cry for help from these seasonal prisons?”

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Author:Zadie Smith
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“Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.”

MenHandsLawDiesJusticeCrimePrisonCriminalsCriminal LawMan And SupermanCommitting Crimes
Book:George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion, Arms and The Man, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion
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“The schoolmaster is the person who takes the children off the parents' hands for a consideration. That is to say, he establishes a child prison, engages a number of employee schoolmasters as turnkeys, and covers up the essential cruelty and unnaturalness of the situation by torturing the children if they do not learn, and calling this process, which is within the capacity of any fool or blackguard, by the sacred name of Teaching.”

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Author:George Bernard Shaw
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“It's as if Japanese men, all to aware that deep inside they'd like to stomp Tokyo flat, breathe fire, and do truly terrible and disgusting things to women, have built themselves the most beautiful of prisons for their rampaging ids. Instead of indulging their fantasies, they focus on food, or landscaping, or the perfect cup of tea -- or a single slab of o-toro tuna -- letting themselves go only at baseball games and office parties.”

IfsMenBeautifulGamesPerfectPartyFantasyFireFocusTerribleOfficeBuiltBaseballPrisonBreatheCupsTeaFlatsDisgustingDeep InsideCups Of TeaBaseball GamesTokyoTunaSlabsLandscaping
Author:Anthony Bourdain
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“I am a king's daughter, And if I cared to care, The moon that has no mistress Would flutter in my hair. No one dares to cherish What I choose to crave. Never have I hungered, For that I did not have I am a kings daughter, And I grow old within The prison of my person, The shackles of my skin. And I would run away And beg from door to door, Just to see your shadow Once, and never more.”

IfsPersonsCareRunningGrowsDoorsHairKingsMoonDaughterShadowSkinsPrisonDareCherishRunning AwayCraveMistressShackles
Author:Peter S. Beagle
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“All events, no matter how earthshaking or bizarre, are diluted within moments of their occurrence the the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day. -Fitz Most prisons are of our own making. A man makes his own freedom, too. -Chade When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool, you end up sounding like a moron instead. -Burrich We left. Walking uphill and into the wind. That suddenly seemed a metaphor for my whole life. -Fitz”

MenEndsMatterWholeMomentsLeftPiecesCuttingEventsWindFoolWalkingPrisonMetaphorWhole LifeDay To DayBizarreMoronContinuance
Author:Robin Hobb
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“It is God's earth out of which man is taken. From it he has his body. His body belongs to his essential being. Man's body is not his prison, his shell his exterior, but man himself. Man does not "have" a body; he does not "have" a soul; rather he "is" body and soul. Man in the beginning is really his body. He is one. He is his body, as Christ is completely his body, as the Church is the body of Christ”

MenDoeSoulBodyEarthChristChurchTakenEssentialsPrisonShellsExteriorBody Of ChristSoul Man
Book:The martyred Christian: 160 readings from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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“The regime had understood that one person leaving her house while asking herself: Are my trousers long enough?' Is my veil in place?' Can my make-up be seen?' Are they going to whip me?' No longer asks herself: Where is my freedom of thought?' Where is my freedom of speech?' My life, is it livable?' What's going on in the political prisons?”

PersonsLongEnoughPoliticalLife IsAsksHouseSpeechUnderstoodAskingPrisonLeavingRegimesFreedom Of SpeechVeilsWhipsFreedom Of ThoughtTrousersThat One Person
Author:Marjane Satrapi
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“I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things.' Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.”

WorldWantSelfWholeBeautifulMy OwnExpressionIdealsPrisonWhole WorldSpiteClosestPersecutionAnarchismSelf ExpressionRadiantComradeCondemnation
Book:Living My Life (Two Volumes in One)
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“What's that?" he snarled, staring at the envelope Harry was still clutching in his hand. "If it's another form for me to sign, you've got another -" "It's not," said Harry cheerfully. "It's a letter from my godfather." "Godfather?" sputtered Uncle Vernon. "You haven't got a godfather!" "Yes, I have," said Harry brightly. "He was my mum and dad's best friend. He's a convicted murderer, but he's broken out of wizard prison and he's on the run. He likes to keep in touch with me, though...keep up with my news...check if I'm happy.”

IfsSaidStillsHandsRunningFormHavensBrokenDadNewsLettersPrisonLikesChecksStaringMumHarry PotterUnclesMurdererWizardsEnvelopesMum And DadUncle Vernon
Author:J. K. Rowling
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“But let there be no misunderstanding: it is not that a real man, the object of knowledge, philosophical reflection or technological intervention, has been substituted for the soul, the illusion of theologians. The man described for us, whom we are invited to free, is already in himself the effect of a subjection more profound than himself. A 'soul' inhabits him and brings him to existence, which is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.”

MenHas BeensRealSoulBodyPoliticalExistenceEffectsObjectsExerciseIllusionReflectionPhilosophicalInstrumentsPrisonProfoundFactorsMasteryTechnologicalInvitedMisunderstandingTheologianInterventionAnatomyReal MenSubjection
Author:Michel Foucault
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“This concern with the basic condition of freedom -- the absence of physical constraint -- is unquestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free -- to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.”

ThinkingMenWantFeelsStatesNationsInterestConditionsConcernPrisonAbsencePsychologicalRepresentativesCompelledConstraintsWant HimCaptives
Author:Aldous Huxley
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“I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for me.”

ThinkingPleasureAirWindGardenGoldPrisonLeavingPaleRestlessPurpleArabiaTossBloomingLilacSwaying
Book:De Profundis
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“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.”

WorldYoungSpiritLyingHeavenBoysAirSadnessBedAnxietyPrisonBreatheDustGentleInstantPaleRudeGrossClosenessCoffinsGuiseDepartedShroudsGentle Spirit
Book:Oliver Twist: Classic English Literature
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“We suddenly feel fearful and apprehensive, naked in our perishable flesh, and for just a moment we wish we could go back to being stone—crumbling in death rather than rotting, trapped inside an immobile prison of stone rather than reduced to immaterial souls like those that now rattled within our skulls. The moment passes. There is no point in regretting irreversible decisions—one has to live with them, and we try.”

FeelsTryingSoulMomentsWishDecisionRegretStonesPrisonFleshNakedFearfulTrappedNo PointSkullsRottingCrumblingIrreversible
Author:Ekaterina Sedia
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“The prospect of his future life stretched before him like a sentence; not a prison sentence but a long-winded sentence with a lot of unnecessary subordinate clauses, as he was soon in the habit of quipping during Happy Hour pickup time at the local campus bars and pubs. He couldn’t say he was looking forward to it, this rest-of-his-life.”

LongHoursHabitPrisonSentencesBarsLocalsUnnecessaryLooking ForwardCampusSubordinatesPubsClausesFuture LifePickupsHappy Hour
Book:Oryx And Crake
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“If middle-class Americans do not feel threatened by the slow encroachment of the police state or the Patriot Act, it is because they live comfortably enough and exercise their liberties very lightly, never testing the boundaries. You never know you are in a prison unless you try the door.”

IfsKnowsFeelsTryingStatesEnoughLibertyClassDoorsMiddleExercisePolicePrisonBoundariesMiddle ClassPatriotThreatenedTestingPolice StateEncroachmentPatriot Act
Book:Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
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