Prison Quotes

"I did a book signing when we were in New York the day before yesterday. A lady came through and she was just weeping, and said, 'I wish this would have been brought out sooner, my sister is in prison for suffocating her child.'"

Marie Osmond, Musician

"America has the longest prison sentences in the West, yet the only condition long sentences demonstrably cure is heterosexuality"

Bruce Jackson, Public Servant

"When I first went to prison, I was even questioning where, God, where are you?"

Jim Bakker, Celebrity

"To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison"

Jim Bakker, Celebrity

"History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself"

Naguib Mahfouz, Novelist

"Sadly, every year hundreds of children are victimized by a convicted sexual offender. Convicted predators should be put in prison where they belong and kept away from our Nation's children"

Jim Costa, Politician

"Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release"

Germaine Greer, Activist

"Maybe I won't stay out of prison. Who knows?"

Jack Kevorkian, Activist

"I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind"

Gene Tierney, Actress

"A mind enclosed in language is in prison"

Simone Weil, Philosopher

"They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping"

Steve Buscemi, Actor

"But in this Second Work if thou extract our Air and our Fire with the phlegm water, they will the more naturally and easily be drawn out of their infernal prison, and with less losse of their Spirits, than by the former way before described"

George Ripley, Activist

"On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War"

Michael Badnarik, Politician

"There will be no prison which can hold our movement down"

Huey Newton, Activist

"The Federal prison population has increased more than 7-fold over the past 20 years"

Bobby Scott, Politician

"Homosexuality in Russia is a crime and the punishment is seven years in prison, locked up with the other men. There is a three year waiting list"

Yakov Smirnoff, Comedian

"We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions"

Lech Walesa, Activist

"That wasn't the way that things was supposed to be. And all because the so-called culture that I thought was right, that I thought it was cool, and I thought it was fun, and it was exciting at the time. It all led to me laying in a prison bunk by myself with no one to talk to but myself"

Michael Vick, Athlete

"During my time in prison, I told myself that I wanted to be a part of the solution and not the problem"

Michael Vick, Athlete

"In light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, critics are arguing that abuses of Iraqi prisoners are being produced by a climate of disregard for the laws of war"

John Yoo, Educator

"One of the men attached to the prison was the occasion of great amusement on the part of the prisoners, as well as the spectators, by taking a large lump of ice to show these strangers from the tropics"

Lewis Tappan, Businessman

"I mean, we've had all these awful pictures from the prison in Iraq and these sort of memos floating around about justifying torture, all this kind of stuff. And it makes you want to take a shower, you know?"

Ron Reagan, Journalist

"If it is a crime to love the South, its cause and its President, then I am a criminal. I would rather lie down in this prison and die than leave it owing allegiance to a government such as yours"

Belle Boyd, Celebrity

"I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse"

Valentino Rossi, Athlete

"The devil had as good have let Paul alone, for he no sooner comes into prison but he falls a preaching, at which the gates of Satan's prison fly open, and poor sinners come forth"

William Gurnall, Author

"And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn"

William Gurnall, Author

"What I did, you know, being away from my family, letting so many people down. I let myself down, not being out on the football field, being in a prison bed, in a prison bunk, writing letters home, you know. That wasn't my life"

Michael Vick, Athlete

"The first day I walked into prison, and he slammed that door, I knew the magnitude of the decision that I made, and the poor judgment, and what I allowed to happen to the animals. And, you know, it's no way of explaining the hurt and the guilt that I felt. And that was the reason I cried so many nights"

Michael Vick, Athlete

"I mean, I was just one of the ones who got exposed, and because of the position I was in, where I was in my life, it went mainstream. A lot of people got out of it after my situation, not because I went to prison but because it was sad for them to see me go through something that was so pointless, that could have been avoided"

Michael Vick, Athlete

"Detainee policy in this war is hard, it's complicated, but we must get it right. We would be better off as a nation if we could close Gitmo safely and start a new prison that he could use that the world would see as a better way to doing business"

Lindsey Graham, Politician

"With Animal Factory you'd think that because it's mostly interiors, you could shoot it anywhere. So we shot this in Philadelphia, and we had the cooperation of the prison system"

Steve Buscemi, Actor

"If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country"

Danny Glover, Actor

"I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator"

Mary Harris Jones, Activist

"They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!"

Nellie Bly, Journalist

"Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row"

Danny Glover, Actor

"I believe that being an actress or being involved in a movie has to be a life experience, otherwise why go for it? I have to change me, and I have to learn things, and I have to push me and my limits. By acting, I find a freedom inside of a prison in a way"

Juliette Binoche, Actress

"When I left prison, I had to figure out how to embrace my past"

Fernando Flores, Politician

"Studies have shown that inmate participation in education, vocational and job training, prison work skills development, drug abuse, mental health and other treatment programs, all reduce recidivism, significantly"

Bobby Scott, Politician

"I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power"

Fernando Flores, Politician

"We can't let somebody rise to the top who will pardon these war criminals. Because they need to go to prison for what they've done in this world. We can't have a pardon. They need to pay for what they've done"

Cindy Sheehan, Activist

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