Ester asked why people are sad. "That’s simple," says the old man. "They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by ano...
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...
Place me behind prison walls - walls of stone ever so high, ever so thick, reaching ever so far into the ground. There is a possibility that in some way or another I may be able to escape. But stand me on that floor and draw a chalk line around me an...
The fantastic in literature doesn't exist as a challenge to what is probable, but only there where it can be increased to a challenge of reason itself: the fantastic in literature consists, when all has been said, essentially in showing the world as ...
There it is,” he’d say reverentially. “The box represents the mysterious threshold between reality and make-believe. [..] Because every one of us has our box, a dark chamber stowing the thing that lanced our heart. It contains what you do every...
If you lack the humility to go back and tie up the loose ends in your past, then be prepared to forever be haunted by her ghosts, all of whom will come into your present and your future— staining everything and everyone with their leftover emotiona...
Golden bars make no less a prison than a coffin on a hill. And in caged reformation, one wanders aimless still. The rafters now a recollection of sacred suppression. How the morning dawn strikes mourning confession. Now Death yields a harvest of the ...
At the end of the day, when the sun falls a willing prisoner of the night...and humans, males and females alike, become submitted to the mistress of the dark, my mind begins to wander and wonder. Looking upwards at a blank slate of concrete, the psyq...
The proposal to quit voting is basically revolutionary; it amounts to a shifting of power from one group to another, which is the essence of revolution. As soon as the nonvoting movement got up steam, the politicians would most assuredly start a coun...
Therefore, she hummed the provincial lullaby she had learned from the officers’ children in the English Quarter of Jerusalem, and watched in fascination while the savage radical’s eyes misted over with tears. For an instant, the prison bars melte...
The structure of straight coupledom still represents an appropriation of the physical and psychic energy of women to benefit men. And insofar as gay people re-create the straight couple, this structure of violence, domination, and emotional paucity i...
I dislike the phrase “Internet friends,” because it implies that people you know online aren’t really your friends, that somehow the friendship is less real or meaningful to you because it happens through Skype or text messages. The measure of ...
Jack Crawford: Just do your job, but never forget what he is. Clarice Starling: And what is that? [cut to Clarice's first trip to the psychiatric prison] Dr. Frederick Chilton: Oh, he's a monster. Pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive. From a...
Fred Carlson: [about The Count of Monte Cristo] We can discuss the book on Friday if you think the count can hold their attention. Young Lorenzo 'Shakes' Carcaterra: He's got a shot. Fred Carlson: Any particular section I should read from? Young Lore...
Captain, Road Prison 36: You gonna get used to wearin' them chains afer a while, Luke. Don't you never stop listenin' to them clinking. 'Cause they gonna remind you of what I been saying. For your own good. Luke: Wish you'd stop bein' so good to me, ...
Henry Hill: [narrating; Paul is slicing the garlic with a razor] In prison, dinner was always a big thing. We had a pasta course and then we had a meat or fish. Paulie did the prep work. He was doing a year for contempt, and he had this wonderful sys...
Judge Broomfield: [At Gandhi's 1922 trial] It is impossible for me to ignore that you're in a different category from any person I have tried or am likely ever to try. Nevertheless, it is my duty to sentence you to six years in prison. If however His...
Lemon - age 4: [being put to bed] Danny, what's an orphanage? Danny Boodmann: Well, orphanage is like a great big prison where they locked up folks that ain't got no kids. Lemon - age 4: So if I wasn't with you, they would put - you in an orphanage? ...
Whitey Powers: The moment I laid eyes on him, I could tell he'd done time. They never lose it, you know. That tension, it settles up around their shoulders. Sean Devine: He just lost his daughter, maybe that's what's settled in his shoulders. Whitey ...
[last lines] John Anderton: [voiceover] In 2054, the six-year Precrime experiment was abandoned. All prisoners were unconditionally pardoned and released, though police departments kept watch on many of them for years to come. Agatha and the twins we...
[an old convict and H.I. lying on their prison bunks, passing the time] Ear-Bending Cellmate: ...and when there was no meat, we ate fowl and when there was no fowl, we ate crawdad and when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand. H.I.: You ate ...