Let's make like a hockey player and get the puck out of here.

Let me know if you're going to do something stupid, kid, 'cause I'll ditch you like that.

Something in my gut twisted so hard that it felt like I was being tickled by an invisible hand, and it took me a moment to realize what it was. Hope. It had been so long since I'd felt it that the sensation was like something living inside me, something wonderful waiting to break free, just like I was.

You don't have friends in here, you'll soon come to understand that. You get attached to someone, then you'll just lose them. They'll get shanked or they'll jump or they'll be taken one night.

I'd been so set on an escape that was now impossible, and the only form of freedom left to me was death. It was a terrible kind of freedom—one from misery and pain, yes, but also one from lightness and laughter and life. It was an absence of everything.

Knackered inmates are easier to control than pumped-up ones. And dead inmates are even easier to control, if you follow me.

Gettting to know your characters is so much more important than plotting. Working out every detail of your story in advance, especially when you don't yet know your main characters, always seems a little too much like playing God. You're working out your characters' lives, their destiny, before they've had a chance to discover who they are and what kind of people they want to be.