Prison walls are meant not only to keep convicts in, but to keep the would-be investigator out.

Knowing few children of my age with whom to compare notes, I envied the children of literature to whom interesting things were always happening.

I discovered that Human Nature was not, as I had always supposed, a fixed and unalterable entity, that wars are not caused by a natural urge in men to fight, that ownership of land and factories is not necessarily the natural reward of greater wisdom and energy.

the prison system, inherently unjust and inhumane, is the ultimate expression of injustice and inhumanity in the society at large.

Society created the prison in its own image; will history, with its penchant for paradox, reverse those roles?

Things on the whole are faster in America; people don't stand for election, they run for office. If a person says he's sick, it doesn't mean regurgitating, it means ill. Mad means angry, not insane. Don't ask for the left-luggage; it's called a checkroom.

The character and mentality of the keepers may be of more importance in understanding prisons than the character and mentality of the kept.