19 Quotes by Jack Abbott

One morning I woke up and was plunged into psychological shock. I had forgotten I was free.

My eyes, my brain seek out escape routes wherever I am sent.

The only serious crime I have ever committed in free society was bank robbery during the time I was a fugitive.

At age nine I began serving long stints in juvenile detention quarters. At age twelve I was sent to the Utah State Industrial School For Boys... at age eighteen I was released as an adult.

I feel that if I ever did adjust to prison, I could by that alone never adjust to society.

This world is nothing. An illusion. Death is the release.

Most important, you learn never to trust a man, even if he seems honest and sincere. You learn how men deceive themselves and how impossible it is to help them without injuring yourself.

I am at this moment thirty-seven years old. Since aged twelve I have been free the sum total of nine and a half months.

Because there is something helpless and weak and innocent – something like an infant – deep inside us all that really suffers in ways we would never permit an insect to suffer.