26 Quotes by Jack Henry Abbott

Everyone in prison has an ideal of violence, murder. Beneath all relationships between prisoners is the ever-present fact of murder. It ultimately defines our relationship among ourselves.

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

Sometimes I doubt that anyone with a philosophical turn of mind is fit to judge anyone. He never comprehends the concept of guilt.

I would never say, to justify a lapse in principle, "I am only human"--as though that were some kind of justification for weakness, moral weakness. Flesh and blood is much, much stronger than fools believe.

I cannot be critical of an infant whose only possible source of nourishment can be found in the dugs of a wolf.

The only time they appear human is when you have a knife at their throats. The instant you remove it, they fall back into animality. Obscenity.

I escaped one time. In 1971 I was in the free world for six weeks.

To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.

When I'm forced by circumstances to be in a crowd of prisoners, it's all I can do to refrain from attack.