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.
Jack Henry Abbott

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

Imagine a thousand more such daily intrusions in your life, every hour and minute of every day, and you can grasp the source of this paranoia, this anger that could consume me at any moment if I lost control.
Jack Henry Abbott

The part of me which wanders through my mind and never sees or feels actual objects, but which lives in and moves through my passions and my emotions, experiences this world as a horrible nightmare.
Jack Henry Abbott

The other inmates stand in a long straight line, flanked by guards, and I am dragged past them. I do not respect them, because they will not run - will not try to escape.
Jack Henry Abbott

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

I've wanted somehow to convey to you the sensations - the atmospheric pressure, you might say - of what it is to be seriously a long-term prisoner in an American prison.
Jack Henry Abbott