Prisoner Quotes

Unlike most I don’t fear prison, never have, never will. Obviously I don’t want it, I hate it, but it’s the hate that drives me on to survive.

It was cruel. Like opening a birdcage to let the bird fly out, whilst all the while it's tethered by the leg, and freedom is only an illusion.

So what causes men to become violent? I’ll tell you, boredom, silly rules, muggy screws and pathetic governors. What else can we do - swallow it, wipe our mouths out. You have to fight for your rights. Not sit back and take it.

Most people spend less time outside than prisoners.

They soon lost interest in Sofya. She was just one more prisoner -with no more idea of her destination than anyone else. No one asked her name and patronymic; no one remembered her surname. She realized with surprise that although the process of evolution had taken millions of years, these people had needed only a few days to revert to the state of cattle, dirty and unhappy, captive and nameless.

A doctor once asked me: 'Charlie, what do you think your problem is?' “Doc,' I said, '…you’re the problem!

Mad people are very emotionally orientated! They have complex feelings, they’re easily upset, but are also easy to please! Most mad people have lonely lives, as nobody understands them. So they become “Lost Souls.” They dream a lot. Go within their minds to search - some will turn strange, become dangerous. So a madman is created! His world becomes a mission.

I’ve been an inmate in Broadmoor, Rampton and Ashworth. I was one of ‘them’. I was once Britain’s most unstable madman! This book is a complete one off! If you’re a nervous type of reader then don’t read it. You’ve been warned! You are now entering the world of insanity; please keep hold of your sanity until the book comes to a stop!

We are the prisoners of conformity. To get out of this prison, education is the only door and only opportunity.

The hour of our release draws near.

You can grow up being a troublemaker and then before you know it the next thing you’re doing is listening to Frank Zappa whilst chilling out…now that’s the intelligent way out. What would a psychiatrist say about that?

I was sixteen, still my mother’s prisoner, the night I became the whale.

There are different categories of madmen, and different types of asylums! I know absolutely nothing about the asylums that house the madman who thinks he is a space man. Would you believe that 90% of madmen are treated in outside clinics?

I went through a period where I couldn’t keep off the establishment’s roofs, it was a serious urge I had. To look at a drainpipe and start shaking with excitement, nobody knows the feeling of hitting a prison roof, not unless you’ve done it. Let me tell you, it’s like a lotto win - it’s power. You’re the governor; it’s a kick in the teeth to the system.

Take outside - freedom. What is it? What does it mean to a madman? I’ll tell you, we go years through a lifetime with no love, no sex, no nice food and no nice clothes. So when it comes…we choke on it! The kindness strangles us; we can’t cope, so we make pigs of ourselves.

You get used to the brain being squeezed. At nighttime in the darkness of your emptiness, it seems to swell back up and gives you some peace. In the darkness even the pain is not so bad. A bruise heals. (Time is the treatment.) But it’s your mind that’s tortured. Your thoughts are in turmoil and despair. Feelings of awesome revenge and destruction manifest themselves.

You are as free as a prisoner in an open air prison

The thoughts of a prisoner—they're not free either. They kept returning to the same things. A single idea keeps stirring. Would they feel that piece of bread in the mattress? Would he have any luck in the dispensary that evening? Would they out Buinovsky in the cells? And how did Tsezar get his hands on that warm vest?

Hey, times are tough, and thirty gold coins can do a lot of good. But I guess you wouldn't know about needing money, since you grew up like a little princ..."(Rapunzel glares)"Prin... soner. I mean, prisoner! A prisoner in a tower, such a shame, that.

Suicides - you read of it…but you don’t know the truth, if you were to see it you would go insane! Cut throats, cut wrists, hangings, suffocating, eyes bulging and tongues protruding, more shit. Suicides always shit themselves, did you know that! Life’s final shit, the final act of madness; smell that you rats! Clean me up you pigs, zip me up in the bag you scum and get me out of here… Get me the fuck out of here…get me out!

I know a little bit about trying to do the right thing and fucking up completely." I added."You talking about mom?" Ben said"I was talking about me.""You could have been talking about all of us. Ben pressed his hand against the glass and my brother and I matched palms.

They ask themselves: “What will he do?” “How will he react?” “Will he go mad?” “Will he bite?” “Will he be armed?” They’re pumped up with fear. Adrenaline pumping, fingers tense on the trigger, brains racing. And I’m cool as a cat! The name ‘Charles Bronson’ causes panic! The name ‘Mickey Peterson’ causes stress! The police all love to arrest me, as I’m the most exciting madman they will ever arrest! It’s a fact. So here I am years later, and I’m still the madman. There is no escaping my past.