Gary Shteyngart Quotes

Crime, to the man of the forties, was an alien monstrous terror.

It's frightening how easy it is to commit murder in America. Just a drink too much. I can see myself doing it. In England, one feels all the social restraints holding one back. But here, anything can happen.

I wish I could undo what I did at Enron but I can't. I understand that I deserve punishment. Your honor, I accept the prison sentence that you are about to impose and will serve it without bitterness.

Punishment can do a lot for criminals, and send a message to the rest of society.

I'm sorry I didn't go to jail for six months, then I know you could come to see me anytime you wanted to.

One of my friends went on a murder weekend... now he is doing life for it.

With a character like James Bulger, you have to approach him as a human. No one wakes up in the morning and says, as they are brushing their teeth, 'I am going to do something evil today.' He was a businessman - in his business, the violence was just part of his job, let's say. It was also the language of the people he associated with and opposed.

I spent my first three weeks there on a wing with 21 murderers. I met some very evil people there but also some men who'd had no upbringing, no chance in life.

I strongly believe that for serious and violent criminals, we must absolutely hold them accountable for their crimes and send them to prison.

No crime can ever be defended on rational grounds.

You know, my daughters have been through their entire lives and knowing about my case.

It is important that gang members are aware that if they engage in aggravated assault, maiming, kidnapping, or manslaughter that they will receiving a minimum sentence of 30 years.

Society, by setting forth clear penalties for certain kinds of conduct sets its public ratification on moral judgments that this is wrong behavior and that it is deserving of punishment irrespective of whether the punishment will deter, rehabilitate or anything else. It is a way of society of defining what is wrong and what is seriously wrong.

Simply put, violent criminals break the law - any law - every day with impunity.

The best crime stories are always about the crime and its consequences - you know, 'Crime And Punishment' is the classic. Where you have the crime, and its consequences are the story, but considering the crime and the consequences makes you think about the society in which the crime takes place, if you see what I mean.

When you criminalize something, only criminals can deal with it. When criminals deal with it, there's no recourse to law, so there's only recourse to violence.

I've seen other people getting into trouble for glamorising breaking the law.

Going to jail is beyond what anyone thinks it is.

No one wants to be sent to prison, including me.

I don't want to go to prison... but there is nothing they can do to me that will make me stop this referendum.

My father was jailed off and on for seven years.

Most people seem to assume that this dramatic surge in imprisonment was due to a corresponding surge in crime, particularly violent crime.

And although I broke a lot of laws as a teenager, I straightened out immediately upon turning eighteen, when I realized the state had a legal right to execute me.

It was only his fifth offense, and this time he's killed someone.

Strangling is the most intimate way to kill someone.