David Allee Quotes

A friend of mine is chief of staff at a big prison in Georgia. Along with giving me a tour of the prison, she allowed me to meet inmates.

A period of detention in a chilly upstate facility can be a great attitude adjuster.

When the prisoner is brought down from Death Row he steps from the elevator directly into a "holding" room that adjoins the witness room. There are two cells in this "holding" room, two, in case it's a double execution. They're ordinary cells, just like this one, and the prisoner spends his last night there before his execu­tion in the morning, reading, listening to the radio, playing cards with the guards.

I loved photography but was frustrated by the limitations of cameras. When trying to take a picture of a friend's young, active daughter using my DSLR, it was impossible to capture the fleeting moments.

When I arrived in prison, they locked the prison down that day because the media was all over the place.

I am jailed, with around 200 other inmates, in a wide hall that looks like a warehouse.

Fortunately for me, or unfortunately, they made me an editor of the Parish Prison Pelican. I could read and write, and I had a way with words.

I went to Rikers one time to do 'Third Watch,' and I remember thinking, 'Wow, this is a scary place.' We were using a section of the prison where half of it was still populated by inmates.

I am proud of being in a U.S. federal prison and surviving it.

Military police know what to do, they know the Geneva Conventions, and their objective is to provide a safe, secure, fair environment for prisoners under their control.

It would be like the films I've seen where wardens would decide to be in a jail cell for a week, to get a sense of what it would be like to be a prisoner.

Jail is much easier on people who have nothing.

They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.

Rules must be established and enforced, and, as numbers are increased in prisons, the necessity for vigilance increases. These rules, let it be understood, may be kindly while firmly enforced. I would never suffer any exhibition of ill-temper or an arbitrary exercise of authority.

I have much to say about the pain I've felt and seen inside of prison. It has been an eye-opening and harrowing experience.

When you're in prison, the progress of the outside world doesn't necessarily translate inside prison walls. You don't have any rights; it just doesn't progress along the same timeline.

The prison is the state writ small.

The head of a penal institution is more important to the progress of society than the president of a university. His task is more difficult: he must be more resourceful; he must have a combination of culture, education, business ability, and personal character of the highest order; all backed up by a physique that will carry him through continuous experiences such as will break the health, vision, and optimism of most men.

There were no artists in Ossining, which was the home of Sing Sing prison. Most of the parents of the guys I knew were guards there.

There's no reason to think a Guantanamo detainee is any more likely to escape from Supermax than any other federal prisoner.

Prison is no hardship, really. I'm in the art room as an assistant to the tutor, and basically, I'm doing what I like.

I have a lot of fans who are in the prison system, where ramen noodles are a kind of staple. Prisoners are always sending me recipes.

I don't often do a lot of that kind of research, but when it's something specific like 'Oz' - which I fortunately did not have a lot of experience with - I will. I read 'The Hot House,' about being on the inside at Leavenworth prison.

By and large, prisons are survivable, though hope is indeed what you need least upon entering here; a lump of sugar would be more useful.

I tell inmates all the time, 'Don't complain about your grind. Do your time.'