Frank Abagnale Quotes

During my time in prison, I told myself that I wanted to be a part of the solution and not the problem.

I went to prison; therefore, I've been rehabilitated, and now I want to get on with my life. I have paid for what I did, end of story.

I was an opportunist and got away with things because I was very young, but I went to prison and came out and remade my life.

I am no longer a criminal. I gave up that practice years ago.

One day between takes on the 'Oz' set, I went into one of the cells and laid down and dozed off. When I woke up, I thought I was back in a federal pen. But I did my time, and today no one is more of a free man than Chuck Zito.

I'm not a fugitive anymore. Never will be in the future. After spending five years in jail, you learn your lesson. I never want to return there.

It was not the path I was to take. Because of my deeds, I will never know peace again.

I've never made any effort to hide what happened. I served my time, I've tried to learn and move on.

Because my life has been so notorious and so bad, it can overshadow my work.

I have to share my story. Not for me, but for the people who might go through the same thing and for juveniles who have gotten in trouble.

It took me three and a half years to go from being sentenced in federal court to going to the Oscars.

All I could do was try to build a new life and find a way somehow to repair some of the damage. People had every reason to doubt my sincerity, but most of them didn't. And - given my history, it was more than I could've hoped for - forgiveness and the benefit of the doubt. It still amazes me.

If he's chasing the full restoration of his legacy, he's chasing something that he really can't get.

I'm an example of why people deserve second chances.

His tenacity is unmatched in my opinion. Incredible how someone could have suffered that long and come back out of prison with such a good heart and positive things to say and do.

Well I certainly have learned and I hope I'm moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment.

With a face like this, there aren't a lot of lawyers or priest roles coming my way. I've got a face that was meant for a mug shot, and that's what I've been doing for the past thirty years.

I was a young kid; I did a little time in the Billerica House of Correction, and it basically turned my life around because I said, 'Oh, I'll never be locked up again. They're not taking away my privacy.' So I flipped a coin: heads - Miami, tails -California.

I hit rock bottom before I even went there. Actually, prison was the rescue mission that God had put on me. He sent out his angels to rescue me. In prison, he protected me the whole time I was in there, and it was just for me to get my will power back, to get my strength back, get my focus together.

When I left prison, I had to figure out how to embrace my past.

My family never missed a visit in eight months, ever. I cried coming out. I didn't cry coming in. There's a big difference. I believe that God put me there for a reason, Incarceration is serious.

Time solves most of these things, and today, most people think he did the right thing.

These men who come out of prison have offended against society, they cannot expect that society will immediately forget their offense. On the other hand, for its own protection, society would do well to make it possible at least for such men and women as really wish to go straight, to go straight. We must face the fact that once a person has found it possible to get a living in crooked ways, they have a knowledge which makes it easier to return to those ways than if they had never known them. Therefore it is harder to keep in the straight and narrow path of virtue!

I wanted to represent the brothas I have seen when I go to the rhythm section of Oakland, hearing brothas speak and tell me about their journeys. Men who have been to prison and found themselves, brothas who have made mistakes but are loving their wives and children, trying to protect them and educate them. These men do exist.

Delegations from all over the world visit Homeboy Industries and scratch their heads as we tell them of our difficulty in placing our people in jobs after their time with us. Americans' seeming refusal to believe in a person's ability to redeem himself strikes these folks as foreign indeed.