Mumia Abu-Jamal Quotes

In durance vile 1here must I wake and weep, And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.

In Prison Wearily, drearily, Half the day long, Flap the great banners High over the stone; Strangely and eerily Sounds the wind's song, Bending the banner-poles. While, all alone, Watching the loophole's spark, Lie I, with life all dark, Feet tethered, hands fettered Fast to the stone, The grim walls, square lettered With prisoned men's groan. Still strain the banner-poles Through the wind's song, Westward the banner rolls Over my wrong.

That is how prison is tearing me up inside. It hurts every day. Every day takes me further from my life.

Going to prison is like dying with your eyes open.

I really don't pay attention to the outside world when I'm incarcerated, because being in prison is like being in a different world. So I don't pay attention to what's going on outside of jail, because it's all beyond my control.

Being locked up is one thing, but to have no concept of confinement, to be ignorant of its terms and never understand that struggle is useless - that's what hell must be like.

Prison itself is a tremendous education in the need for patience and perseverance. It is above all a test of one's commitment.

You are all in jail. Each alone, solitary, with a heap of what he owns. You live in prison, die in prison. It is all I can see in your eyes - the wall, the wall!

One does not expect to be comfortable in prison. As a matter of fact, one's mental suffering is so much greater than any common physical distress that the latter is almost forgotten.

I had a very comfortable life, but there were people who spent their life in prison, whose families were destroyed.

In jail I was just like everybody else, I was sitting there praying, feeling caged.

The closest thing to hell on earth is prison. It's the worst experience I've ever had in my life. Besides death.

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.

On some days in prison you might just need to get out of there, but on some days - not all days, but some - you might be able to see the sky and see the blue in it.

I stagnated in prison a long time, and I have wasted most of my life.

The world is a penal institution.

Prison is essentially a shortage of space made up for by a surplus of time; to an inmate, both are palpable.

It was really tough being in jail. It doesn't get much lower. You're in a filthy room. The food is terrible, and you're surrounded by people who have done all types of crazy crimes. You have nothing that belongs to you, not even your own underwear. It's just terrible.

One of the frustrations of prison life, which is also one of its intended consequences, is that the prisoner is made ineffective. He is unable to be of much use. The aim is to render him powerless.

No one cares about you when you're in jail.

In prison, you have to forget about the world on the outside. You have no Internet, no communications, and you're cut off from the whole world. Everything is given to you. You have shelter; you have food, a shower, water. You don't need to spend a dime. You don't have to worry about bills.

To think that any animal would be trapped makes me so sad. It's like living in your bedroom for your entire life and never being able to go outside.

The cell door slammed behind Rubishov.

That there is also freedom in captivity, only a prisoner can claim. Coming from a prison guard, this statement would be blasphemy.

We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.