Inmate Love Quotes

Books are to me as homemade tattoos are to an inmate. Can't get enough of them.

It's me, Aiden," Parker responded. "I have some bad news. I've found out Maxwell Turner and two other inmates have broken out of prison. I'm heading to Bayville Federal Prision to get more information about the prision break.

Whatever false sense of security the contraption had once offered us was gone. Each time we left, even for a half hour, we wondered whether this would be the time that our manic inmate would bust out and go on another couch-shredding, wall-gouging, door-eating rampage. So much for peace of mind.

As an inmate of a concentration camp, Corrie Ten Boom heard a commotion, and saw a short distance away a prison guard mercilessly beating a female prisoner. “What can we do for these people?” Corrie whispered. “Show them that love is greater,” Betsie replied. In that moment, Corrie realized her sister’s focus was on the prison guard, not the victim she was watching. Betsie saw the world through a different lens. She considered the actions of greatest moral gravity to be the ones we originate, not the ones we suffer.

I'm a woman; in so many ways I've been programmed to please. I took the job and spent time hunkered over figures, budgets, charts, and fiscal-year projections. I tried, but I hated it. "Working at a job you don't like is the same as going to prison every day," my father used to say. He was right. I felt imprisoned by an impressive title, travel, perks, and a good salary. On the inside, I was miserable and lonely, and I felt as if I was losing myself. I spent weekends working on reports no one read, and I gave presentations that I didn't care about. It made me feel like a sellout and, worse, a fraud. Now set free, like any inmate I had to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

I always think fondly of my years inside Detention Center LC/766B. The women and the children I met had all lost people they loved, but they never wallowed in despair. Dying is one of the few experiences we'll eventually all enjoy firsthand, and like most shit that's commonplace, it's boring to dwell on. My fellow inmates/classmates (and really, what's the difference?) showed me it was more interesting to concentrate on the living. Because death is fucking predictable... ...but life has science experiments and free time and surprise naps and who knows what comes next?

It was a lovely body, but the inmate, the soul, was more than worthy of that lodging.

Recidivism was the only financially viable path forward. The only way for the government to win is for the inmates to lose. It’s as simple as that.

The prison population consists of heterogeneous elements; but, taking only those who are usually described as 'the criminals' proper, and of whom we have heard so much lately from Lombroso and his followers, what struck me most as regards them was that the prisons, which are considered as preventive of anti-social deeds, are exactly the institutions for breeding them. Every one knows that absence of education, dislike of regular work, physical incapability of sustained effort, misdirected love of adventure, gambling propensities, absence of energy, an untrained will, and carelessness about the happiness of others are the causes which bring this class of people before the courts. Now I was deeply impressed during my imprisonment by the fact that it is exactly these defects of human nature--each one of them--which the prison breeds in its inmates; and it is bound to breed them because it is a prison, and will breed them so long as it exists.

am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in. By

Mina didn’t care for pet stores. She loved animals, but hated going in and seeing hundreds of caged dogs, cats, birds, and mice. To her it was the same as walking into a prison and being asked to pick out a cute inmate to take home and care for. She sighed and walked over to Nan, who was already gushing over a playful Pomeranian and American Eskimo puppy.

I don’t quite understand how you can love somebody so much, yet so frequently want to throttle them.

Down by the river, Down by the banks of the River Charles That’s where you’ll find me Along with lovers, muggers and thieves Well I love that dirty water, Oh Boston, you’re my home. —The Inmates

imagine what death would feel like, they mostly described sadness, fear, and anxiety. But their studies of terminally ill patients and death row inmates found that those actually facing death are more likely to speak of meaning, connection, and love. As the researchers concluded: “Meeting the grim reaper may not be as grim as it seems.

So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed In serpent, inmate bad! and toward Eve Addressed his way: not with indented wave, Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear, Circular base of rising folds, that towered Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes; With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape And lovely; never since of serpent-kind Lovelier…

I love you, Brooke. That was what he said to me just a few hours before he tried to kill me.

We had a genuine love for each other, and we loved being around each other, and in the gang was where I felt love. Troit Lynes, former death row inmate of Her Majesty Prison

You want me to change overnight, Katie, and I’m telling you right now that it’s not going to happen. You're asking me to forget years of abuse in a matter of days.

treat you like a criminal,” he said, showing a slide of an inmate in striped prison garb. Then a slide of Bob Dylan came on the screen. “People want to own the music they love.

I love you too,” I breathe. He leans in toward me. “And I’m going to show you how much.” And he does.

love your aftershave,” I murmur. “It’s sandalwood scented.” I frown. “What’s sandalwood?” “I don’t know. The wood you make sandals from?” “So basically, you smell like feet?” He laughs. “Hey, you’re the weirdo who likes it…

Who" The month of flowering’s finished. The fruit’s in, Eaten or rotten. I am all mouth. October’s the month for storage. The shed’s fusty as a mummy’s stomach: Old tools, handles and rusty tusks. I am at home here among the dead heads. Let me sit in a flowerpot, The spiders won’t notice. My heart is a stopped geranium. If only the wind would leave my lungs alone. Dogsbody noses the petals. They bloom upside down. They rattle like hydrangea bushes. Mouldering heads console me, Nailed to the rafters yesterday: Inmates who don’t hibernate. Cabbageheads: wormy purple, silver-glaze, A dressing of mule ears, mothy pelts, but green-hearted, Their veins white as porkfat. O the beauty of usage! The orange pumpkins have no eyes. These halls are full of women who think they are birds. This is a dull school. I am a root, a stone, an owl pellet, Without dreams of any sort. Mother, you are the one mouth I would be a tongue to. Mother of otherness Eat me. Wastebasket gaper, shadow of doorways. I said: I must remember this, being small. There were such enormous flowers, Purple and red mouths, utterly lovely. The hoops of blackberry stems made me cry. Now they light me up like an electric bulb. For weeks I can remember nothing at all.

In her eyes that hung upon mine, I could read depth beyond depth of passion and sadness, lights of poetry and hope, blackness of despair, and thoughts that were above the earth. It was a lovely body, but the inmate, the soul was more than worthy of that lodging.

I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it — would they let me — since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.

A Word Before All Is Grace was written in a certain frame of mind—that of a ragamuffin. Therefore, This book is by the one who thought he’d be farther along by now, but he’s not. It is by the inmate who promised the parole board he’d be good, but he wasn’t. It is by the dim-eyed who showed the path to others but kept losing his way. It is by the wet-brained who believed if a little wine is good for the stomach, then a lot is great. It is by the liar, tramp, and thief; otherwise known as the priest, speaker, and author. It is by the disciple whose cheese slid off his cracker so many times he said “to hell with cheese ’n’ crackers.” It is by the young at heart but old of bone who is led these days in a way he’d rather not go. But, This book is also for the gentle ones who’ve lived among wolves. It is for those who’ve broken free of collar to romp in fields of love and marriage and divorce. It is for those who mourn, who’ve been mourning most of their lives, yet they hang on to shall be comforted. It is for those who’ve dreamed of entertaining angels but found instead a few friends of great price. It is for the younger and elder prodigals who’ve come to their senses again, and again, and again, and again. It is for those who strain at pious piffle because they’ve been swallowed by Mercy itself. This book is for myself and those who have been around the block enough times that we dare to whisper the ragamuffin’s rumor— all is grace.

A second marriage, a new mistress suddenly brought to an established home, rarely gives pleasure to its inmates. This applies in an especial degree to its women-servants. Whatever the cause may be, it is an indisputable fact, that the second marriage of a master is rarely liked, and the new bride is regarded with anything but love. The case was such at the Hall. Tritton, the housekeeper, had lived in the family of Miss Carleton before she was Mrs. St. John; had come with her to the Hall when she married; and it was only natural, perhaps, that she should look upon her successor somewhat in the light of an usurper.

What is the delivery system for resilience? In part, it's the loving, caring adult who pays attention. It's the community of unconditional love, representing the very "no matter whatness" of God. They say that an educated inmate will not reoffend. This is not because an education assures that this guy will get hired somewhere. It is because his view is larger and more educated, so that he can be rejected at ninety-three job interviews and still not give up. he's acquired resilience. Sometimes resilience arrives in the moment you discover your own unshakable goodness. Poet Galway Kinnell writes, "Sometimes it's necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.

These men deceive themselves," said Roger Chillingworth, with somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture with his forefinger. "They fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs to them. Their love for man, their zeal for God's service—these holy impulses may or may not coexist in their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish breed within them. But, if they seek to glorify God, let them not lift heavenward their unclean hands! If they would serve their fellowmen, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential self-abasement! Would thou have me to believe, O wise and pious friend, that a false show can be better—can be more for God's glory, or man' welfare—than God's own truth? Trust me, such men deceive themselves!" "It

    So spake the Enemie of Mankind, enclos'd   In Serpent, Inmate bad, and toward EVE   Address'd his way, not with indented wave,   Prone on the ground, as since, but on his reare,   Circular base of rising foulds, that tour'd   Fould above fould a surging Maze, his Head   Crested aloft, and Carbuncle his Eyes;   With burnisht Neck of verdant Gold, erect   Amidst his circling Spires, that on the grass   Floted redundant: pleasing was his shape,   And lovely, never since of Serpent kind   Lovelier, not those that in ILLYRIA chang'd   HERMIONE and CADMUS, or the God   In EPIDAURUS; nor

Denial is the ladder out of this hell, enabling them to emerge with the burning desire to finally revenge themselves for it. Can one have a dialogue with such people? I believe we must keep trying because this may, indeed it very likely will, be their first opportunity of encountering an enlightened witness. How they make use of this encounter is something over which we have no influence. But we should at least make use of the occasion. Life failed them—something that is, I suspect, true of all prison inmates. One should try to show them that they had the right to respect, love, and encouragement in their childhood and that this right was denied them, but that this does not give them the right to destroy the lives of others.

Also in America, the Redemptorist priest and founder of the Paulist order, Fr. Isaac Hecker, was a great admirer of St. Catherine, seeing in her the perfect foil to those who claimed that Catholicism promotes a mechanical piety or fosters a sanctity unconcerned with the real needs of suffering humanity in society. To the latter charge he replied forcefully: "Read the life of St. Catherine, and in imagination fancy her in the city hospital of Genoa, charged not only with the supervision and responsibility of its finances, but also overseeing the care of its sick inmates, taking an active, personal part in its duties as one of its nurses, and conducting the whole establishment with strict economy, perfect order, and the tenderest care and love!

Dear Young Black Males, Could you imagine standing in front of a judge and hearing the words, “I now sentence you to 10 years, 20 years, 15 to LIFE, 25 to LIFE, LIFE without the possibility of parole, and/or DEATH?” Could you imagine being locked up with grown, yoked up men? Could you imagine being raped over and over again? Could you imagine other inmates taking what your family or loved ones sent you? Could you imagine being degraded as a person, and there’s nothing you can do about it? Could you imagine being made to do things that nobody should have to EVER endure? I don’t care how hard you think you are, jail and prison is NOT for young black males. And to be honest, many grown men get turned out in jail and prison too. Please think! Think about the consequences of the choices you make. It’s just NOT worth it! If you think that you’re untouchable, think again. This isn’t a game. Value your life! I’ve given you some real and raw food-for-thought to think about. Now it’s all up to YOU.

Never," said he, as he ground his teeth, "never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!" (And he shook me with the force of his hold.) "I could bend her with my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage- with a stern triumph. Whatever I do with it's cage, I cannot get at it-the savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only let the captive loose. Conquered I might be of the house; but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay-dwelling place. And it is you, spirit, with will and energy, and virtue and purity-that I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of yourself you could come with soft flight and nestle against my heart, if you would: seized against your will, you will elide the grasp like an essence-you will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance.

Sometimes a sanctuary, sometimes a prison, that house on the hill has always been my home. I've spent my life yearning toward it, wanting to escapt it, paralyzed by its hold on me. (There are many ways to be crippled, I've learned over the years, many forms of paralysis.) Some sense memories fade as soon as they're past. Others are etched in your mind for the rest of your life. We should've sold this house when we had the chance. You're the inmate and I'm the warden. The words hand in the air between us. But as long as neither of us mentions them, we can pretend they were never said. The older I get, the more I believe that the greatest kindness is acceptance. There are many ways to love and be loved. Too bad it's taken most of a lifetime for me to understand what that means. Wyeth: Christina's World--The painting is more a psychological landscape than a portrait, a portrayal of a state of mind rather than a place. Like the house, like the landscape, she perseveres. As an embodiment of the strength of the American character, she is vibrant, pulsating, immortal.

Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in. By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.

The Chancellor’s assurances were so satisfying and so unexpected that I think they are on the whole too good to be true,” Messersmith wrote. “We must keep in mind, I believe, that when Hitler says anything he for the moment convinces himself that it is true. He is basically sincere; but he is at the same time a fanatic.” Messersmith urged skepticism regarding Hitler’s protestations. “I think for the moment he genuinely desires peace but it is a peace of his own kind and with an armed force constantly becoming more effective in reserve, in order to impose their will when it may become essential.” He reiterated his belief that Hitler’s government could not be viewed as a rational entity. “There are so many pathological cases involved that it would be impossible to tell from day to day what will happen any more than the keeper of a madhouse is able to tell what his inmates will do in the next hour or during the next day.” He urged caution, in effect warning Phillips to be skeptical of Dodd’s conviction that Hitler wanted peace. “I think for the present moment … we must guard against any undue optimism which may be aroused by the apparently satisfying declarations of the Chancellor.

The Carver stroked the shard of bone in his palm, attention fixed upon a stone-faced Cassian. 'What if I tell you what the rock and darkness and sea and beyond whispered to me, Lord of Bloodshed? How they shuddered in fear, on that island across the sea. How they trembled when she emerged. She took something- something precious. She ripped it out with her teeth.' Cassian's golden-brown face had drained of colour, his wings tucking in tight. 'What did you wake that day in Hybern, Prince of Bastards?' My blood went cold. 'What come out was not what went in.' A rasping laugh as the Carver laid the shard of bone on the ground beside him. 'How lovely she is- new as a fawn and yet ancient as the sea. How she calls to you. A queen, as my sister once was. Terrible and proud, beautiful as a winter sunrise.' Rhys had warned me of the inmates' capacity to lie, to sell anything, to get free. 'Nesta,' the Bone Carver murmured. 'Nes-ta.' I squeezed Cassian's hand. Enough. It was enough of this teasing and taunting. But he didn't look at me. 'How the wind moans her name. Can you hear it, too? Nesta. Nesta. Nesta.' I wasn't sure Cassian was breathing. 'What did she do, drowning in the ageless dark? What did she take?

She and her brother got their usual table, right in front of the grimy, bulletproof window covered with steel bars. Nothing but the best seat in the house when visiting Kyle Rhodes. He laid into her the moment he sat down. “Who’s Tall, Dark, and Smoldering?” Jordan’s mouth dropped open. “Shut up. You’ve been reading Scene and Heard?” Kyle gestured to the bars. “What else am I supposed to do in this place?” “Repent. Reflect on your wrongdoings. Rehabilitate your criminal mind.” “You’re avoiding the question.” Yes, she was. Because her brother was number two on the list of people she really, really didn’t want to lie to, right after her father. “It’s no big deal. He’s just a guy I brought to Xander’s party.” Who, yes, happened to be tall, dark, and smoldering. Allegedly. And who occasionally made her smile, when he wasn’t busy getting under her skin. Like an itch she couldn’t scratch. Or a tick. “For five thousand dollars a head, I doubt he’s ‘just a guy,’ ” Kyle said. Suddenly, their friend Puchalski, the inmate with the black snake tattoo, was at their table. “So who’s this tall, dark, and smoldering jerk?” he asked Jordan, seemingly affronted. Jordan held out her hands. “Seriously, does everyone read Scene and Heard in this place?” Puchalski gestured to Kyle. “I snagged it from Sawyer here while he was reading the financial section. I’ve got to keep up with current events.” He winked. “I won’t be in this place forever, you know.” “You will be if you don’t shut your yap and start following the rules, Puchalski,” a guard warned as he passed by. The inmate scuttled off. Kyle picked up where they’d left off. “So now the big secret’s out.” Jordan glared at her brother, who apparently had decided to be more annoying than usual on this particular subject. “Yes, it’s true—I had a date. Ooh, shocking.

Inside the Mousery the smell was overpowering, but it is doubtful if any of the three noticed it. Down the center of the single long room ran a brick path on either side of which were shelves three deep, divided into roomy sections. The admiral stopped before one of them, ‘Golden Agouti’, he remarked. He took hold of a rectangular box, the front of which was wired; very slyly he lifted a lid set into the top panel, and lowered the cage so that the children might look in. Inside, midway between floor and lid was a smaller box five inches long; a little hole at one end of this inner box gave access to the interior of the cage, and from it a miniature ladder slanted down to the sawdust strewn floor. In this box were a number of little heaving pink lumps, by the side of which crouched a brownish mouse. Her beady eyes peered up anxiously, while the whiskers on her muzzle trembled. The admiral touched her gently with the tip of his little finger. ‘She’s a splendid doe’, he said affectionately; ‘a remarkably careful mother and not at all fussy!’ He shut the door and replaced the cage. ‘There’s a fine pair here’, he remarked, passing to a new section; ‘what about that for color!’ He put his hand into another cage and caught one of the occupants deftly by the tail. Holding the tail between his finger and thumb he let the mouse sprawl across the back of his other hand, slightly jerking the feet into position. The children gazed. ‘What color is that?’ they inquired. ‘Chocolate’, replied the admiral. ‘I rather fancy the Self varieties, there’s something so well-bred looking about them; for my part I don’t think a mouse can show his figure if he’s got a pied pelt on him, it detracts. Now this buck for instance, look at his great size, graceful too, very gracefully built, legs a little coarse perhaps, but an excellent tail, a perfect whipcord, no knots, no kinks, a lovely taper to the point!’ The mouse began to scramble. ‘Gently, gently!’ murmured the admiral, shaking it back into position. He eyed it with approbation, then dropped it back into its cage, where it scurried up the ladder and vanished into its bedroom. They passed from cage to cage; into some he would only let them peep lest the does with young should get irritable; from others he withdrew the inmates, displaying them on his hand. ‘Now this’, he told them, catching a grey-blue mouse. ‘This is worth your looking at carefully. Here we have

Chorus: The Kings are our dear fathers Under whose care we live in peace The Kings are our dear fathers Under whose care we live in peace Marat: And the children repeated the lesson they believed it As anyone believes What they hear over and over again And over and over again the priests said Our love embraces all mankind Of every colour race and creed Our love is international universal We are all brothers every one And the priests looked down into the pit of injustice And they turned their faces away and said Our Kingdom is not as the kingdom of this world Our life on earth is out a pilgrimage The soul lives on humility and patience At the same time screwing from the poor their last centime They settled down among their treasures And ate and drank with princes And to the starving they said Suffer Suffer as he suffered on the cross For it is the will of God And anyone believes what they hear over and over again So the poor instead of bread made do with a picture Of the bleeding scourged and nailed-up Christ And prayed to that image of their helplessness And the priests said Raise your hands to heaven bend your knees And bear your suffering without complaint For prayer and blessing are the only stairways Which you can climb to Paradise And so they chained down the poor in their ignorance So that they wouldn't stand up and fight their bosses Who ruled in the name of the lie of divine right Chorus: Amen

Their love was like a prison, and I the willing inmate.

close my eyes and I can still see his ruggedly handsome face. His eyes looking into mine. I love you, Brooke. That was what he said to me just a few hours before he tried to kill me. And that’s not even the worst thing he did.

The other children will love him, even if he was born out of wedlock. It was absolutely the right decision to move here.

One of my colleagues in the cellular-telephone business was complaining about how the engineers had made cell phones hard to use by packing in so many rarely used features. She said that cell phones were "wet dogs." When I inquired about her metaphor, she explained, "You have to really love a wet dog a lot to want to carry it around.

Each dungeon held one inmate, one can of water, and one bucket for human excrement. That was all. There was no sink or toilet, no bed, mattress, or blanket, no other furniture. Prisoners slept on the floor and, after using the buckets, covered them with their shirts to combat the stink and the scarab beetles, which loved to eat from the buckets. The only air and light entered through the iron-bar ceilings, twelve feet over the prisoners’ heads. A nauseating odor permeated the entire area. It floated up from the buckets, which were emptied only once every twenty-four hours.

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, by

Andre wasn’t there, no other inmates…no one. The bailiff walked in about an hour after I’d arrived and I felt my stomach start to stir. Something wasn’t right and I could feel it, but I tried to calm myself down.

Opening yourself directly to the spiritual sources—be they evil or holy—is dangerous business. You risk opening the front door of your heart to forces as complicated and conflicted as the streets and prisons. (As inmates have made sure to remind me, regarding such environments: “Not everyone’s there to help you, Chris. You can get fucked up really quickly.” Those words, I think, apply to the unmediated spiritual realm.) But there’s an even greater danger. You risk making contact with a Love somewhere out there that is so pure, so good, it makes you feel more, hurt more, notice more, care more, makes you embarrassingly odd and terribly sensitive, welcoming strangers, touching the lepers like Francis in Assisi, or getting dragged to court and stuck with the death penalty between two thieves like Jesus did. Or—and this is most common—if you lose that connection that filled you like the sun, it can be a loss so disorienting that even the hope required for real prayer—someone suggesting you open up again, say, to God—can drive you mad. Any way you come at it, it’s a dangerous game.

When I would watch my father go against the wall with the rest of the inmates and have to watch them walk back to the cell, it made me feel like shit. My father always made sure to take care of us when we were younger.

In his eyes, I was just an inmate who was sentenced to life in prison for murder. “You

But, honestly, word around is that whenever someone comes into the prison and the inmates find out that they’re in there for rape, I heard that without a doubt, they get their ass beat.

The tool was first described in 1998 in one of my all-time favorite books, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, by Alan Cooper. If you haven’t read this book you should—it’s a classic for product managers, designers, and engineers.

In unlikely places, God frees our hearts to love our neighbors, His children. Inmates, addicts, outcasts. All of them. — Kelli Regan —

Such a shame that I didn’t get to say good-bye to my fellow inmates,” he said sarcastically. “Actually, Puchalski was the only guy I liked. I still can’t figure out what got into him.” As Jordan used her chopsticks to pick up a piece of hamachi, she decided it was best to get her brother off that topic as fast as possible. “Sounds like he just snapped.” “But why would he have a fork in his shoe?” Kyle mused. “That makes me think he was planning the attack, which doesn’t make sense.” Let it go, Kyle. She shrugged. “Maybe he always keeps a fork in his shoe. Who understands why any of these felon types do what they do?” “Hey. I am one of those felon types.” Grey tipped his glass of wine. “And who would’ve thought you would do what you did?” “It was Twitter,” Kyle mumbled under his breath. Maybe we should change the subject,” Jordan suggested, sensing the conversation could only spiral downward from there. “Okay. Let’s talk about you instead,” Grey said. “I never asked—how did Xander’s party go?” Now there was a potential land mine of a topic. “It went fine. Pretty much the same party as usual.” Except for a little domestic espionage. She threw Kyle a look, needing help. Change the subject. Fast. He stared back cluelessly. Why? She glared. Just do it. He made a face. All right, all right. “Speaking of wine, Jordo, how was your trip to Napa?” Great. Leave it to her genius of a brother to pick the other topic she wanted to avoid. “I visited that new winery I told you about. We should have a deal this week so that my store will be the first to carry their wine in the Chicago area.” Grey’s tone was casual. “Did you bring Tall, Dark, and Smoldering with you on the trip?” Jordan set down her chopsticks and looked over at her father. He smiled cheekily as he took a sip of his wine. “You read Scene and Heard, too?” she asked. Grey scoffed at that. “Of course not. I have people read it for me. Half the time, it’s the only way I know what’s going on with you two. And don’t avoid the question. Tell us about this new guy you’re seeing. I find it very odd that you’ve never mentioned him.” He fixed his gaze on her like the Eye of Sauron. Jordan took a deep breath, suddenly very tired of the lies and the secret-agent games. Besides, she had to face the truth at some point. “Well, Dad, I don’t know if you have to worry about Tall, Dark, and Smoldering anymore. He’s not talking to me right now.” Kyle’s face darkened. “Tall, Dark, and Smoldering sounds like a moron to me.” Grey nodded, his expression disapproving. “I agree. You can do a lot better than a moron, kiddo.” “Thanks. But it’s not that simple. His job presents some . . . challenges.” That was definitely the wrong thing to say. “Why? What kind of work does he do?” her father asked immediately. Jordan stalled. Maybe she’d overshot a little with the no more lies promise. She threw Kyle another desperate look. Do something. Again. Kyle nodded. I’m on it. He eased back in his chair and stretched out his intertwined hands, limbering up his fingers. “Who cares what this jerk does? Send me his e-mail address, Jordo—I’ll take care of it. I can wreak all sorts of havoc on Tall, Dark, and Smoldering’s life in less than two minutes.” With an evil grin, he mimed typing at a keyboard. Their father looked ready to blow a gasket. “Oh no—you do not get to make the jokes,” he told Kyle. “Jordan and I make the jokes. You’ve been out of prison for four days and I seriously hope you learned your lesson, young man . . .

11. No clerics. What would you think about a religion with no clergy? We here at SoulBoom are all for it. One of the miracles of the Twelve-Step Recovery Program at AA is the lack of leadership roles. The inmates are running the asylum! Elected servant-leaders run the meetings for limited terms while following the adage “principles above personalities.” As expertly quoted in the Twelve Traditions of the AA Big Book, “For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.” What if modern religion was like that? (Or politics, for that matter!) Leaders as trusted servants. We no longer need people with funny hats (whose only historical “expertise” was knowing how to read when most of the population didn’t) to interpret the holy writings for us. What if no member of this faith had more power or authority than any other member? What if, like at an AA meeting, there were regular, democratic elections, where a rotating staff of elected folks helped to serve the needs of the community… and nothing else?

I looked at the gentleman and said, "I care about you because Christ died for you. You are made in the image of God. Because God sees you with worth and value, I see you with worth and value as a fellow human being, despite the circumstances we find ourselves in. God loves you, and I care about you. And I believe you can become a man of God even where you're at.

Tim is in love with me.

He squeezes my hand in his. “I love you, Brooke.” It takes me a moment to realize what he’s said. He hasn’t told me he “lopes” me like he usually does. He said he loves me. He loves me.

When I was a kid,” Shane speaks up, “I used to love peanut butter on Ritz crackers.

I love you, Brooke,” he murmurs in my ear. Since the first night he said it to me, we have opened up the floodgates. He loves telling me he loves me. And I can’t say I don’t love being loved. “I love you too.

I am with you, rafēgh (comrade) By Siavash Kasrai Translation: Darya Saudade --- I am with you, rafēgh (comrade), in wherever you are and struggle. I am your neighbor when, beside the window in the evening's gaze, you hum the people’s anthem to yourself. I walk in step with you when, devoted to anxiety and eagerness, you hand out a nightly leaflet to every passerby in the alley, with the ring of every word, you awaken a heart, a city, a whole homeland. I am with you when among the people, like a restless fish in water, you slide and come and seek, and warn the sleeping of the flood coming. I work alongside you when the body is worn out from work, but, in the fields, the factories, you keep working, you keep working. I am your fellow-sufferer when with the caress of your hands you beckon the child to patience, as if awakening a bud from its slumber I am your fellow inmate when you fill the dragging moments with forgotten memories in the corner of your confinement or in the fever of torture and the throes of anguish. No, my soulmate, my comrade, no, I won’t leave you alone, when at an unknown dawn you sacrifice your life for ideals and love. I am with you, rafēgh, I am with you, rafēgh, In wherever I am and struggle. In wherever you are and struggle.

While he was in prison, he watched fifty-four people, fifty-three men and one woman, walk by his cell on their way to the execution chamber. He got his fellow inmates to start banging their bars at five minutes before the execution. "I discovered on death row that the other inmates had not had the unconditional love that I had had from my mother. We became a family, and we did not know if they had any other family and friends there, so we were banging the bars to say to those who were being put to death, 'We're with you, we still love you right up to the end.

But he lopes me. And that’s almost better than love.

I don’t quite understand how you can love somebody so much, yet so frequently want to throttle them

The Modern world is arranged such that a free man with a moderate salary could more or less purchase the life of an inmate for himself and even prefer such a life to a conventional life of freedom.

merchantman sunk in the Atlantic, the 500th U.S. ship lost to U-boats since Pearl Harbor. The domestic news was also war-related, if less febrile: the first meatless Tuesday had gone well in New York; penitentiary inmates with only one felony conviction were urged to apply for parole so they could serve in the Army; and a survey of department stores in Washington revealed that “there aren’t any nylon stockings to be had for love or money.

I stand there, shivering slightly in a jacket that isn’t warm enough for the amount of time I’ve been standing out on this porch. I hear raised voices inside the house—Tim and his mother arguing. I can only imagine what they’re saying to each other. He doesn’t want to see me. That much is clear. After what feels like an eternity, the door swings open again. And there he is. Tim Reese. The boy next door. The guy I thought I was falling in love with before I temporarily sent him to prison for murder. Oh boy. He doesn’t look great. I remember how I swooned a bit when I saw him standing outside the elementary school on Josh’s first day of school. But now he looks tired and pale and about fifteen pounds thinner. And pissed off as hell. “Brooke.” His eyes are like daggers. “What are you doing here?” He doesn’t invite me in. He doesn’t even budge from the doorway. “Um.” I wish I had planned something to say. I could have written down a little speech. Why oh why didn’t I write out a speech? “I wanted to say hi.” His eyebrows shoot up. “Hi?” “And welcome home,” I add. There isn’t even a hint of a smile on Tim’s lips. “No thanks to you.” “Look…” I squirm on the porch. “This hasn’t been easy for me either, you know—” “I was in prison, Brooke.” “Yeah, well.” I raise my eyes to meet his. “Josh’s dad tried to kill me. So, you know, it hasn’t been any picnic.” “No kidding.” Tim folds his arms across his chest. He’s wearing just a sweater, and I’m cold in my coat, so he’s got to be freezing, but he doesn’t look it. “I’d been telling you all along that Shane was dangerous. Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I warn you repeatedly?” I hang my head. He absolutely did. “The guy stabbed me in the gut.” His fingers go to the area on his abdomen where he still has that scar. “I was practically bleeding to death, barely conscious, and I dragged myself off the floor when I saw you make a run for it. I grabbed that baseball bat off the floor and hit Shane as hard

I wait for a moment, wondering if Josh will come out to greet me. There was an age when Mommy coming home was followed by the scrambling of little feet and a warm body hurling itself at my knees. Those kinds of greetings are less common now that Josh has turned ten years old. He still loves me, don’t get me wrong, just not quite so emphatically.

I was one to one with a big nurse. Afraid to move and ask, ‘Whose blood is it so cold?’ … drop by drop … inside my small body. But the blood from the looks of these opposite men was not cold. It was hot, even very hot, pumping into my head. One man, another, and one more, some older than others, some even with temples of grey hair. But what united them all was the interest in a ten-year-old girl.” (-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 1: The Girl Felt a Woman) “We sat together, at the bottom of the trench, on the cold and dry ground. The sun slowly was going down, and the first signs of the cold September evening appeared. Tanya pulled out the matches and lit the cigarette butts, and we started to smoke; two small girls of seven and five. We thought that nobody was seeing us making the fumes. Suddenly, I saw Tanya’s sister go out to the balcony of their flat, looking around the yard. When she noticed the fumes from the trench, she screamed at the whole yard, ‘Tanya! Tanya! I see you. Come immediately home!’ ‘Why! Am I cold?’ shouted back Tanya, pressing the cigarette butt in the trench soil. ‘No! You want to eat!’ screamed her sister. They both imitated a joke about a caring mother. Tanya stood up, climbed out of the trench, and left. I remained sitting alone, and it was getting dark. I also wanted to go home, wash my hands and eat. When suddenly, I heard a soft man’s voice from the darkness, ‘Let me help you to get out of the trench, little girl.’” (-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 2: The Paedophile Play) “In the USSR, at schools, sometimes was carried a medical check-up for teenage girls from fourteen to seventeen years old, till the end of their school life. It was a very psychologically traumatic and humiliating experience because of the process itself, and because the results were reported to the school director, parents, and sometimes, even to the police. The girls were tested for virginity, but the boys were not.” (-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 3: Long Ten Years) “At that time, execution was allowed in the USSR, also for women. The maximum that prisoners could get was fifteen years. After that, capital punishment was the last measure. Mainly, the execution took place in the prison corridor by shooting the back of the inmate when he or she was taken to go somewhere, or in the prison yard. Executions were usually done by policemen.” (-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 4: Prison for Woman)

Well, obviously he’s not the first choice of guy I would choose for you, but what I see in the way he looks at you, that’s why I would be okay with you dating him.” “What do you see?” My dad thinks for a moment before saying, “I see a man who is so blindsided by love, he’s willing to single-handedly take on a room full of guards and inmates for that one person. I see someone who is so besotted, he doesn’t even realise it yet. I see someone who is looking at you like you’re the reason the earth spins.

I close my eyes and I can still see his ruggedly handsome face. His eyes looking into mine. I love you, Brooke. That was what he said to me just a few hours before he tried to kill me. And that’s not even the worst thing he did.

I see a man who is so blindsided by love, he's willing to single-handedly take on a room full of guards and inmates for that one person. I see someone who is so besotted, he doesn't even realize it yet. I see someone who is looking at you like you're the reason the earth spins.

But he lopes me. And that’s almost better than love. “I lope you too,” I say.

Kathleen: “Send them all my love and best wishes for happiness.” Jimmy Dennis: “I’m gonna do that, and you’re gonna keep getting better, alright? I can’t tell you how good it is to hear your voice again”. Kathleen: (trying hard not to cry) “Jimmy, you take care.” Jimmy: “You too, Kitty. Hey Andrew, you’re writing a book about someone who changed the legal game. She set precedents that are in place today going forward, but what’s most rare about Kitty Behan is she sees another person as a person. Most people see others in terms of what they can do for you. Kitty saved my life by seeing me as I am, and you quote me on that.

don’t quite understand how you can love somebody so much, yet so frequently want to throttle them.

Yes, Shane Nelson did unspeakable things. But before he did those things, I had loped him. No, I had loved him.

California was still forcibly sterilizing female prison inmates as recently as 2010. Most were inmates of color.25

Solitary confinement has been practiced in U.S. prisons for more than a century. But supermax prisons—entire institutions solely designed to hold inmates in isolation—only emerged as a response to Black Power and other movements in the 1970s.

As long as the prison remained in operation, it would continue to be used to sequester inmates from human contact. The change we made did not stand the test of time. I had focused my attention on Northern and Guantánamo but the “institution” was never any single prison. It was the carceral state. It was not enough to reimagine one prison—we had to reimagine the entire system.