Prison Guard Quotes & Sayings

I realized all prisons were not buildings of gray rock bordered by guard towers and barbed wire. Some prisons were houses whose closed blinds let no sunlight enter. Some prisons were cages of fragile bones, and some prisons had bars of red polka dots. In fact, you could never tell what might be a prison until you'd had a glimpse of what was seized and bound inside. — Robert McCammon

A 1670 revision of the criminal code found yet another use for salt in France. To enforce the law against suicide, it was ordered that the bodies of people who took their own lives be salted, brought before a judge, and sentenced to public display. Nor could the accused escape their day in court by dying in the often miserable conditions of the prisons. They too would be salted and put on trial. Breton historians have discovered that in 1784 in the town of Cornouaille, Maurice LeCorre had died in prison and was ordered salted for trial. But due to some bureaucratic error, the corpse did not get a trial date and was found by a prison guard more than seven years later, not only salted but fermented in beer, at which point it was buried without trial. — Mark Kurlansky

I Feel like a prison holding myself, bounded by the judgements of people I care and chained by the rules of the society I live in. If I would let the person who speaks inside me out, he would tell you a different story than what you have seen all these years. Sometimes I see myself crying, screaming and trying to tear myself into pieces when I stand in front of the mirror so that I could finally be free from myself. But the demons I have created inside me to guard beats me down and laughs at me, watching me bleed. — Akshay Vasu

The idea that the United States can't guard its own border is silly. It's a sign that were not serious about this ... people who legally shouldn't be here. When the state is forced to take care of them - for example, if they have an illegal alien in their prison - the federal government should pay for it. If Washington has to pay for it, Washington's going to more rapidly understand why we have to take some necessary steps. — Newt Gingrich

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. — Terryl L. Givens

If an inmate swears at a guard, fights, or hides contraband like cigarettes or candy [Sheriff Arpaio has banned coffee, cigarettes, hot lunches, girlie mags & TV], she's kicked out of the tents and sent to lockdown--a tiny cell 10x12 feet that houses 4 women, instead of the 2 it was built for. There's no tv, no phone, & no a/c. Even though most of these women have drug problems, programs like NA or AA are considered 'privileges' forbidden to those locked down. The only way to get out of lockdown is to volunteer for the chain gang--the first & only female chain gang in the United States (as of Aug 1997). Volunteers sign a paper that says they know & accept the conditions on the chain--cleaning Phoenix streets, painting the center strip of miles of highway, & burying AZ's indigent. The accusation of 'cruel & unusual punishment' is quashed by the argument that the chain gang is purely voluntary. After all, if you prefer, you can spend the whole year in lockdown. — Jane Evelyn Atwood

there is one similarity between a prison guard and a leader: Both have the final word. When a decision is made, it must be accepted by those on your team, or they must be encouraged to find another team. — John Wooden

We're not in Khlong Prem Prison yet. So let's assume we're winning.
But inwardly, Anderson wonders. There are too many variables in play, and it makes him nervous. He remembers a time in Missouri when the Grahamites rioted. There had been tension, some small speeches, and then it had simply erupted in field burning. No one had seen the violence coming. Not a single intelligence officer had anticipated the cauldron boiling beneath the surface.
Anderson had ended up perched atop a grain silo, choking on the smoke of HiGro fields going up in sheets of flame, firing steadily at rioters on the ground with a spring rifle he'd salvaged from a slow-moving security guard, and all the while he had wondered how everyone had missed the signs. They lost the facility because of that blindness. And now it is the same. A sudden eruption, and the surprise of realizing that the world he understands is not the one he actually inhabits. — Paolo Bacigalupi

I want to release my soul from its prison cell, to silence the guards who tell me that I am not capable of living. Every voice that ever told me that I cannot achieve has, at this moment, become silenced. This cell is no longer my home. — Leigh Hershkovich

At the Quebec prison, he had read Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope, then had autographed the book and given it to a guard for a souvenir. — Erik Larson

How could he relax his guard when beams of neurotic energy, like searchlights weaving about a prison compound, allowed no thought to escape, no remark to go unchecked. — Edward St. Aubyn

Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. — Anonymous

Woe to the one by whom scandal comes!" Jesus reserves his most solemn warning for the adults who seduce children into the infernal prison of scandal. The more the imitation is innocent and trusting, the more the one who imitates is easily scandalized, and the more the seducer is guilty of abusing this innocence. Scandals are so formidable that to put us on guard against them, Jesus resorts to an uncharacteristic hyperbolic style: "If your hand scandalizes you, cut it off; if you eye scandalizes you, pull it out" (Matt. 18:8-9). — Rene Girard

Guards, Miles now realized, had to stay in prison all day long too. Indeed, as a guard, one of his jobs was now to keep himself in. — Lois McMaster Bujold

But when something like Angelina's murder happens," the doctor told him (Decker), "it's human nature to assume a bunker mentality. Let's shore up our defenses and put up our guard so that when something like this happens again -- when, not if -- we won't be blindsided. Problem is, we become so risk averse, we cut ourselves off from the potentially dangerous things that could bring great happiness and joy. We stop taking chances, and without those sometimes risky chances, there's no way we can win big. Our best case scenario become losing not /too/ badly. /At least no one died/ becomes our mantra. Yes, we're trapped here in this prison that we've made, where we can't possibly be happy, but at least we're not devastated by our loss and our grief. — Suzanne Brockmann

Cage of freedom, that's our prison; we're the jailer and captive combined Cage of freedom, cast in power; all the trappings of our own design. Blind ambition, steals our reason; we're soon behind those invisible bars On the inside, looking outside; to make it safer we double the guard. — Jon Anderson

How could he explain to her that it was better this way, that yes, an object could hold a person, that you could talk to a photograph, that you could kiss a ring, that by breathing into a harmonica, you can give voice to someone far away. But photographs can be lost. In your sleep, a ring can be slipped from your finger by the thief in your barracks. Ga had seen an old man lose the will to live - you could see it go out of him - when a prison guard made him hand over a locket. No, you had to keep the people you loved safer than that. They had to become as fixed to you as a tattoo, which no one could take away. — Adam Johnson

bet, he'll be back in prison before long," said the older guard. — David Baldacci

What I never quite understand about the Season, though, is why does anyone want to get married? It seems to me very much like a slightly more pleasant prison, except the guard never changes. — Tarun Shanker

So if e you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 f Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. 26Truly, I say to you, g you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. — Anonymous

The Mennonites have Dirk Willems, who was arrested for his religious beliefs in the sixteenth century and held in a prison tower. With the aid of a rope made of knotted rags, he let himself down from the window and escaped across the castle's ice-covered moat. A guard gave chase. Willems made it safely to the other side. The guard did not, falling through the ice into the freezing water, and Willems stopped, went back, and pulled his pursuer to safety. For his act of compassion, he was taken back to prison, tortured, and then burned slowly at the stake as he repeated "Oh, my Lord, my God" seventy times over.8 — Malcolm Gladwell

Even as it clouds our corporeal vision, intoxication clarifies our spiritual vision. The mind, set free from the heavy bondage of the body, flees away like a prisoner whose guard has fallen asleep, leaving the keys at the prison gate. — Gerard De Nerval

It is hard to conceive of any relationship between two adults in America being less equal than that of prisoner and prison guard. — Piper Kerman

Casting directors now just see me as the hard-core sniper or prison guard. — Barry Pepper

Such an act [testifying for an accused prison guard of the Shah's regime] can only be accomplished by someone who is engrossed in literature, has learned that every individual has different dimensions to his personality ... Those who judge must take all aspects of an individual's personality into account. It is only through literature that one can put oneself in someone else's shoes and understand the other's different and contradictory sides and refrain from becoming too ruthless. Outside the sphere of literature only one aspect of individuals is revealed. But if you understand their different dimensions you cannot easily murder them ... If we have learned this one lesson from Dr. A our society would have been in a much better shape today. — Azar Nafisi

True Socialism, in which everyone is truly equal, does not just resemble a prison - it is a prison. It can not exist unless it is surrounded by high walls, by watchtowers and by guard-dogs, for people always want to escape from any socialist regime, just as they do from a prison. If you continue your attempts to establish a model society you will need to build walls around it. You will be forced to do so sooner or later by the flood of refugees.. — Viktor Suvorov

If you meet somebody who's spent any length of time in prison, you don't let your guard down. Ever. And really, that's what that was about-if you open up too much, you're asking to get your teeth kicked in. — Tim Roth

A female prisoner who alleges sexual misconduct on the part of a guard is invariably locked in the SHU in "protective custody," losing her housing assignment, program activities (if there are any), work assignment, and a host of other prison privileges, not to mention the comfort of her routine and friends. — Piper Kerman

Terrell is weeping soundlessly, and despite the guard's objection, he raises his hand up to the glass. Geraldine mimics him, lining her fingers up with his. It's lonely to think that one little sheet of glass could create such a thick distance between them, but all the same, regardless of what he's done, he's still one of the closest friends she has. — Rebecca McNutt

Half the published articles on Gaza contain a standard reference to its resemblance to a vast open-air prison (and when I last saw it under Israeli occupation it certainly did deserve this metaphor). The problem is that, given its ideology and its allies, Hamas qualifies rather too well in the capacity of guard and warder. — Christopher Hitchens

I'd never been a prison guard before or anything. — Lynndie England

How are your accommodations?" Dalinar asked.
"Sir? I'm in storming prison." A smile cracked Dalinar's face.
"So I see. Calm yourself, soldier. If I'd ordered you to guard a room for a week, would you have done it?"
"Yes."
"Then consider this your duty. Guard this room."
"I'll make sure nobody unauthorized runs off with the chamber pot, sir. — Brandon Sanderson

He paused. Perhaps he had a son. He intoned their names, and then he said, "I sentence you to death. The sentence shall be carried out by firing squad, at the customary time, in the execution yard of this prison, one week from today." Then Fabio asked, "Why a week?" as coolly and with as much detachment as a customer in a bank wanting to know why his funds had not cleared. The court president did not object to this unceremonious interruption, for the sentence was severe enough to cover any and all offenses, past, present, future, and imagined. His tone was friendly and somehow reassuring. "We need a little extra time for your friend Grigi." At this, the soldiers of the 19th River Guard, now condemned, began to laugh, and the gavel struck. — Mark Helprin

I was thinking that if I'd had the sense to go on living in that old town I might just have met this prison guard in school and married him and had a parcel of kids now. It would be nice, living by the sea with piles of kids and pigs and chickens, wearing what my grandmother called wash dresses, and sitting about in some kitchen with bright linoleum and fat arms, drinking pots of coffee. — Sylvia Plath

In 1837, New York University erected a Gothic Revival building on the northeast corner of the parade grounds at Washington Square, constructed from stones cut by convicts at Sing Sing, the maximum-security prison located about thirty miles up the river in Ossining, New York. The indignant stonecutters of New York's Stonecutters Guild promptly organized New York's first mass labor demonstration in Washington Square, which continued for days. To complete its construction, NYU was forced to call in the 27th Regiment of the National Guard to clear the demonstrators from the site. — James Roman

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