Quotes by Jack Henry Abbott

22 quotes by Jack Henry Abbott

Jack Henry Abbott, American author

Was born on 21 jan 1944. Died on 02 feb 2002, at 58 years old.

Origin country: United States

As long as I am nothing but a ghost of the civil dead, I can do nothing.

Quote by Jack Henry Abbott about nothing

At age nine I began serving long stints in juvenile detention quarters. At age twelve I was sent to the Utah State Industrial School For Boys... at age eighteen I was released as an adult.

Quote by Jack Henry Abbott about age, olderness, school, state

Because there is something helpless and weak and innocent - something like an infant - deep inside us all that really suffers in ways we would never permit an insect to suffer.

Quote by Jack Henry Abbott about insects, suffering

How would you like to be forced all the days of your life to sit beside a stinking, stupid wino every morning at breakfast?

Quote by Jack Henry Abbott about day, life

I am at this moment thirty-seven years old. Since aged twelve I have been free the sum total of nine and a half months.

Quote by Jack Henry Abbott about old, olderness, moment

I escaped one time. In 1971 I was in the free world for six weeks.

Quote by Jack Henry Abbott about world, time

I find it painful and angering to look in a mirror.

I have been desperate to escape for so many years now, it is routine for me to try to escape.

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.

Quote by Jack Henry Abbott about americans

Imagine a thousand more such daily intrusions in your life, every hour and minute of every day, and you can grasp the source of this paranoia, this anger that could consume me at any moment if I lost control.

Quote by Jack Henry Abbott about anger, moment, day, life

My eyes, my brain seek out escape routes wherever I am sent.

Quote by Jack Henry Abbott about brain, eyes

One morning I woke up and was plunged into psychological shock. I had forgotten I was free.

Paranoia is an illness I contracted in institutions. It is not the reason for my sentences to reform school and prison. It is the effect, not the cause.

Quote by Jack Henry Abbott about school, reason

So we can all hold up like good soldiers and harden ourselves in prison. But if you do that for too long, you lose yourself.

Quote by Jack Henry Abbott about good, good luck

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