Prisoner Quotes

“My wish for you... is that your skeptic-eclectic brain be flooded with the light of truth.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

“When people become prisoners of daily habits and happen to be hostages of choices, which they made in the past, but which they finally do not actually want, they experience the need to abandon their corporeal prison at a certain time in life. ( "Corporeal prison" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“It was cruel. Like opening a birdcage to let the bird fly out, whilst all the while it's tethered by the leg, and freedom is only an illusion.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited

“Hey, times are tough, and thirty gold coins can do a lot of good. But I guess you wouldn't know about needing money, since you grew up like a little princ..."
(Rapunzel glares)
"Prin... soner. I mean, prisoner! A prisoner in a tower, such a shame, that.”
― Shannon Hale

“In situations of captivity the perpetrator becomes the most powerful person in the life of the victim, and the psychology of the victim is shaped by the actions and beliefs of the perpetrator.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“You are only a prisoner when you surrender.”
― Tad Williams, Shadowplay

“After a week he was moved to a different wing and into a shared six-by-eight with a grizzled old con called Alf. He had faded tattoos that stained most of the visible skin on his hands, arms and neck a dull blue, sharp eyes and a thick beard that made his mouth look like an axe wound on a bear.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“This is the most immediate fruit of exile, of uprooting: the prevalence of the unreal over the real. Everyone dreamed past and future dreams, of slavery and redemption, of improbable paradises, of equally mythical and improbable enemies; cosmic enemies, perverse and subtle, who pervade everything like the air.”
― Primo Levi, If This Is a Man • The Truce

“You are my son Dantés! You are the child of my captivity. My priestly office condemned me to celibacy: God sent you to me both to console the man who could not be a father and the prisoner who could not be free”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“The prisoner is the jailer's jailer.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Rocannon's World

“THE CURSE

May they never
Return home at night...

May you have no part of eventide,
May you have no room of your own,
Nor road, nor return.
May your days be all exactly the same,
Five Fridays in a row,
Always an unlucky Tuesday,
No Sunday,
May you have no more little worries,
Tears or inspiration,
For you yourself are the greatest worry on earth:

Prisoner!”
― Visar Zhiti, The Condemned Apple: Selected Poetry (Green Integer)

“You want to know about the place called Hell?" he asked the curious animal. "There is no Hell," he said. "Hell is in here." He touched the raw, pink skin of his chest with the tips of his fingers. "And it will forever brun inside me for what I have done.”
― Thomas E. Sniegoski, Aerie

“The primary obligation of any prisoner is to escape. Whether that means actually leaving or simply figuring out a way to handle things so you don't go crazy is up to you.”
― Emmanuel Goldstein, Dear Hacker: Letters to the Editor of 2600

“We are prisoners of our own metaphors, metaphorically speaking.”
― R. Buckminster Fuller

“No one in chains could ever truly love you.'

He glares. 'Do you expect me to believe you know anything about love?'

The truth of that hits like a blow.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Don't be a prisoner to what you already know.”
― Jeffrey G. Duarte

“The washouts and the Grounded might be prisoners, but it was starting to feel as though everyone was a prisoner of something: duty or family, conscience or past mistakes.”
― Brian Staveley, The Last Mortal Bond

“Something About Her by Stewart Stafford

Her cemetery chill touch,
Felt in porcelain hands,
Vacant heartbeat stolen,
Desert of smooth sand.

Her eyes were portals,
To a feral, scary land,
With no outlet or relief,
Automaton at her command.

Yes, break the spell now,
An eye blink from losing all,
Just a heave and it is broken,
New dawn beyond her thrall.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Prisoner and invasion are limited there will be a reaction when it crosses the border.”
― Kamaran Ihsan Salih

“If you want to make her love as you do. Sorry! you are making her prisoner of your imagination.”
― Sonal Takalkar

“So here are the wages for your service,' I say with a pointed look around the cave. 'I hope betrayal was its own reward.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“Society keeps itself prisoner.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“I'm not going to be a part of this war you think is coming. You say I should be a weapon, not a pawn- they seem like the same to me. The only difference is who's wielding it.'

'I want your help, not to manipulate you,' he snapped.

His flare of tempter made me at last lift my head. 'You want my help because it'll piss off Tamlin.'

Shadows danced around his shoulders- as if the wings were trying to take form.

'Fine,' he breathed. 'I dug that grave myself, with all I did Under the Mountain. But I need your help.

Again, I could feel the other unspoken words. Ask me why; push me about it.

And again, I didn't want to. Didn't have the energy to.

Rhys said quietly, 'I was a prisoner to her court for nearly fifty years. I was tortured and beaten and fucked until only telling myself who I was, what I had to protect, kept me from trying to find a way to end it. Please- help me keep that from happening again. To Prythian.'

Some distant part of my heart ached and bled at the words, at what he'd laid bare.

But Tamlin had made exceptions- he'd lightened the guards' presence, allowed me to roam a bit more freely. He was trying. We were trying. I wouldn't jeopardize that.

So I went back to eating.

Rhys didn't say another word.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“Until a man is free from the shackles of hatred that binds his soul, he will forever be a slave to his own emotions... An alien to the world of kindness”
― Abimbola ebenezer

“Prisons, far from providing a path to redemption, often exacerbate the very issues they aim to resolve.”
― Rove Monteux, What is Wrong with Society Today

“Hugh Renaday also stood nearby. But the Canadian had his head turned skyward, his gaze sweeping the wide blue horizon. After a moment, he spoke softly. "On a day like this, visibility unlimited, you know, if you just look up for a long enough time, you can almost forget where you are."

Both Tommy's and Lincoln Scott's eyes turned up, following the Canadian's. After a second's silence, Scott laughed out loud. "Damn it, I think you're almost right." He paused, then added, "It's almost like for just a couple of heartbeats you can kid yourself that you're free again."

"It would be nice," Tommy said. "Even the illusion of freedom."

"It would be nice," Scott repeated softly. "It's one of those rare things in life where the lie is far more encouraging than the truth.”
― John Katzenbach, Hart's War

“Freedom is a prison for some prisoners.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“He could sense a fierce tautness in the cheap air of the tunnel, almost like entering a medical ward where disease lingers in the corners and no one has ever opened a window to bring in fresh air.”
― John Katzenbach, Hart's War

“It was darker than any night he'd known and he was terribly alone. Sand rivulets leaked onto his head. Dust clogged his nostrils. It seemed that there was no air left inside the narrow tunnel confines. The only sound he could make out was the creak of support boards seemingly ready to give way. He pulled himself along, using a swimming motion, thrusting aside dirt that clogged his route, fighting every centimeter of the way. He held out no real hope of being able to crawl the entire seventy-five yards.”
― John Katzenbach, Hart's War