The Prison Minyan Quotes

“Imaginative scams, sure, thinks Sorcher – but no imagination as people. Imaginative scams because they have no imagination as people?”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“There’s no great liberation, no great relief in release. Your thoughts, your feelings, your interior life doesn’t change much on either side of the gate. In here or out there, you’re still sentenced to be who you are.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“American Guard was actually a white nationalist publication.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“A meaningless question is the equivalent of nonsense, and nonsense has no place in the study of law and morality,’ adds Adler somberly.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“We’ve all faced them, those prosecutors. That look in their eyes. That’s their thirst for vengeance. Disguised in heroism, disguised in society’s needs.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“The ethos of survival for six thousand years in a cruel surrounding world, the inchoate vision of a fragile existence – it doesn’t have much to do with their own individual experiences.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“The disappearance of rugelach. Blintzes. Then Dmitri. Then his deli. It’s all a little Kafkaesque,’ says Abe Rosen gloomily.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“The quiet disappearance of rugelach, and blintzes, and the chef who created them. Mere precursors, obvious signals, to what comes next.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“The next week, there is still no rugelach. And no blintzes. ‘Dmitri, what is going on?”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“No rugelach,’ says Ezra Kleinman at lunch, passing their table, sharing the mournful news.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“White collar crime poems,’ says Nadler. ‘New genre,’ says Adler.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“Ninety minutes later, at the end of class: ‘Here’s your first exercise. I know this will surprise you a little. But I want you to each write a poem about your crime.’ ‘What?’ says Abe Rosen. 
 ‘About your crime, specifically.’ ‘A poem about fraudulent bank applications?’ asks Nadler.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“I’m going to pass out a section of this poem from Walt Whitman. Song of Myself.’ ‘Song of Myself. I like the guy’s focus,’ says Nadler. And so Poetry 101 begins.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“So…any thoughts on the differences between poetry and prose?’ There is silence at first.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“There was only a smattering of token female guards, and some female kitchen staff – Eastern European meiskeit, as the inmates said.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“Poetry!’ said Simon Nadler, when informed that the first workshop would be offered this coming Monday. ‘You gotta be kidding me,’ said Marty Adler.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“if you want Otisville, then you agree to no publication of memoirs or thinly veiled ‘fiction’ or any prose for profit for the duration of your prison term.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“All war may on the surface seem ideological, Matt remembers a history teacher saying, but underneath, it’s all economic.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“We must be able to tell the story of our lives to ourselves. We tell ourselves a good story. That allows us to live with ourselves.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“They are both too embarrassed to see the other under these circumstances. His father survived Auschwitz, made his way to America, struggled and saved and worked and slaved, only to have his son end up in an American jail.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“Look what could happen unless you change your ways. You could end up in charge of a country. You could end up personally and irrevocably destroying the greatest nation on earth.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“Each of them got caught, and he hasn’t been caught yet. Simple as that. For some of them, the president’s electoral victory was their victory. A vindication, a quiet affirmation of their life choices.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“Was he out there, on Pennsylvania Avenue, while they’re in here, because he proved better at it?”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“He just invited different friends to each – he had enough friends and acquaintances to cover it. As for his own family – he actually had them to wedding number one and wedding number three.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“The marriages were simultaneous, but obviously the weddings were sequential. May 30, August 14, October 16. A spring wedding, a summer wedding, a fall wedding.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“And three weddings? In one year?”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“But it’s like anything: the more you practice, the better you get, so getting experienced in one marriage only makes you better in the other two.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“(Marty Adler: matrimonial fraud, nine years; married to three women simultaneously, CEO of three family businesses concurrently)”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“Weekly family visits are routine at Otisville, but Rabbi Samuelson’s family requires special permission from the Bureau of Prisons, because the rabbi has sixteen children.”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan

“when the question is why me?, the answer is: why not me?)”
― Jonathan Stone, The Prison Minyan