Piper Kerman Quotes

• If I could forgive, it meant I was a strong good person who could take responsibility for the path I had chosen for myself, and all the consequences that accompanied that choice. And it gave me the simple but powerful satisfaction of extending a kindness to another person in a tough spot.

  Piper Kerman

  Strong, Powerful, Kindness

  Piper Kerman (2010). “Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison”, p.280, Spiegel & Grau

  50 Copy quote

• Our current criminal justice system has no provision for restorative justice, in which an offender confronts the damage they have done and tries to make it right for the people they have harmed. [...] Instead, our system of "corrections" is about arm's-length revenge and retribution, all day and all night.

  Piper Kerman

  Revenge, Night, People

  "Orange Is the New Black: My Time in a Women's Prison". Book by Piper Kerman, July 11, 2013.

  16 Copy quote

• Prison is quite literally a ghetto in the most classic sense of the word, a place where the U.S. government now puts not only the dangerous but also the inconvenient—people who are mentally ill, people who are addicts, people who are poor and uneducated and unskilled. Meanwhile the ghetto in the outside world is a prison as well, and a much more difficult one to escape from than this correctional compound. In fact, there is basically a revolving door between our urban and rural ghettos and the formal ghetto of our prison system.

  Piper Kerman

  Ghetto, Government, Doors

  16 Copy quote

• Instead, our system of "corrections" is about arm's-length revenge and retribution, all day and all night. Then its overseers wonder why people leave prison more broken than when they went in.

  Piper Kerman

  Revenge, Night, People

  4 Copy quote

• When you are deep in misery, you reach out to those who can help, people who can understand.

  Piper Kerman

  People, Helping, Misery

  8 Copy quote

• I went back to work right away [after prison]. I was very lucky — a friend of mine created a job for me at his company. Most prisoners who come home face really significant challenges when it comes to finding work. It’s very, very hard for most people who have a criminal record to get a job. I think the system is very wasteful of taxpayers’ dollars. It’s also very wasteful of human potential. I found that most people whom I was locked up with were, you know, good people who have skills and value. Prison is a missed opportunity to nurture those things.

  Piper Kerman

  Jobs, Home, Opportunity

  7 Copy quote

• We were never friends. Not for a second. I loved you.

  Piper Kerman

  Love, I Loved You

  6 Copy quote

• From a young age I had learned to get over--to cover my tracks emotionally, to hide or ignore my problems in the belief that they were mine alone to solve.

  Piper Kerman

  Track, Age, Belief

  Piper Kerman (2010). “Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison”, p.228, Spiegel & Grau

  8 Copy quote

• Do you have to find the evil in yourself in order to truly recognize it in the world?

  Piper Kerman

  Order, Evil, World

  4 Copy quote

• I knew that I would have to be brave. Not foolhardy, not in love with risk and danger, not making ridiculous exhibitions of myself to prove that I wasn't terrified--really genuinely brave. Brave enough to be quiet when quiet was called for, brave enough to observe before flinging myself into something, brave enough to not abandon my true self when someone else wanted to seduce or force me in a direction I didn't want to go, brave enough to stand my ground quietly.

  Piper Kerman

  Self, Brave, Risk

  10 Copy quote

• Very close by the CMS shops, hidden about a quarter mile away in the woods, was the prison's rifle range. Correctional officers could spend quality time with their firearms down there, and the hammering of multiple rounds was typical background noise during our workdays. There was something unsettling about toiling away for a prison while listening to your jailers practice shooting you.

  Piper Kerman

  Background Noise, Practice, Listening

  Piper Kerman (2010). “Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison”, p.166, Spiegel & Grau

  4 Copy quote

• That's very indicative to me of one of the things that really creates an aversion for me about having a child - this idea that every decision you make in your life has to be dictated by the child. And yet, I believe that if you choose to have a child you have an absolute primary responsibility to create a safe, loving environment.

  Piper Kerman

  Children, Believe, Responsibility

  Source: www.salon.com

  4 Copy quote

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