Jack Abbott Quotes

• Most important, you learn never to trust a man, even if he seems honest and sincere. You learn how men deceive themselves and how impossible it is to help them without injuring yourself.

  Jack Abbott

  Men, Important, Honest

  "In the Belly of the Beast". Book by Jack Abbott, 1981.

  10 Copy quote

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

  Jack Abbott

  Mirrors, Looks, Painful

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• This world is nothing. An illusion. Death is the release.

  Jack Abbott

  World, Illusion, Release

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jack Abbott

  School, Reform, Causes

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jack Abbott

  Anger, Moments, Imagine

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

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

  Jack Abbott

  Hurt, Prison, It Hurts

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jack Abbott

  Long, Might, Pressure

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

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

  Jack Abbott

  Long, Ghost, I Can

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• I feel that if I ever did adjust to prison, I could by that alone never adjust to society.

  Jack Abbott

  Prison, Feels, Ifs

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• When they talk of ghosts of the dead who wander in the night with things still undone in life, they approximate my subjective experience of this life.

  Jack Abbott

  Night, Subjectivity, Ghost

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

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

  Jack Abbott

  Good Morning, Forgotten, Psychological

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Jack Abbott

  Suffering, Way, Innocence

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

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

  Jack Abbott

  Eye, Umpires, Brain

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• The part of me which wanders through my mind and never sees or feels actual objects, but which lives in and moves through my passions and my emotions, experiences this world as a horrible nightmare.

  Jack Abbott

  Moving, Passion, Mind

  Jack Henry Abbott (1982). “In the belly of the beast: letters from prison”, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin