Death Row Quotes

• If you believe in God, believe in Death Row East.

  Tupac Shakur

  Easter, Believe, Ifs

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everyone dances with the Grim Reaper.

  Robert Alton Harris

  Inspirational, Dance, Kings

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• What you do to these men on California's Death Row, you do to God.

  Mother Teresa

  Men, California, Death Penalty

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• I did not get my Spaghetti-O's, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.

  Thomas J. Grasso

  Firefly, Katniss, Catching Fire

  Last words, March 20, 1995.

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• I think this country would be much better off if we did not have capital punishment.... We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.

  John Paul Stevens

  Country, Thinking, Years

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• Capital punishment? It makes no sense as a policy: It's not a deterrent, and economically it's a disaster. It's very clear that there are innocent people on death row. And if I put an innocent person to death, that's murder.

  Tony Goldwyn

  Punishment, Innocent Person, People

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• It's like being on Death Row in an American jail. You are waiting for the door handle to turn, not knowing whether it's a reprieve or just your final breakfast before being executed.

  Howard Wilkinson

  Doors, Knowing, Jail

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• Make your way to death row and speak with the tragic victims of criminality. As they prepare to make their pathetic walk to the electric chair, their hopeless cry is that society will not forgive. Capital punishment is society's final assertion that it will not forgive.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Punishment, Forgiving, Finals

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.36, Beacon Press

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• Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive.

  John Grisham

  Men, Innocent Man, Serial Killer

  John Grisham (2010). “The Confession”, p.104, Random House

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• Someone asked me, 'Do you pray for the dead?' I said, 'No, I preach to them! I think every pew in every church is death row. Think about that! They're dead! They sing about God; they talk about God, but they're dead! They have no living relationship (with God).

  Leonard Ravenhill

  Thinking, Church, Praying

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• Suge is the boss of Death Row, the don, you understand? But im the underboss, the capo. That's my job to what's best for Death Row

  Tupac Shakur

  Jobs, Rapper, Boss

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• I am a child of America. If ever I'm sent to Death Row for my revolutionary 'crimes,' I'll order as my last meal: a hamburger, french fries, and a coke.

  Jerry Rubin

  Children, America, Order

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• Our capitol punishment system is haunted by the demon of error- error in determining guilt, error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die... The legislation couldn't reform it. Lawmakers won't repeal it. I won't stand for it. I had to act... I am commuting the sentences of all death row inmates.

  George Ryan

  Animal, Errors, Punishment

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• Bass! How low can you go?
  Death row...what a brother know.
  Once again, back is the incredible,
  The rhyme animal, the uncannable "D!"
  Public Enemy Number One.
  Five-O said, "Freeze!" and I got numb.
  Can I tell 'em that I really never had a gun?
  But it's the wax that the Terminator X spun.

  Chuck D

  Brother, Rap, Animal

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• I enjoy entering the viewpoint of characters who are as different from myself as I can get - children, elderly women, animals, a sexy death row murderess - and to imagine how these disparate individuals see the world's cruelty and beauty and vastness.

  Scott Bradfield

  Sexy, Children, Character

  "Go Forth (Vol. 15)". Interview with Brandon Hobson, believermagblog.wordpress.com. September 10, 2013.

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• If Arnold is elected, you know who I'd feel sorry for? The people on death row. Imagine, you're about to be executed, the governor calls, you think it's your reprieve, and you hear 'Hasta la vista, baby.'

  Jay Leno

  Baby, Sorry, Thinking

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• I'm afraid of sudden death. I'd like to know I'm going to die. That's why death row wouldn't be so bad, although it's not pleasant. And cancer, inoperable, wouldn't be bad. That's not pleasant either. But to drop dead suddenly, it's hard on everybody else. My family, my relatives, my friends. It's just not a good way to go. I want to know I'm going to die.

  Jack Kevorkian

  Cancer, Want, Way

  "Verge Q+A: Dr. Jack Kevorkian". Interview with Howie Kahn, www.gq.com. June 28, 2010.

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• Although I love all the great foods of the world, my death row meal would have to be cooked for me by my mother and grandmother (they live together and this happens on most Sundays). More than satisfy our hunger, these dinners nurture the soul.

  Joe Bastianich

  Mother, Sunday, Soul

  "Culinary Kings-Turned TV Judges Cook Up Verdicts on Gordon Ramsay-Hosted MasterChef". The Daily Beast Interview, www.thedailybeast.com. July 27, 2010.

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• The nice thing about money is that you can do good things with it. I still feel like if something needs to be done or we need to raise money for someone on death row, we can find ways to do it.

  Eddie Vedder

  Nice, Done, Way

  Interview with Carrie Brownstein, www.believermag.com. June 2004.

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• Teresa Lewis, the only woman on death row in Virginia, says she doesn't deserve the death penalty because she only hired the killers of her husband and stepson, she didn't actually pull the trigger herself. You know, she has a point. I think we should let her be able to hire the person who executes her, and not do yourself in! How's that, doll? Yeah! Get it over with quick, maybe Charlize Theron will sign up to play you.

  Dennis Miller

  Husband, Thinking, Virginia

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• The biggest government waste: The death penalty. An individual death-penalty case could climb to $100 million, much of it spent at the litigation level. Also, DNA evidence has exonerated nearly 300 death-row inmates.

  John McLaughlin

  Government, Dna, Levels

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• In our country, [habeas corpus ] means that if you've been sentenced and convicted in a state court, either to death or to some other kind of sentence, you have the right to petition a federal court to review what happened to you. And until [Bill] Clinton, you had three, four, five, even more years I collect records of people who have been on death row for eight, 10, 12, 14 years - this is before Clinton - who finally got a decent lawyer, usually a pro bono lawyer, and an investigator, and were able to find out - they - they're but approved that they're - that they were innocent.

  Nat Hentoff

  Country, Mean, Eight

  Source: thedailyhatch.org

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• When the prisoner is brought down from Death Row he steps from the elevator directly into a "holding" room that adjoins the witness room. There are two cells in this "holding" room, two, in case it's a double execution. They're ordinary cells, just like this one, and the prisoner spends his last night there before his execu­tion in the morning, reading, listening to the radio, playing cards with the guards.

  Truman Capote

  Morning, Reading, Night

  Source: capote.wordpress.com

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• It seems there are no rich on death row.

  Charles Grodin

  Rich, Seems

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• Someone asked me if I would like to write a man on death row, be a pen pal, and I was like, sure. I volunteered. I had been in a place in my life - a relationship had ended; my parents were getting elderly - I was kind of adrift. The name that was given to me, just randomly, was Todd Willingham. And he wrote me a letter, and in this letter, he thanked me for writing him and [said that] if I would like to visit, he would put me on his visitor list... I was just really struck by the letter from Todd. It was very polite; it was very kind.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Writing, Men, Elderly

  "Frontline (Death by Fire)". TV Series, www.pbs.org. October 19, 2010.

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