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

“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

“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

“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

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

“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 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

“The architect of the walls around me is the fear within me. And if I have foolishly granted this architect full license to build whatever it pleases in whatever manner it pleases, I will find that I have confused safety with imprisonment.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“You aren't my prisoner,' he said. 'You're my queen.”
― Carissa Broadbent, The Serpent and the Wings of Night

“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

“Just like you need to understand that there is no way out of this. You belong to me.'

My heart turned over slowly. 'Don't you mean I belong to the Dark One?'

'I meant what I said, Princess.'

'I don't belong to anyone.'

'If you believe that, then you are a fool,' he taunted, pressing his head to mine before I could lash out. 'Or you're lying to yourself. You belonged to the Ascended. You know that. It's one of the things you hated. They kept you in a cage.'

I never should've said anything to him. 'At least that cage was more comfortable than this one.'

'True,' he murmured, and a heartbeat passed. 'But you've never been free.'

'True or not.' And it was painfully true. 'That doesn't mean I'll stop fighting you,' I warned. 'I won't submit.'

'I know.' There was an odd tone to his voice, one that sounded like... admiration. But that didn't make sense.

'You're still a monster,' I told him.

'I am, but I wasn't born that way. I was made this way.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, From Blood and Ash

“You were a prisoner when we met.” Vidrol smirked at me. “And then you were a slave.”

“And then I won my freedom—” I started, but he cut me off with a tittering sound.

“You became an apprentice as we trained—”

“Tortured,” I corrected dully.

“But even that’s a far leap from a queen”
― Jane Washington, A Dream of Embers

“Wrath and judgment scraped across her skin. They watched her, waiting for her to shatter. Didn’t they know she was already broken? They’d taken her family, her castle, her kingdom, and now they’d taken her blood. What was there left to take? Surely they’d find it and take that, too. 
--Saga Volsik”
― Demi Winters, Kingdom of Claw

“September 11, 1949 Another six weeks have passed. One month after another. Somewhere I have read that boredom is the one torment of hell that Dante forgot.”
― Albert Speer, Spandau: The Secret Diaries

“My obsession with Mrs. Thompson turns a shade darker each day.
She’s my Lucy. My little brute.
She is perfect.
I must be scaring her. Oh, hell, she must be absolutely terrified by this point. That thought makes me damned jubilant.
She needs to be scared. Because I? I am not a good man.
Far from it.
337 days left of my sentence. I am counting the days until the fun can really begin…”
― Dolores Lane, Bloody Fingers & Red Lipstick

“What shall I do with you, Prince of Elfhame?' Wren asks.

'If you mean for me to be your pet,' he says, 'there's no reason to return me to my pen. My leash is very secure, as you have shown. You have only to pull it taut.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Why not whip me now?' he asks, a challenge in his voice.

'Spending a night dreading what will come in the morning is it's own punishment.' She pauses. 'Especially as you now know your own hand can be turned against you.'

Oak looks directly into her eyes. 'Why are you keeping me at all, Wren? Am I a hostage to command? A lover to be punished? A possession to be locked away?'

'That,' she said, bitterness in her voice, 'is what I am trying to figure out myself.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“We are all prisoners of our own making, confined by the choices we've made.”
― Sharyn McCrumb, The Ballad of Frankie Silver

“Giving power to other people’s opinions will make you a prisoner to them – so never let someone else’s opinion define your reality.”
“অন্যের মতামতকে বেশি ক্ষমতা দিলে আপনি তাদের কাছে বন্দী হয়ে যাবেন- তাই , কখনো কারো মতামতকে আপনার বাস্তবতাকে সংজ্ঞায়িত করতে দেবেন না।”
― Mozammel Khan

“Thought doesn't necessarily calm a person, nor does confinement calm thought.”
― Fiona Kelly McGregor, Iris