“We were never friends. Not for a second. I loved you.”
―
Piper Kerman,
Orange Is the New Black
“We have a racially based justice system that overpunishes, fails to rehabilitate, and doesn't make us safer.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“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, Orange Is the New Black
“Two hundred women, no phones, no washing machines, no hair dryers--it was like Lord of the Flies on estrogen.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“Do you have to find the evil in yourself in order to truly recognize it in the world?” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“Every human being makes mistakes and does things they’re not proud of. They can be everyday, or they can be catastrophic. And the unfortunate truth of being human is that we all have moments of indifference to other people’s suffering. To me, that’s the central thing that allows crime to happen: indifference to other people’s suffering. If you’re stealing from someone, if you’re hurting them physically, if you’re selling them a product that you know will hurt them—the thing that allows a person to do that is that they somehow convince themselves that that’s not relevant to them. We all do things that we’re not proud of, even though they might not have as terrible consequences.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
“When you are deep in misery, you reach out to those who can help, people who can understand.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“You spend a lot of time thinking about how awful the prison is rather than envisioning your future.” ― Piper Kerman
“Prison is quite literally a ghetto in the most classic sense of the world, 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.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
“Faggots make the best friends," she said philosophically. "They're very loyal.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“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, Orange Is the New Black
“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, Orange Is the New Black
“Nothing about the daily workings of the prison system focuses its inhabitants’ attention on what life back on the outside, as a free citizen, will be like. The life of the institution dominates everything. This is one of the awful truths of incarceration, the fact that the horror and the struggle and the interest of your immediate life behind prison walls drives the “real world” out of your head. That makes returning to the outside difficult for many prisoners.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
“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, Orange Is the New Black
“I imagined Martha Stewart trying to take over Pops kitchen. That would be better than Godzilla vs. Mothra” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“Maybe, because all these good people loved me enough to help me, maybe I wasn't quite as bad as I felt. Maybe there was a part of me that was worthy of their love.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“how important it is to stay true to yourself even in the midst of an adventure or experiment.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
“In the federal system alone there were 90,000 prisoners locked up for drug offenses, compared with about 40,000 for violent crimes. A federal prisoner costs at least $30,000 a year to incarcerate, and females actually cost more.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“He told us that it was important to eat right, exercise, and treat your body as a temple. But he didn't tell us how to get health care services that people with no money could afford. He didn't tell us how we could quickly obtain birth control and other reproductive health services. He didn't recommend any solutions for behavioral or psychiatric care, and for sure some of those broads needed it. He didn't say what options there might be for people who had struggled with substance abuse, sometimes for decades, when they were confronted by old demons on the outside.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“We have a racially based justice system that overpunishes, fails to rehabilitate, and doesn't make us safer.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“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, Orange Is the New Black
“Two hundred women, no phones, no washing machines, no hair dryers--it was like Lord of the Flies on estrogen.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“Do you have to find the evil in yourself in order to truly recognize it in the world?” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“Every human being makes mistakes and does things they’re not proud of. They can be everyday, or they can be catastrophic. And the unfortunate truth of being human is that we all have moments of indifference to other people’s suffering. To me, that’s the central thing that allows crime to happen: indifference to other people’s suffering. If you’re stealing from someone, if you’re hurting them physically, if you’re selling them a product that you know will hurt them—the thing that allows a person to do that is that they somehow convince themselves that that’s not relevant to them. We all do things that we’re not proud of, even though they might not have as terrible consequences.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
“When you are deep in misery, you reach out to those who can help, people who can understand.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“You spend a lot of time thinking about how awful the prison is rather than envisioning your future.” ― Piper Kerman
“Prison is quite literally a ghetto in the most classic sense of the world, 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.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
“Faggots make the best friends," she said philosophically. "They're very loyal.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“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, Orange Is the New Black
“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, Orange Is the New Black
“Nothing about the daily workings of the prison system focuses its inhabitants’ attention on what life back on the outside, as a free citizen, will be like. The life of the institution dominates everything. This is one of the awful truths of incarceration, the fact that the horror and the struggle and the interest of your immediate life behind prison walls drives the “real world” out of your head. That makes returning to the outside difficult for many prisoners.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
“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, Orange Is the New Black
“I imagined Martha Stewart trying to take over Pops kitchen. That would be better than Godzilla vs. Mothra” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“Maybe, because all these good people loved me enough to help me, maybe I wasn't quite as bad as I felt. Maybe there was a part of me that was worthy of their love.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“how important it is to stay true to yourself even in the midst of an adventure or experiment.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
“In the federal system alone there were 90,000 prisoners locked up for drug offenses, compared with about 40,000 for violent crimes. A federal prisoner costs at least $30,000 a year to incarcerate, and females actually cost more.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
“He told us that it was important to eat right, exercise, and treat your body as a temple. But he didn't tell us how to get health care services that people with no money could afford. He didn't tell us how we could quickly obtain birth control and other reproductive health services. He didn't recommend any solutions for behavioral or psychiatric care, and for sure some of those broads needed it. He didn't say what options there might be for people who had struggled with substance abuse, sometimes for decades, when they were confronted by old demons on the outside.” ― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black
