Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
What do you say to a person who is going to their death? Normally, we would just say, 'Hang in there, keep your hope up,' because there is hope until the very last second.
The men on death row had been told the world would be better without them. I tried to say that this may not be where we want to be, but let's do what we can for one another.
When I went to prison, for three years I didn't say a word to another human being until, going into the fourth year, when I realized, 'You know what, I have to find a way to live.'
Death row was the only place where I never witnessed racism. We all went to bed with a death sentence on our heads and woke up that way. We had to become each other's support system.
It's hard to explain exactly what it feels like to be judged. There's a shame to it. Even when you know you're innocent. It still feels like you are coated in something dirty and evil.
I loved to read books in the free world, and there was a lot of time to sit around and do nothing in prison. When you read, it opens up your mind; it helped us take our minds away from where we were.
To stay sane, I lived in my head, where I could travel and imagine. In my mind, I played a championship game with the Knicks. I won Wimbledon five times. If the Yankees needed a home run, I came to bat.
I shouldn't have sat on death row 30 years. All they had to do was test the gun. But when you think you are high and mighty and you're above the law, you don't have to answer to nobody, but I've got news for you.
If you don't have a place to live or money or whatever, you ask yourself, "What am I gonna do?" But my best friend stuck by me for 30 years. And he had already told me "Whenever you get out, you come live with me and my wife."
When the very people that you been taught to believe in - the police, the D.A., these are the people that are supposed to stand for justice - and when you know that they lied to you, it's hard for you to have trust in anybody.
When every court was saying 'no,' I believe God was still saying yes. I had to somehow find that faith and reach deep down in my soul and believe in the teaching that my mother taught me as a young boy, that God can do everything but fail.
I've often thought books give you - put you in a world that you never thought you could go. And I often would say, I don't need to go to California. Give me a book that talks about California. And I can put it in my head and imagine what it looked like.
Henry Hays was cheated all his life. He was cheated by his father who taught him to hate. His community taught him to hate. My mom told me, no matter what one does in life, he or she deserves some compassion, and I knew Hays deserved compassion more than anybody.
I often say that if I had one wish in this world, I would wish that every child could have a mother the way my mother were. And I never went without clothes, I never went without food... I never went without anything that a child needs. But above all of that, she gave me unconditional love.
The last time I saw my mom was in 1997. My mom started getting sick, and my mom finally passed away in 2002. My mom was my world. My mom was everything to me. We didn't have money. We didn't have a whole lot of materialistic things, but one thing I can truly say, that my mother loved me and all of her children unconditionally.