“Even sentenced to twenty-five years in prison Ted didn’t get what he deserved. Maybe his prison mates would give it to him.”

“I once saw a convict who had been twenty years in prison and was being released take leave of his fellow prisoners. There were men who remembered his first coming into prison, when he was young, careless, heedless of his crime and his punishment. He went out a grey-headed, elderly man, with a sad sullen face. He walked in silence through our six barrack-rooms. As he entered each room he prayed to the ikons, and then bowing low to his fellow prisoners he asked them not to remember evil against him.”

“That’s a federal crime,” I told him. “Punishable by three to five years in a minimum-security prison. You’ll get passed around like condiments at a barbeque.” “My hole is already quivering,” he said.”

“Being young is an 18 year prison sentence for a crime your parents committed. But you do get time off for good behavior.”

“Once Incarceron became a dragon, and a Prisoner crawled into his lair. They made a wager. They would ask each other riddles, and the one who could not answer would lose. It it was the man, he would give his life. The Prison offered a secret way of Escape. But even as the man agreed, he felt its hidden laughter.They played for a year and a day. The lights stayed dark. The dead were not removed. Food was not provided. The Prison ignored the cries of its inmates.Sapphique was the man. He had one riddle left. He said, "What is the Key that unlocks the heart?"For a day Incarceron thought. For two days. For three. Then it said, "If I ever knew the answer, I have forgotten it."--Sapphique in the Tunnels of Madness”

“The prospect of his future life stretched before him like a sentence; not a prison sentence but a long-winded sentence with a lot of unnecessary subordinate clauses, as he was soon in the habit of quipping during Happy Hour pickup time at the local campus bars and pubs. He couldn’t say he was looking forward to it, this rest-of-his-life.”