"'I can't use the john, blow my nose, or smoke without guards taking notes. There's no clock. I never know the weather. I open my eyes and see a blank wall going on forever. What's a man supposed to feel when he's about to be gone?'" Prologue, pg. 1

"The Monday I carried Ronnie Joe Waddell's meditation in my pocketbook, I never saw the sun. It was dark when I drove to work that morning. It was dark again when I drove home."
Chapter 1, pg. 3

"I got up and did my thing again as I thought about the injustices and losses that had gone into the making of Marino. He had survived a loveless, impoverished childhood in the wrong part of New Jersey, and nursed an abiding distrust of anyone whose lot had been better. Not long ago his wife of thirty years had left him, and he...