“I’ve organized a lot of programs in prison. One of the classes I started is called Creative Parenting.”

“My dad couldn’t handle me. My mother was an alcoholic so he raised us on his own.”

“I was a good student. I did football, karate, basketball, all sorts of activities.”

“I got caught up in a little something. I’ve got twenty days left.”

“I’ve got a daughter out there. I’ve been gone for 23 years now. It’s really hurt her.”

“I thought it was a bomb at first. It pushed the building, so I was thrown against the wall.”

“I was alone with four kids. My mother was sick.”

“My father died when I was six. He drowned on a fishing trip.”

“I was working at a nightclub in Honduras, making $4 a night, and some guy tells me that I can make $6,000 in twelve days just by working on a boat.”

“My childhood ended early. I was sexually abused by two family members until the age of eleven.”

“He’s a beautiful person. He always tells me: ‘We’ve got to find a way to win by losing.’”

“My mom was a single mom and there were nine of us. All of the kids worked in the fields.”

“This is my fifth time in prison. Every crime I’ve committed has come from my addiction.”

“I was studying landscape architecture at Penn State and dealing drugs on the side.”

“I understand that it’s not sexy to talk about treatment. But the maddening thing about PTSD is that it’s completely fucking fixable.”

“The military is mostly filled with people who genuinely desire to do the right thing.”

“We met in college. Mark had long hair and a beard. He was class president so there were posters of him hanging up around campus.”

“I don’t feel good about it. It will bother me for the rest of my life and honestly I’m happy about that.”

“I have professors at Columbia who view me as a terrorist for fighting in Iraq.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to be a medic in a conflict zone and not have something stay with you.”