Top 40 Anthony Ray Hinton Quotes

I witnessed other inmates’ time run out, and I’d be lying if I said you don’t ask yourself, ‘Wow, is that going to happen to me?’

In the South, people in power feel they don’t have to answer to no one.

I want you to know there is a God. He sits high, but he looks low. He will destroy, but yet he will defend – and he defended me.

Being on death row has taken so much from me as a human being.

I have no respect for the prosecutors, the judges. And I say that not with malice in my heart. I say it because they took 30 years from me.

My mom was my mother and father. My father lost his mind when I was about 4 years old. And my mom did everything she could to make sure that we was brought up right.

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.

I just didn’t believe the God that I served would allow me to die for something I didn’t do.

I am a joyful person.

I was put on death row because of hate.

I have too much to live for to allow a bunch of cowards to take my joy. I refuse to give them my joy.

For 14 years, I could not find volunteer lawyers capable of providing the legal assistance I needed to prove my innocence.

Death row prisoners face enormous challenges in finding lawyers who will assist them.

My only crime was being born black – or being born black in Alabama.

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.

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.

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.

There was a time I thought I’d never see the sun again.

When you’re poor and black in America, you stand a greater chance of going to prison for something you didn’t do.

You never think of your freedom until it’s taken away from you, and once it’s taken… So, it means everything to me. You couldn’t put a price tag on it.

Everybody that played a part in sending me to death row, you will answer to God.

To me, America need to clean up their own home before they tell another country about human rights. I’m a primary example. America don’t care nothing about human rights.

Death Row is the same every day – breakfast at 3 A.M., lunch at 10 A.M., dinner at 3 P.M.

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’ve seen hate at its worse. What would it profit me to hate?

Bitterness kills the soul.

What kind of system do we have when innocent people can sit on death row for 30 years?

For 30 years, I lived in pure hell.

Spending your days waiting to die is no way to live.

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 hope that America will do away with the death penalty. I truly believe we are better than that.

When you have a death row case, you have to make 100 percent sure you have the right person. But these DAs in the state of Alabama are racist.

I have a good sense of humour, and that’s what kept me for the 30 years I was locked up.

Being able to control your mind is a beautiful thing.

I was born with a mother who loved me unconditionally and with a sense of humor.

I cannot hate, because my Bible teaches me not to hate.

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.

I want people to realize that we can teach hate, but we also can teach love.

It took me a little while to remember how to use a fork. You know, we don’t use forks in the penitentiary. You get a spoon.

The state of Alabama can take my freedom, the state of Alabama can take my future, but the state of Alabama cannot take my joy.