As the U.S. prison population has surged over the decades, the legal profession's distaste for former inmates has become more conspicuous. And it isn't only law. Medical schools often have committees to evaluate cases and mitigating factors but are generally reluctant to admit ex-inmates.

Death Row inmates are almost twice as expensive to house each year as other inmates. Death penalty trials are much costlier than trials where execution is not a potential punishment and consume more time from judges, public defenders, and other legal personnel.

The world sometimes feels like an insane asylum. You can decide whether you want to be an inmate or pick up your visitor's badge. You can be in the world but not engage in the melodrama of it; you can become a spiritual being having a human experience thoroughly and fully.

Studies have shown that inmate participation in education, vocational and job training, prison work skills development, drug abuse, mental health and other treatment programs, all reduce recidivism, significantly.

Advice? I don't have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you're writing, you're a writer. Write like you're a Goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there's no chance for a pardon. Write like you're clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you've got just one last thing to say, like you're a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God's sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we're not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don't. Who knows, maybe you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't have to.

At times it's as if the Silicon Valley inmates are running the VC asylum. But what might seem like unicorn-crazed chaos from the outside looking in is actually carefully structured.

Los pensamientos que acuden a mi mente cuando corro se parecen a las nubes del cielo. Nubes de diversas formas y tama?os. Nubes que vienen y se van. Pero el cielo siempre es el cielo. Las nubes son s?lo meras invitadas. Algo que pasa de largo y se dispersa. Y s?lo queda el cielo. El cielo es algo que, al tiempo que existe, no existe. Algo material y a la vez, inmaterial. Y a nosotros no nos queda sino aceptar ka existencia de ese inmenso recipiente tal cual es e intentar ir asimil?ndolo.

Books are to me as homemade tattoos are to an inmate. Can't get enough of them.

I think Hollywood has a class system. The actors are like the inmates but the truth is they're running the asylum.

The other inmates stand in a long straight line flanked by guards and I am dragged past them. I do not respect them because they will not run - will not try to escape.

Unfortunately the elimination of incentives such as parole good time credits and funding for college courses means that fewer inmates participate in and excel in literacy education treatment and other development programs.

Studies have shown that inmate participation in education vocational and job training prison work skills development drug abuse mental health and other treatment programs all reduce recidivism significantly.

I never think of myself as any kind of sex symbol but I get letters from all over all sorts. It's really cool. I get a lot from inmates which is kind of scary. But the best was the guy who wanted to send me a plane ticket to fly me to his prom.

In prison inmates sometimes use Cheetos and grape juice as makeup. I wouldn't use that beauty regimen around Britney Spears - she might lick your face off!