"I buried myself in books. Initially, I read whatever was available on the black market "smuggled books" or those owned by other  inmates. After a prison library was created, I could be more selective, choosing what I wanted from the book cart brought in by a trusty. The more I learned, the more I sought; the more I reflected, the more I grew and matured. There were no lightning bolts, instant revelations, or overnight conversions; it was a long growth process in which I began to shed the ignorance, anger, and insecurities that had governed my previous life. I learned more from reading than I had from all my years of formal schooling, which had left me literate but uneducated. Eventually I came to see that there was so much to life and the world, so many options available that, as bad as things might have been, I was never trapped in my life as I had believed. I realized that my real problem had been ignorance and, as a result, I had thrown away my life.

"Reading ultimately allowed me to feel empathy, to emerge from my cocoon of self-centeredness and appreciate the humanness of others to see that they, too, have dreams, aspirations, frustrations, and pain. It enabled me finally to appreciated the enormity of what I had done, the depth of damage I had caused others."