Randall Needham

“Get up you lazy bastard. The Governor wants a word with you,” said a guard. 
He opened his eyes and smiled. There was another guard standing near the cell door in 
anticipation of any trouble. The prisoner smiled at him, too. 
Now what can the Governor want from me? He wondered. His dishevelled form seemed 
incapable of coherent thought. “It’s nice of him to remember me,” he said aloud, trying to 
concentrate.
“Surprising he’s got any time for a worthless shit like you,” said the first guard. 
“I once used to be a very important person,” the prisoner said feebly.”
― Max Nowaz, The Arbitrator

“There was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for, as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life; no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find out no other way of livelihood.  In”
― Thomas More, Utopia

“In this he was like most Midwesterners. Directions are very important to them. They have an innate need to be oriented, even in their anecdotes. Any story related by a Midwesterner will wander off at some point into a thicket of interior monologue along the lines of "We were staying at a hotel that was eight blocks northeast of the state capital building. Come to think of it, it was northwest. And I think it was probably more like nine blocks. And this woman without any clothes on, naked as the day she was born except for a coonskin cap, came running at us from the southwest... or was it the southeast?" If there are two Midwesterns present and they both witnessed the incident, you can just about write off the anecdote because they will spend the rest of the afternoon arguing points of the compass and will never get back to the original story. You can always tell a Midwestern couple in Europe because they will be standing on a traffic island in the middle of a busy intersection looking at a windblown map and arguing over which way is west. European cities, with their wandering streets and undisciplined alleys, drive Midwesterners practically insane.”
― Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America

“The craggy lines that made up the character in his face now seemed like scars of defeat, inflicted on him over time.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree