"These words are not a plea for radical new ideas, Mom. It’s a plea to start restoring humanity at its most fundamental levels. It’s a plea to begin considering what outcomes we want to see when the cage doors re-open. Healthcare is a human right, even in jail. We need to believe that even in our carceral systems, this nation cares for reproductive health. It is an essential human need and immensely impactful to greater society."

"...But in that moment, it was a reminder of what it feels like to have a human, genuine reaction to the world. Existing in a job that prioritizes rules and laws to an extreme, it was freedom to break them in the name of something stronger. It was the pull of human dignity and respect."

"The vision I look towards is not one of reshaping every detail of crime, law enforcement action or the courts. It is to start handing people with immense periods of confinement tools to manifest their own growth. It is giving freedom to people with virtually none otherwise the choice to participate in reshaping what their exit from our carceral systems will look like."

"...And that snowball hasn’t stopped rolling downhill. Each time we go into the community, each time we step into the post office with a stack of care packages, we create new connections, the word spreads a little further, and this movement grows bigger."

"It's about the fact that, for some reason, when everyone else seemed to understand Eli, and I looked good on paper, I didn't understand a single thing about my own identity. I lived my life from the cockpit of an airplane I wasn't flying, just watching the clouds drift by. And with no reason to steer the plane in any intentional direction, I let life steer me. I let friends and family be the pilot, my career be the flight plan, privilege be the airplane, and alcohol be the gasoline. I merely rode along and wondered what might happen if I disrupted the most outwardly stable seeming flight of all time so I could try flying."