Quotes From Gooden's First Interview Behind Bars:

"I kept looking back to the day I got drafted out of high school [in 1982] and remembering all the joy. Now I'm in this little box where two people couldn't fit in there.You keep asking yourself, `What went wrong? What went wrong?"'

"I can't come back here," he said. "I'd rather get shot than come back here. ... If I don't get the message this time, I never will."

"I still haven't recovered from that," Gooden told the newspaper. "That was torture. It was like you're an animal. It was horrible." ~on spending 10 days in solitary confinement.

"It's been a humbling experience. It's like going from the top down to the bottom. This is the bottom of the bottom right here."

"It's been the hardest thing I've ever went through. I can't say some days are better than others. Some hours are better than others."

"When I first got here I had the shame, the embarrassment, the guilt because of the name and everybody knows who you are. These guys are all inmates, too - most of these guys are nice guys - but they're looking at me like I'm different than them. Because of my background they look at you and say, 'Man, you don't belong here.' "

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