“It was an incessant and never-ending desire to be with someone at whatever cost. Someone good-looking, really nice-looking. It just filled my thoughts all day long.”— Brian Masters, amazon.com
“I grabbed him by the arm and told him I was going to kill him. I stayed with the boy about three hours. During that time, I committed sodomy on the boy six times, and then I killed him by beating his brains out with a rock... I had stuffed down his throat several sheets of paper out of a magazine. I…”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“I cried, I begged and pleaded for mercy, pity, and sympathy, but nothing I could say or do could sway them from their purpose. I left that box a sadder, sicker, but wiser boy.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“Is it unnatural that I should have absorbed these things and have become what I am today, a treacherous, degenerate, brutal, human savage, devoid of all decent feeling, without conscience, morals, pity, sympathy, principle or any single good trait? Why am I what I am?”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“The only thanks you and your kind will ever get from me for your efforts on my behalf is that I wish you all had one neck and that I had my hands on it.”— Carl Panzram, amazon.com
“I look forward to a seat in the electric chair or dance at the end of a rope just like some folks do for their wedding night.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“I was so full of hate that there was no room in me for such feelings as love, pity, kindness or honor or decency, my only regret is that I wasn't born.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“I want to be hanged and I don't want any interference by you or your filthy kind. I just know the more about the world and the essential evil nature of man and don't play the hypocrite. I am proud of having killed off a few and regret that I didn't kill more!”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“No one lays a hand on me. No one abuses me in any way. I have been trying to figure it out and I have come to the conclusion that, if in the beginning I had been treated as I am now, then there wouldn't have been quite so many people that have been robbed, raped and killed.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“In my lifetime I have broken every law that was ever made by both man and God. If either had made any more, I should very cheerfully have broken them also.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“I made a full confession of this murder of McMahon. You sent a number of witnesses from Salem to identify me, which they done. I do not change my former confession in any way. I committed that murder. I alone am guilty. I not only committed that murder but 21 besides and I assure you here and now th…”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“All of your police, judges, lawyers, wardens, doctors, National Crime Commissions and writers have combined to find out and remedy the cause and effect of crime. With all this knowledge and power at their command, they have accomplished nothing except to make conditions worse instead of better.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“I am 36 years old and have been a criminal all my life. I have 11 felony convictions against me. I have served 20 years of my life in jails, reform schools and prisons. I know why I am a criminal.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“All my associates, all of my surroundings, the atmosphere of deceit, treachery, brutality, degeneracy, hypocrisy, and everything that is bad and nothing that is good. Why am I what I am? I'll tell you why. I did not make myself what I am. Others had the making of me.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“I've been all over the world and I've seen everything but hell and I guess I'll see that soon.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“I was dumped into a cell without any medical attention or surgical attention whatever. My broken bones were not set. My ankles and legs were not put into a cast. The doctor never came near me and no one else was allowed to do anything for me. At the end of 14 months of constant agony, I was taken to…”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“You will find that I have consistently followed one idea through all my life….I preyed upon the weak, the harmless and the unsuspecting.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“The boy's name I didn't know. He told me he was eleven years old. He was carrying a basket or pail in his hand. He told me he was going to the store to do an errand. He told me his aunt ran this store. I asked him if he would like to earn fifty cents. He said yes.…I hit him on the back of the head w…”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“A little nigger boy about 11 or 12 years old came bumming around….I left him there, but first I committed sodomy on him and then I killed him….His brains were coming out of his ears when I left him and he will never be any deader.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu
“To some of average intelligence, killing six at once seems an almost impossible feat. It was very much easier for me to kill those six niggers than it was for me to kill only one of the young boys I killed later and some of them were only 11 or 12 years old.”— Carl Panzram, www-rohan.sdsu.edu