Thoughts of Patrick McGoohan

"I think we're being imprisoned and engulfed by a scientific and materialistic world."

I think the first discipline a child should be taught...is to find his own answers, instead of watching other people...giving answers."

The wild beauty of a child's mind is one of the most unspoiled things..."

I think we are progressing too fast. I think we should pull back and consolidate the things we have discovered, as opposed to tearing off at faster speeds in bigger aircraft."

I think progress is the biggest enemy on earth, apart from one's self."

"I think that the commercial advertising on television and radio and newspapers is an insult to the intelligence. They base it on sex, greed, and envy."

(What would the Prisoner do once he had his freedom?) "He has't got it, which is the whole point. When that door opens on its own, and there is no one behind it, when all the doors in the Village open exactly the same, you know that someone is waiting there to start all over again. He has no freedom. Freedom is a myth."

(Is the Village external or internal?) "It was meant to be both. The external was the symbol, but it's within us all, I think. This surrealistic aspect of us. Your Village may be different from other people's Villages, but we all have one."

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

(On the Village) "It was trying to destroy the individual by every means possible; trying to break his spirit so that he accepts that he is a number–Number 6–and will live there happily ever after. But he is the one rebel they can't break."

If there are answers, they are contained in the last episode. Number 1, the horror figure hanging over it all, is revealed as the Prisoner himself. He tears off a mask-the face of an ape-revealing the bestial self which has ben his greatest enemy."

Main index page

Main Prisoner index page