What is iron maiden?

Famous quotes containing the words iron and/or maiden:

    Manhattan. Sometimes from beyond the skyscrapers, across the hundreds of thousands of high walls, the cry of a tugboat finds you in your insomnia in the middle of the night, and you remember that this desert of iron and cement is an island.
    Albert Camus (1913–1960)

    Our foreparents were mostly brought from West Africa.... We were brought to America and our foreparents were sold; white people bought them; white people changed their names ... my maiden name is supposed to be Townsend, but really, what is my maiden name? What is my name?
    Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977)