Orange Is the New Black What's Up With the Epigraph?

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
            – From "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen is the "Hallelujah" guy. This song is similar: inspirational, popular, basically everything Piper Kerman wants her book to be.

This is a song to inspire people who are going through moments of darkness. And spending a year in prison, well, that's pretty darn dark. Kerman has to do what she can to find those cracks in prison and let the light in wherever she can find it.