In a non-video jailhouse interview Bernard Madoff has told GMA’s Barbara Walters that he suffers nightmares and “terrible remorse” for having “ruined his family” but is “happier in prison” than he was on the outside.

“I feel safer here,” said Madoff. “I have people to talk to, no decisions to make. I know I will die in prison. I lived the last 20 years of my life in fear. Now I have no fear because I’m no longer in control.”

Walters explained that “the other prisoners treat him with great respect, especially the young ones, but they do this for all the wrong reasons. But he has a routine, and for the first time in his life he’s not afraid of being arrested.”

Q; What’s the difference between the existence that Madoff has now and the one that Ringo Starr describes in “Octopus’s Garden“? A: Madoff’s is on dry land.

And I dreamed I was dying

And I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly

And looking back down at me

Smiled reassunngly

And I dreamed I was flying

And high up above my eyes could clearly see

The Statue of Liberty

Sailing away to sea

And I dreamed I was flying.

Here’s a thing I wrote in March 2009 about what Madoff could have done before he was pinched.