Censorship Of Books Quotes

“You must remember, burn them or they'll burn you...”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“People are dying because of ignorance. They are dying because unremitting propaganda is denying them essential safety information. They are dying because legislators and the media are censoring the science, and are ruthlessly pushing an ideological agenda instead. They are dying because the first casualty of war is truth, and the war on drugs is no different.”
― Dominic Milton Trott, The Honest Drug Book: A Chemical & Botanical Journey Through The Legal High Years

“My father never put a book into my hands and never forbade a book. Instead, he let me roam and graze, making my own more or less appropriate selections. I read gory tales of historic heroism that nine-teenth century parents were suitable for children, and gothic ghost stories that were surely not; I read accounts of arduous travel through treacherous lands undertaken by spinsters in crinolines, and I read handbooks on decorum and etiquette intended for young ladies of good family; I read books with pictures and books without; books in English, books in French, books in languages I didn't understand where I could make up stories in my head on the basis of a handful of guessed-at words. Books. Books. And books.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks: the ghost of a linnen decency yet haunts us.”
― John Milton, Areopagitica

“In Europe, nobody will bleep you, if you want to say a "bad" word on TV. The idea that some self-righteous little old lady at the FCC gets to tell other people which words they may or may not use, seems like a pretty strange concept in the rest of the civilized world.

Media censorship is a prohibition of words and pictures. The War on Drugs is a complete failure, and so is the American War on Words. When you forbid a word, you give it power. Self-proclaimed rebels will use words like shit or fuck, simply to shock and sound cool.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Bad Choices Make Good Stories - Going to New York

“Book banning satisfied their need to feel in control of their children's lives. Those who censored were easily frightened. They were afraid of exposing their children to ideas different from their own. Afraid to answer children's questions or talk with them about sensitive subjects.”
― Judy Blume, Places I Never Meant to Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers

“Every word serves a purpose. It conveys an idea. And the idea behind words like feces, stool, or poop is exactly the same as behind the word shit. They all conjure up the same mental image in your head. So why are stool and poop "good" words, and shit is a "bad" word? Who decided that, and why am I bound by that decision?”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Bad Choices Make Good Stories - Going to New York

“It's said that one must sink all execrable things
Closed in a sepulchre, deep in oblivion,
And that by written works, evil brought back to life
Will taint the moral will of our posterity.
But vice is mothered not by Knowledge, not at all,
And Virtue's surely not the child of Ignorance.”
― Agrippa d'Aubigné, Les Tragiques

“If we think to regulat Printing, thereby to rectifie manners, we must regulat all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightfull to Man.”
― John Milton, Areopagitica

“And what doe they tell us vainly of new opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that none must be heard but whom they like, is the worst and newest opinion of all others, and is the chief cause why sects and schisms doe so much abound and true knowledge is kept at distance from us ; besides yet a greater danger which is in it.”
― John Milton, Areopagitica

“Europeans often laugh about how prudish Americans are, when it comes to sex. In Europe, sexuality is a normal part of life. Fancy antique art museums are full of nudity. And you'll see naked girls in every major newspaper. Germany's biggest newspaper, Bild, has a topless girl on the backpage of every daily issue. Nobody thinks twice about it. Nobody finds it necessary to protect the children.
A naked breast is no more a threat to the well-being of a child than a naked hand or foot. So from a European point of view, American media censorship seems utterly ridiculous.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Bad Choices Make Good Stories - Going to New York

“If you truly hate censorship then you will defend anyone that is unfairly censored. Everyone deserves their legal rights, even when they disagree with us. Protecting their rights protects ours.”
― C.A.A. Savastano

“A naked breast is no more a threat to the well-being of a child than a naked hand or foot. So from a European point of view, American media censorship seems utterly ridiculous.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Bad Choices Make Good Stories - Going to New York

“You can't know something's missing if you don't know it exists. And that, to me, is sort of the greatest tragedy about all of this (in regard to the removal of LGBTQIA+ stories from libraries and classroom shelves).”
― Mark Oshiro

“The banning of books is the greatest statement of both intolerance and stupidity. A country which does this is just giving a lobotomy to itself.”
― David Frawley, Arise Arjuna: Hinduism and the Modern World

“Is a people that elects as its president an icon that has never read a book all that far away from burning books itself?”
― Joseph Roth, What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-1933

“Censorship is not commensurate with democracy. Or art.”
― Kerri Maher, The Paris Bookseller

“Joyce's...writing is so far above the head of someone like Sumner, that I'm sure he can't help but hate it, because he's just smart enough to realize, he doesn't understand it.”
― Kerri Maher, The Paris Bookseller

“THE BURNING OF THE BOOKS

When the Regime commanded that books with harmful knowledge
Should be publicly burned and on all sides
Oxen were forced to drag cartloads of books
To the bonfires, a banished
Writer, one of the best, scanning the list of the
Burned, was shocked to find that his
Books had been passed over. He rushed to his desk
On wings of wrath, and wrote a letter to those in power.
Burn me! he wrote with flying pen, burn me! Haven't my books
Always reported the truth? And here you are
Treating me like a liar! I command you:
Burn me!”
― Bertolt Brecht

“The value of universal literacy is of course questionable in a society that practices the strictest form of censorship.”
― Victor Andres Triay

“We are critical of the priests who burned the paper books of the Aztecs because contemporary Europe looked down upon the non-Christian Americans and wanted to destroy their heathen beliefs. But we ourselves have so little esteem for these same beliefs that although the most important ones were recorded by the early Spaniards, we reject them as the fables of primitive nations.”
― Thor Heyerdahl, Early Man and the Ocean: A Search for the Beginnings of Navigation & Seaborne Civilizations

“The Freedom of Speech will always be mightier than any small minded censor no matter the flavor of their ignorance.”
― C.A.A. Savastano

“In this book are some expressions and depictions of prejudices that were commonplace in British society at the time it was written. These prejudices were wrong then and are wrong today. We are printing the novel as it was originally published because to make changes would be the same as pretending these prejudices never existed.”
― Penguin Random House

“The narrative is as important as the truth.”
― Steven Seril, The Destroyer of Worlds: An Answer to Every Question

“Sai perché mi piace la pornografia? [...] Quello che veramente mi piace è la sensazione che il sesso sia divertente, spontaneo e soprattutto gratis. Nella vita reale il sesso raramente è divertente, e non è mai gratis.”
― Miguel Ángel Martín, Total Overfuck

“As libraries become battlegrounds, teens notice which books, and which identities, are under attack. Those who share identities with targeted authors or characters receive a powerful message of exclusion: Those books don't belong, and neither do you.”
― Ashley Hope Pérez

“To be told your books can’t be on display or that your books are inappropriate because they simply reflect your life and experiences … it’s not only an act of censorship but an act of violence to the community.”
― Deborah Caldwell-Stone

“We look for ourselves in the pages. So to take books off the shelves that contain, for example, LQBTQIA+ characters and lives is extremely damaging, especially for queer teens on the brink of becoming who they are meant to be. It’s essentially saying: ‘This way of living isn’t palatable to us. We don’t accept it. Don’t do it.’ And what could be more painful and distressing than that?”
― Amie Jones

“I feel personally there hasn’t been a word written or uttered that shouldn’t be published.”
― Barney Rosset