Censor Quotes & Sayings

I have a lot of Chinese fans who buy my movies on the street and watch them, and I'm OK with it. I'm not OK with it in other places, but if the government's going to censor me, then I want the people to see it in any way they can. — Quentin Tarantino

I think it's radical to censor information because the government asks you to. That's radical. — Laura Poitras

Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor. — William O. Douglas

You can't censor people's dreams. — Robyn Hitchcock

I think free speech is probably the coolest thing we have in this country, and again, you can label it hate speech and dismiss it, and then you're allowed to censor it. — Dana Carvey

People would say I never censor. As Billy Crystal says, 'I don't have that button.' — Robin Williams

Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. Write yourself. Your body must be heard. — Helene Cixous

I don't see why Christians should censor themselves out of any forum in which our perspectives can be heard. I disagree with the theology of many groups that I address; Jews, for example, who do not accept Jesus, or atheists. — Gary Bauer

It is said that the personal is political. That is not true, of course. At the core of the fight for political rights is the desire to protect ourselves, to prevent the political from intruding on our individual lives. Personal and political are interdependent but not one and the same thing. The realm of imagination is a bridge between them, constantly refashioning one in terms of the other. Plato's philosopher-king knew this and so did the blind censor, so it was perhaps not surprising that the Islamic Republic's first task had been to blur the lines and boundaries between the personal and the political, thereby destroying both. — Azar Nafisi

Dogs don't censor themselves. Maybe animals were smarter than people. The dog was so happy. My mom and dad too. It felt good to know that they loved the dog, that they let themselves do that. And somehow it seemed that the dog helped us be a better family. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

Our civilisation cannot afford to let the censor-moron loose. The censor-moron does not really hate anything but the living and growing human consciousness. — D.H. Lawrence

Secrets don't stay secrets very long, even when journalists decide to censor themselves. — Jill Abramson

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will. — Thomas Jefferson

Satires which the censor can understand are justly forbidden — Karl Kraus

Although censorship from others is not acceptable, you practice it every day when you decide with what people you will share what information, otherwise our deepest feelings would be shared with all the wrong people. — D.S. Mixell

Everyone should have the right to go off and do their music or do their books. The people who are in the position to censor they're really not down to reality where that certain artists are coming from. — Henry Rollins

Nick chided a censor, who wished some books gone, and suggested she scan Fahrenheit 451. For the book-budget cutters, Old Claus had no plan, cause if they could read, they just read Ayn Rand. — David Davis

To be clear, Goodreads staff have not been deleting any posts. A value we've always had here is that we don't censor content (unless it's against our policies - eg porn, etc). [April 1, 2013] — Otis Y. Chandler

I'm not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance — Jon Stewart

I think that pop music in general sometimes like to keep things a bit more hidden, and, you know, you censor and you polish to make it fit more people or to not be too vulgar or make sure of, 'Can this really play on the radio?' And I like not doing that. — Tove Lo

Why hold secrets? Why harbor anything? Let me just share everything with you. Let me just talk. Let me let go of the censor that is within me ... I'm tired of trying to be someone other than who I am. — T. Scott McLeod

I'm sure even in America, where you have, like, free speech people self-censor themself. And it's not - it happens because of different reasons. Because maybe it's politically incorrect, it doesn't have to really to be put in jail. — Bassem Youssef

He is always the severest censor of the merit of others who has the least worth of his own. — Elias Lyman Magoon

When U.S. commercial interests press the Chinese government to do a better job of policing Chinese websites for pirated content, a blind eye is generally turned to the fact that ensuing crackdowns provide a great excuse to tighten mechanisms to censor all content the Chinese government doesn't like. — Rebecca MacKinnon

Do Italians tell you everything they feel without censor? — Adriana Trigiani

The more we oblige, the more we self-censor, the more we appease, the bolder the enemy gets. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

We live in a frightened time, and people self-censor all the time and are afraid of going into some subjects because they are worried about violent reactions. — Salman Rushdie

Do not censor yourself. Let go of that part of your brain and just be. — Red Phoenix

In Italy the censor is very old and there are many judges and psychiatrists who analyse you. — Dario Argento

We can self-censor ourselves for various reasons, but we can't live in a world where some person or some group decides what's offensive and what's not. — Steve Breen

It would be nice to think that a censor could allow a genuine work of artistic seriousness and ban a titillating piece of sadism, but it would take a miracle to make such a distinction stick. — Katharine Whitehorn

The aim is to burn through to first thoughts, to the place where energy is unobstructed by social politeness or the internal censor, to the place where you are writing what you mind actually sees and feels, not what it thinks it should see or feel. — Natalie Goldberg

After you produce you can select. you can curate. you can censor. But for now, have bad ideas, lots and lots of bad ideas. — Seth Godin

Dream disfigurement, then, turns out in reality to be an act of the censor. — Sigmund Freud

It may be said that artist and censor differ in this wise: that the first is a decent mind in an indecent body and that the second is an indecent mind in a decent body. — George Jean Nathan

There are Anarchists in other parts of the world who are unable to, comprehend the position of the Spanish Anarchists. I do not pretend to censor these Anarchists. — Federica Montseny

I just do what I feel and what I like. I don't necessarily censor or feel an obligation to have a particular moral standard - I'm willing to wallow in the mud, if necessary. It appears as if there seems to be a consistency in result, but maybe that has as much to do with the roles I choose as it does with how I play them. I do what pleases me. — Denzel Washington

I find it very offensive when the government tells me what I can and cannot watch. Censor yourself. — Michael Badnarik

Peer review was an excellent system by which academics could either anonymously censor others with whom they disagreed, or hide from controversy after they signed off on truth that the public couldn't stomach. — B.C. Chase

Strident minorities, acting on the growing disposition to censor their opponents, ensure that the deeper the question, the more likely it is to be settled by shallow arguments. — Roger Scruton

I do have a self-censor; everybody does, or at least most who are not pathological do. — Al Franken

First thoughts have tremendous energy. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash. — Natalie Goldberg

Censorship makes me really angry. I even hate it when people censor themselves. — Emma Stone

Literature, like magic, has always been about the handling of secrets, about the pain, the destruction, and the marvelous liberation that can result when they are revealed. Telling the truth when the truth matters most is almost always a frightening prospect. If a writer doesn't give away secrets, his own or those of the people he loves; if she doesn't court disapproval, reproach, and general wrath, whether of friends, family, or party apparatchiks; if the writer submits his work to an internal censor long before anyone else can get their hands on it, the result is pallid, inanimate, a lump of earth. — Michael Chabon

Reading develops cognitive skills. It trains our minds to think critically and to question what you are told. This is why dictators censor or ban books. It's why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It's why girls in developing countries have acid thrown in their faces when they walk to school. — Karin Slaughter

We shouldn't censor ourselves based on the weak idea of "looking cool." It's such a waste of potential awesomeness. — Neko Case

I think they liked you more than they like me. Eric said that I must get really angry when I'm Irish if you don't want to be my boyfriend."

A deep, throaty laugh escapes Ashton's lips and my body instantly warms.

"What'd you say?"

"Oh, I assured him that I get plenty mad even when I'm not 'Irish' and you're around." at earns another laugh.

"I love it when you don't censor yourself. When you just say what's on your mind and don't worry about it."

"Then you and Stayner would get along well . . . — K.A. Tucker

From fire, water, the passage of time, neglectful readers, and the hand of the censor, each of my books has escaped to tell me its story. — Alberto Manguel

Lacking its own ingenuity, the parasite fears the visionary. What it cannot plagiarize, it seeks to censor. What it cannot regulate, it seeks to ban. — Andrew Ryan

Don't censor your dreams or vision with practicalities and probabilities. — Jack Canfield

Some are born to greatness; some achieve greatness; some have greatness thrust upon them.' It is in this way that the librarian has become a censor of literature... books that distinctly commend what is wrong, that teach how to sin and how pleasant sin is, sometimes with and sometimes without the added sauce of impropriety, are increasingly popular, tempting to the author to imitate them, the publishers to produce, the bookseller to exploit. Thank heaven they do not tempt the librarian. — Arthur E. Bostwick

What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose-knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful, that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through. I should like to come back, after a year or two, and find that the collection had sorted itself and refined itself and coalesced, as such deposits so mysteriously do, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life, and yet steady, tranquil compounds with the aloofness of a work of art. The main requisite, I think, on reading my old volumes, is not to play the part of a censor, but to write as the mood comes or of anything whatever; since I was curious to find how I went for things put in haphazard, and found the significance to lie where I never saw it at the time. — Virginia Woolf

Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to supress the works of genius. Among the Romans the censor was an inspector of public morals, but the public morals of modern nations will not bear inspection. — Ambrose Bierce

In the end, you can't censor the truth, especially when it comes packaged in hot music. — Jay-Z

The question isn't whether or not to censor artists who espouse misogynistic views. The question is whether or not we support them as listeners and consumers. — Dessa Darling

The wussification of America is killing us by teaching us to censor ourselves from what we believe. That's why I want to see political correctness die in my lifetime, but first ... I want to watch it suffer. — Brad Stine

Censor: A self-appointed snoophound who sticks his nose in other people's business. — Bennett Cerf

Colleges have a twofold duty when it comes to dealing with censorship. First, there is the duty to not censor the free expression of ideas, especially important and newsworthy ones. Second, colleges have the duty to protect speakers from being silenced by others. Century has failed miserably on both counts. — Greg Lukianoff

Censors never go after books unless kids already like them. I don't even think they know to go after books until they know that children are interested in reading this book, therefore there must be something in it that's wrong. — Judy Blume

Countries like Iran and China support an Internet Iron Curtain that would censor political dissidents and deny anonymous activity online through mandatory registrations of IP addresses. — Marsha Blackburn

I would never censor something to please someone. I don't play games. — Joyce Tenneson

It's incredible that they censor films. It's sad. — Dario Argento

You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up, you gild it or blacken it, censor it, tinker with it ... fictionalize it, in a word, and put it away on a shelf - your book, your romanced autobiography. We are all in flight from the real reality. That is a basic definition of Homo sapiens. — John Fowles

Again, like I said, we're not trying to censor anyone. If you think drugs are cool, fine. Make that movie. We are not going to stop you, or try to stop you, but we would encourage other people to be a bit more responsible about their portrayal of drug usage. — Gerald McRaney

The censor pretends he is protecting tender hearts, shielding children from sex and violence, keeping the righteous in the right path, guarding against temptation, preserving virtue. How? by burning books, tearing out tongues, stretching necks, stoning women; through torture and imprisonment; by threats of violence against the victim's friends and family; by force-feeding his own people a philosophy not only false and wicked now but false and wicked the day it was first announced by some imaginary lord and used to purchase or preserve his privileges and hoodwink the world. — William H Gass

Any fear around 'imperfection' is a censoring of life now, and when we censor life we simply cannot sense our innate natural joy. — Dhyana Stanley

I grew up around poets and novelists and my dad wrote poems about everything - from a cat sleeping in a window to a car wreck he passed on the highway. I learned not to censor myself: that was one of things I learned in my apprenticeship, my creative-writing apprenticeship with my dad. — Lucinda Williams

You can understand Tunisia revolution as a failure to censor the internet. And Libya had that failure too. It's very difficult for governments that are autocratic and don't have broad popular support to be in power when a lot of people have these devices. That was what Arab Spring was about, that people could express this and lead to revolution. — Eric Schmidt

The little hand on time's clock trips away as though measuring seconds; but God knows how much time it is covering when it whisks round heedless of the divisions it passes over! So much is certain, that we have been up here for years. Our brains reel, surely this is an evil dream, though dreamed with nor hashish nor opium; a censor of morals would rebuke us for it. — Thomas Mann

It was important that I learn that what I wanted was no different from what other artists wanted: confidence that I could be my own censor, audience, and competition. — Beverly Pepper

When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship. — Terry Tempest Williams

Writers do the self-censoring before they even get to the studio executive, because they know the film will not run that gauntlet. They, because they want to get their films made, they censor it. — Terry Gilliam

In both jokes and dreams, Freud observed, meanings are condensed and displaced, things are represented indirectly or by their opposites, fallacious reasoning trumps logic. Jokes often arise involuntarily, like dreams, and tend to be swiftly forgotten. From these similarities Freud inferred that jokes and dreams share a common origin in the unconscious. Both are essentially means of outwitting our inner censor. — Jim Holt

As the voices fall silent, the individuals who make up the amorphous and always changing community must decide for themselves, as they always have. I can't write a coda because I can't speak for others. I can only and ever speak for myself. — G.R. Reader

The inner censor of the mind of the true believer completes the work of the public censor; his self-discipline is as tyrannical as the obedience imposed by the regime; he terrorizes his own conscience into submission;he carries his private Iron Curtain inside his skull, to protect his illusions against the intrusion of reality. — Arthur Koestler

You have to allow your mind to create and then if you want to censor something and bring it down or point it in a different direction, then you can do it. — Queen Latifah

We [americans] self-regulate ourselves, we self-censor ourselves a lot in this country instead of having someone else censor us so we can blame them. That's not good, either. — Serj Tankian

It is the censor's business to make a judgment about the propriety of the content or message of the proposed expressive activity. The regulation here does not authorize any judgment about the content of any speeches ... A park is a limited space, and to allow unregulated access to all comers could easily reduce rather than enlarge the park's utility as a forum for speech. Just imagine two rallies held at the same time in the same park area using public-address systems that drowned out each other's speakers. — Richard Posner

A censor is an expert in cutting remarks. A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to. — Laurence J. Peter

The censor boards are mere redundant forces conspiring to keep the 'bold' films out of reach of the audience. — Anurag Kashyap

I don't do my best work while I'm in therapy. I'm too onto myself immediately seeing meanings in things and more likely to censor myself. I'd rather find images I don't understand. That's what generates the work. — Ellen McLaughlin

Censors are dead men set up to judge between life and death. For no live, sunny man would be a censor, he'd just laugh. — D.H. Lawrence

Don't ever feel inhibited. It's harder to censor yourself than to just be yourself. — Sharon Van Etten

He who could write so easily, who could spend a thousand words down along his plunging fingers on the green-rubber keyboard of his machine, had stumbled like a first-grader over this single paragraph. A dozen times he had begun it and written into it a naked desperation; a dozen times he had begun it and written into it the frosted mathematics of logic. Finally he'd written out quickly the sentences that kept cropping up in all the versions. Those must be, to whatever censor there was in him, the most acceptable ones. He sealed it without rereading it and went out to mail it. An hour later he despised himself for having sent it. — Laura Z. Hobson

This explosive psychological 'sneaking' occurs when a woman suppresses large parts of self into the shadows of the psyche. In the view of analytical psychology, the repression of both negative and positive instincts, urges, and feelings into the unconscious causes them to inhabit a shadow realm. While the ego and superego attempt to continue to censor the shadow impulses, the very pressure that repression causes is rather like a bubble in the sidewall of a tire. Eventually, as the tire revolves and heats up, the pressure behind the bubble intensifies, causing it to explode outward, releasing all the inner content.
The shadow acts similarlyY We find that by opening the door to the shadow realm a little, and letting out various elements a few at a time, relating to them, finding use for them, negotiating, we can reduce being surprised by shadow sneak attacks and unexpected explosions. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Whereas in Europe new ideas were forced to compete against other doctrines and attitudes, with the results that people tended towards healthy skepticism about claims to absolute truth, and a climate of pluralism developed, In Russia there was a cultural void. The censor forbade all political expression, so that when ideas were introduced there they easily assumed the status of holy dogma, a panacea for all the world's ills, beyond questioning or indeed the need to test them in real life. — Orlando Figes

We come into this world crying and calling, wailing and singing; and for the first months of our life all our needs and instincts, our dissatisfactions and discoveries are immediately vocalized without apology and without censor. — Paul Newham

A writer with her work needs to be like a dog with a bone all the time. She needs to know where she's hidden it. Where she's stored the good stuff. She needs to keep gnawing at it, even after all the meat seems to be gone. When a student of mine says (okay, whines) that she's impatient, or tired, or the worst: isn't it good enough? this may be harsh, but she loses just a little bit of my respect. Because there is no room for impatience, or exhaustion, or self-satisfaction, or laziness. All of these really mean, simply, that the inner censor has won the day. — Dani Shapiro

What to do? We yanked the dress up over her lovely attributes and with the addition of a scarf, the problem was solved. Sorry, guys, blame that stuffy censor. He hated surprises. — Audrey Meadows

Today, retired but not defeated, I enjoy the sacred privilege of writing at home, with the phone off the hook so that no one can disturb me, and without a censor looking over my shoulder to see what I am writing. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Pontius Pilate was the first great censor and Jesus Christ the first great victim of censorship. — Ben Lindsey

Scapegoating worked in practice while it still had religious powers behind it. You loaded the sins of the city on to the goat's back and drove it out, and the city was cleansed. It worked because everyone knew how to read the ritual, including the gods. Then the gods died, and all of a sudden you had to cleanse the city without divine help. Real actions were demanded instead of symbolism. The censor was born, in the Roman sense. Watchfulness became the watchword: the watchfulness of all over all. Purgation was replaced by the purge. — J.M. Coetzee

What? My head doctor says I'm not supposed to censor my thoughts. It's part of my therapy. — Suzanne Collins

You don't rewrite it, censor it, or edit it, to suit some warped view you have of the past and your own present. — V.T. Davy

The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service. — Stephen Sondheim

Music is art to me, and you don't censor art. You don't go into a museum and censor things. — Iggy Azalea

When people censor themselves they're just as likely to get rid of the good bits as the bad bits. — Brian Eno

I think any start has to be a false start because really there's no way to start. You just have to force yourself to sit down and turn off the quality censor. And you have to keep the censor off, or you start second-guessing every other sentence. Sometimes the suspicion of a possible false start comes through, and you have to suppress it to keep writing. But it gets more persistent. And the moment you know it's really a false start is when you start ... it's hard to put into words. — Elif Batuman

Sometimes great, banned works defy the censor's description and impose themselves on the world - 'Ulysses,' 'Lolita,' the 'Arabian Nights.' — Salman Rushdie

Both the American people and nations that censor the internet should understand that our government is committed to helping promote internet freedom. — Hillary Clinton