Censorship Freedom Books Quotes & Sayings

Libraries should be open to all - except the censor.
[Response to questionnaire in Saturday Review, October 29 1960] — John F. Kennedy

Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear. — Judy Blume

The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. — Anonymous

On Australia Day 2010, as we enter this second decade of the 21st century, Australians can be optimistic about our future, but we cannot afford to mistake optimism for complacency. — Kevin Rudd

All writers and their readers should stand up and voice their opposition to financial services companies censoring books. Authors should have the freedom to publish legal fiction, and readers should have the freedom to read what they want. — Mark Coker

The glorious freedom of writing is a beautiful thing that must never be stifled by censorship. — Stewart Stafford

Well, the man who first translated the bible into English was burned at the stake, and they've been at it ever since. Must be all that adultery, murder and incest. But not to worry. It's back on the shelves. — Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Like the Roman town grid, the New York plan was laid down on largely empty land, a city designed in advance of being inhabited; if the Romans consulted the heavens for guidance in this effort, the city fathers of New York consulted the banks. — Richard Sennett

I hate it that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas as though they were diseases. — Kurt Vonnegut

Anger, greed. Whatsoever else you name, are not solid; they are just the absence of a blissful, ecstatic life. — Osho

Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight. — Stephen Chbosky

Having the freedom to read and the freedom to choose is one of the best gifts my parents ever gave me. — Judy Blume

Don't behave like a cat who is patiently waiting for the right time to attack its prey! For you, right time is now, suitable moment is now; use 'now' because any moment after 'now' is just a theory, it may never exist! Stop being patient, stop behaving like a fixed statue and move now! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Orwell's short and intense life has for years borne witness to some of those verities of which we were already aware. Parties and churches and states cannot be honest, but individuals can. Real books cannot be written by machines or committees. The truth is not always easy to discern, but a lie can and must be called by its right name. And the imagination, like certain wild animals, as Orwell himself once put it, will not breed in captivity. Actually, that last metaphor is beautiful but inaccurate. Even in the most dire conditions, there is a human will to resist coercion. We must believe that even now in North Korea, there are ideas alive inside human brains that were not put there by any authority. — Christopher Hitchens

If someone uses the amount of time I spend in the public eye as criteria for what my music could possibly mean to them, they probably should take a long, hard look in the mirror and figure out why they need to think they're so special. Because I don't think anybody is that special. — Jeff Tweedy

Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory ... In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man's freedom. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. In the long run it will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience. — Henry Steele Commager

In this age of censorship, I mourn the loss of books that will never be written, I mourn the voices that will be silenced-writers' voices, teachers' voices, students' voices-and all because of fear. — Judy Blume

Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. — Laurie Halse Anderson

For every terrorist we kill, there's another boy waiting to step forward and pick up the stone or the gun. They're like shark's teeth: break one and another will rise in it's place. — Daniel Silva

If there's one American belief I hold above all others, it's that those who would set themselves up in judgment on matters of what is "right" and what is "best" should be given no rest; that they should have to defend their behavior most stringently ... As a nation, we've been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn't approve of them."
[Bangor Daily News, Guest Column of March 20, 1992] — Stephen King

Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous - they contain ideas. — Pete Hautman

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. — Salman Rushdie

Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book ... — Dwight D. Eisenhower

The United States, almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of freedom. In this land the citizens are still invited to write their plays and books, to paint their pictures, to meet for discussion, to dissent as well as to agree, to mount soapboxes in the public square, to enjoy education in all subjects without censorship, to hold court and judge one another, to compose music, to talk politics with their neighbors without wondering whether the secret police are listening, to exchange ideas as well as goods, to kid the government when it needs kidding, and to read real news of real events instead of phony news manufactured by a paid agent of the state. This is a fact and should give every person pause. — E.B. White

To insist on strength ... is not war-mongering. It is peace-mongering. — Barry Goldwater

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education. — Alfred Whitney Griswold

The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him, and that is why Puritanism was the most destructive and evil force which ever oppressed people and their literature: it created hypocrisy, perversion, fears, sterility. — Anais Nin

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

Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper. — Terry Tempest Williams

Banning books is just another form of bullying. It's all about fear and an assumption of power. The key is to address the fear and deny the power. — James Howe

Be passionate about what you write, believe in your ability to convey timeless ideas, and let no one tell you what what you're capable of. — Christina Westover

What are you, twelve?" "The man who loses the boy is a sad and serious man." "Irish — Nora Roberts

Get rich. Live life to the fullest. Destroy the world. — Andrew Durbin