On Banning Books Quotes & Sayings

Italian girls are famous for being snobby and expecting men to make the first move. In America, if I don't make eye contact, the guys won't come over and talk. American girls just go for it. You men are spoiled. — Silvia Colloca

I'm sure the only act that sells more books than a good banning is a good burning. — Pansy Schneider-Horst

All my adult life I have deplored violence and war as instruments for achieving solutions to mankind's problems. I am firmly committed to the creative power of nonviolence as the force which is capable of winning lasting and meaningful brotherhood and peace. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Over the years I've learned that a surefooted and confident mapmaker does not a swift traveler make. I stumble and fall, and I constantly find myself needing to change course. And even though I'm trying to follow a map that I've drawn, there are many times when frustration and self-doubt take over, and I wad up that map and shove it into the junk drawer in my kitchen. It's not an easy journey from excruciating to exquisite, but for me it's been worth every step. — Brene Brown

The trouble with books is that you don't know what's in them 'till is too late — Jeanette Winterson

Quarreling over food and drink, having neither scruples nor shame, not knowing right from wrong, not trying to avoid death or injury, not fearful of greater strength or of greater numbers, greedily aware only of food and drink - such is the bravery of the dog and boar. — Xun Zi

It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly presence) to a louder, clearer, more durable library of the banned, looted, plundered, shredded or curtailed. — Alberto Manguel

Are we to deny our daughters the works of Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck or Shakespeare?....Where is the equality in banning girls from enjoying wonderful works of literature?....What kind of society defines suitable reading material by sex? This is indefensible censorship encouraging ignorance and bias. [About Caitlin Moran's statement.] — Diane Davies

But how do you know?" "Because it's our book, Cassie. Yours and mine. This is our story, and I'll be damned if I let it end badly." I — Max Monroe

What a simple thing death is, just as simple as the falling of an autumn leaf. — Vincent Van Gogh

Our mouths meet in another kiss. Soft this time. Agonizingly slow. It's not enough. I'll stop it soon, any second now, but not yet. Not until he gives me more. — Sarina Bowen

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

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading. — Isaac Asimov

Let's get one thing out of the way: Mexican immigration is an oxymoron. Mexicans are indigenous. So, in a strange way, I'm pleased that the racist folks of Arizona have
officially declared, in banning me alongside Urrea, Baca, and Castillo, that their anti-immigration laws are also anti-Indian. I'm also strangely pleased that the folks of Arizona
have officially announced their fear of an educated underclass. You give those brown kids some books about brown folks and what happens? Those brown kids change the world. In the effort to vanish our books, Arizona has actually given them enormous power. Arizona has made our books sacred documents now. — Sherman Alexie

Our human perception of reality is made up by binary electromagnetic energy in the form of separated polarities: negative-positive, male-female, dark-light. Ordinary reality is a mono-dimensional arbitrary setting, which means that in order to be officially operative in this configuration, we need to release our multidimensional nature. This practically implies to let go of one polarity, so that one pole is allowed circulation in ordinary reality while the other is out of bound and remains in the non-ordinary or unconscious reality. — Franco Santoro

Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them. — Anna Quindlen

President John F. Kennedy's Cigars
On February 7, 1962, President Kennedy announced to his staff that he needed some help finding as many of the prestigious Cuban Petit Upmann cigars as possible. He let it be known that he would like to have 1,000 of these cigars by the next morning. Being the President of the United States, his wish was granted when, on the morning of February 8th, his Press Secretary Pierre Salinger came in and deposited 1,200 cigars on Kennedy's desk. Smiling, Kennedy opened his desk, took out a document and signed it, banning importation of all Cuban-made products into the United States. Some years later when asked about that moment, Salinger said that there were actually 1,201 cigars. — Hank Bracker

Writers quite often starve. And I'm mainly just writing critical prose and poetry, that's a formula for starvation. — Clive James

But I love you,' Caleb says, his voice breaking, because in a perfect world, this should be all the excuse one needs. — Jodi Picoult

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

When she visited me in New York during her sixties and seventies, she always told taxi drivers that she was eighty years old ("so they will tell me how young I look"), and convinced theater ticket sellers that she had difficulty in hearing long before she really did ("so they'll give us seats in the front row"). — Gloria Steinem