Banned Books Quotes

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

“If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all—except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.

[Response to questionnaire in Saturday Review, October 29 1960]”
― John F. Kennedy

“A word to the unwise.
Torch every book.
Char every page.
Burn every word to ash.
Ideas are incombustible.
And therein lies your real fear.”
― Ellen Hopkins

“Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“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

“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.”
― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947

“Something will be offensive to someone in every book, so you've got to fight it.”
― Judy Blume

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

“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

“I myself grew up to be not only a Hero, but also a Writer. When I was an adult, I rewrote A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons, and I included not only some descriptions of the various deadly dragon species, and a useful Dragonese Dictionary, but also this story of how the book came to be written in the first place.

This is the book that you are holding in your hands right now.

Perhaps you even borrowed it from a Library?

If so, thank Thor that the sinister figure of the Hairy Scary Librarian is not lurking around a corner, hiding in the shadows, Heart-Slicers at the ready, or that the punishment for your curiosity is not the whirring whine of a Driller Dragon's drill.

You, dear reader, I am sure cannot imagine what it might to be like to live in a world in which books are banned.

For surely such things will never happen in the Future?

Thank Thor that you live in a time and a place where people have the right to live and think and write and read their books in peace, and there are no need for Heroes anymore ...

And spare a thought for those who have not been so lucky.”
― Cressida Cowell, A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons

“They lived freely among the students, they argued with the men over philosophical, sociological and artistic matters, they were just as good as the men themselves: only better, since they were women.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

“Although there are those who wish to ban my books because I have used language that is painful, I have chosen to use the language that was spoken during the period, for I refuse to whitewash history. The language was painful and life was painful for many African Americans, including my family.
I remember the pain.”
― Mildred D. Taylor, The Land

“A dangerous book will always be in danger from those it threatens with the demand that they question their assumptions. They'd rather hang on to the assumptions and ban the book.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination

“Censorship and the suppression of reading materials are rarely about family values and almost always about controlabout who is
snapping the whip, who is saying no, and who is saying go. Censorship's bottom line is this: if the novel Christine offends me, I don't want just to make sure it's kept from my kid; I want to make sure it's kept from your kid, as well, and all the kids. This bit of intellectual arrogance, undemocratic and as old as time, is best expressed this way: "If it's bad for me and my family, it's bad for everyone's family."

Yet when books are run out of school classrooms and even out
of school libraries as a result of this idea, I'm never much disturbed not as a citizen, not as a writer, not even as a schoolteacher . . . which I used to be. What I tell kids is, Don't get mad, get even. Don't spend time waving signs or carrying petitions around the neighborhood. Instead, run, don't walk, to the nearest nonschool library or to the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned. Read whatever they're trying to keep out of your eyes and your brain, because that's exactly what you need to know.”
― Stephen King

“Because all books are forbidden when a country turns to terror. The scaffolds on the corners, the list of things you may not read. These things always go together.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Queen's Fool

“Some read to remember the home they had left behind, others to forget the hell that surrounded them. Books uplifted their weary souls and energized their minds…books had the power to sooth an aching heart, renew hope for the future, and provide a respite when there was no other escape.”
― Molly Guptill Manning

“I do not believe that any book should be denied to the man who possesses the wisdom to understand it, Bruno, but that does not mean I am confused about where truth lies.”
― S.J. Parris, Heresy

“The school board banned one of Maya Angelou's books, so the librarian had to take down her poster.

I fished it out of the trash.

She must be a great writer if the school board is scared of her.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak: The Graphic Novel

“You have to be mad in the language you're mad in.”
― Chris Crutcher, Angry Management

“Above all, for his merciless, contemptuous treatment of Clifford Chatterley, blown to bits in Flanders in 1918, Lawrence can be damned to hell. Damned but not banned.”
― Germaine Greer

“Whenever a soldier needed an escape, the antidote to anxiety, relief from boredom, a bit of laughter, inspiration, or hope, he cracked open a book and drank in the words that would transport him elsewhere.”
― Molly Guptill Manning

“Censors don’t want children exposed to ideas different from their own. If every individual with an agenda had his/her way, the shelves in the school library would be close to empty.”
― Judy Blume

“Some children were lucky enough to have their Potter novels banned by witch-hunting school boards and micromanaging ministers. Is there any greater job than a book you're not allowed to read, a book you could go to hell for reading?”
― Ann Patchett

“[Censors] rake through the entrails of many an old good author, with a violation worse than any could be offered to his tomb.”
― John Milton

“I can't imagine a greater compliment for an author than making the banned book section.”
― Chris Colfer, A Tale of Magic...

“...people burn books, and that they ban books is, in a way, a good sign. It's a good sign because it means books have power. When people burn books, it's because they're afraid of what's inside them...”
― Marcus Sedgwick, The Monsters We Deserve

“Orwell's vision of our terrible future was that world - the world in which books are banned or burned. Yet it is not the most terrifying world I can think of. I think instead of Huxley [...] I think of his Brave New World. His vision was the more terrible, especially now because it appears to be rapidly coming true, whereas the world of 1984 did not. What is Huxley's horrific vision? It is a world where there is no need for books to be banned, because no one can be bothered to read one.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, The Monsters We Deserve

“I'm not, like, a book guy, but isn't the point of all this book stuff like what Ms. Croft was teaching us -- that unrestricted access to books allows us to be challenged and changed? To learn new things and to critically think about those things and not be afraid of them? To be better than we were before we read them?”
― David Connis, Suggested Reading

“You get to a place eventually. The advanced reading section in the library of living. A place where they no longer stock the story that you’re looking for in paperback. Only leather bound first editions... with no fancy art on the cover. This is where they keep the books that look like they’re about to fall apart first day off the press. This is where they keep the books that don’t mind waiting in the darkness for someone to understand them. This is where they keep the books your parents tell you not to read.

I’ll say it again. This shit isn’t offered in paperback. You’re gonna need a hard cover to write the hard truths. If it doesn’t have a spine, it’s not gonna stand up for itself. You’ll know you’re getting close when the library goes from quiet to silent. You’ll know you’re getting close when every trace of humanity disappears. You’ll know you’re getting close with the titles all sound like the last chapter at the end of the book.

They call this section:

“These Books Are Ready To Burn.”
― Kalen Dion

“You stand up because you believe, not because you want to win. I don't want you add more hate to this world. We have enough.”
― Dave Connis, Suggested Reading