Banned Together Quotes

“It takes effort to see yourself as worthy of living. As worthy of taking up space and being respected, not in spite of but because of your uniqueness. I share my vulnerability because when I grew up and saw other people share their most intimate and vulnerable stories, I not only developed empathy for others. I cultivated self-compassion too.”
― Kelly Jensen, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

“My parents are immigrants. They believe we should keep our heads down if we want to be successful here in the U.S. But I believe that true success comes when we climb together and build communities where everyone can lift their heads up. That’s what Dr. H taught us. That’s what the books you’ve taken away taught us. Some people want to censor stories about people like me, because they want to erase us. They think we’re not true-blue American. What they don’t understand is that we are true brown Americans.”
― Padma Venkatraman, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

“I don’t need to be pretty; I need to be heard.”
― Isabel Quintero, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

“Book banning is a form of violence. Just like taking someone’s language, cutting hair, forbidding dances, and erasing cultures, book banning is a violence that finds support in state governments and other authorities, like school boards. Banning seeks to constrain critical thoughts and community, to destroy connection and punish mutual recognition and empathy.”
― Isabel Quintero, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

“By trusting me with a book with mature themes, my teacher changed, and perhaps saved, my life.”
― MariNaomi, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

“We grow when we read, and we grow even more the further we stretch ourselves in what we read.”
― Brendan Kiely, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

“We won’t go back to the time when hate ruled. The books we write are stronger than the bans that attempt to thwart them.”
― Bill Konigsberg, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

“Ironically, as most of the world has become more supportive- or at least tolerant- of LGBTQ+ people, the homophobic minority has doubled down by targeting books about our experiences, as if erasing our stories is a way to protest growing acceptance of diversity.”
― Bill Konigsberg, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

“I use words to transform pain, to dance away hate and injustice”
― Ashley Hope Pérez, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

“Stories that show them that others have shared the same pain and darkness and have come out on the other side, whole and healthy, are stories that inspire, encourage, and ultimately, save lives. As for those readers who haven’t borne such painful experiences themselves, these stories plant seeds of empathy and compassion.”
― Nikki Grimes, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

“When authors and librarians are thinking about possible backlash rather than thinking about what books teen need, we are doing the work of book banners for them.”
― Robin Stevenson, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

“Much of the rhetoric about book banning stresses the need to protect children, most of the books being pulled from shelves are in high school libraries- spaces that serve people who are soon to be adults. This is a deliberate blurring of the lines between a fabricated image of very young children being forced to read inappropriately mature books and the reality of teen readers seeking out the books they want, reading stories and absorbing knowledge as they work to understand a complex, imperfect world. Book banners need this deception. After all, it is hard to argue convincingly that people who have jobs and drive cars are incapable of selecting their own library book.”
― Robin Stevenson, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights