Quotes About Taboo

You know, Americans think that they're such progessive and free thinkers, but we're as uptight as any other country when it comes to speech and language and content.

When I was suffering with depression, people weren't talking about depression. It had a stigma.

In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking but now, God knows, anything goes.

It doesn't seem to me strange that children should like the macabre, the sensational, and the forbidden.

What in heaven's name is strange about a grandmother dancing nude? I'll bet lots of grandmothers do it.

'The Strange Thing About the Johnsons' is so disturbing but so good, because it went through a lot of things that you don't really see, ever.

I remember finding 'Harold and Maude' strangely erotic. I've always had an octogenarian fetish.

Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.

Taking your clothes off in front of strangers is something of a hobby in Germany, among both men and women, especially in the former communist East, where it was one of the few freedoms allowed.

With the return of Yanukovych, first as prime minister in 2007 and then as president in 2010, the Holodomor began to fall back again in terms of public remembrance. Because of this political shift and because this was a taboo topic in Soviet times, the Holodomor has not entered into the DNA or soul of Ukrainian politics, or worldview, as the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide have in Israel and Armenia.

Because of our ability to imagine an enjoyment that the symbolic order prohibits, the imaginary offers us a separate register of experience, distinct from the symbolic order.

Humor has become so cliche and boring that nothing's funny anymore unless it involves something totally disgusting that offends somebody or makes them feel really uncomfortable.

Larry David finds a way to make jokes about the Holocaust. It would never have occurred to me. And it was funny.

This is odd, but there are certain things that are really embarrassing to talk about - one is my job and the success that I've had in it, and the other is money.

Sexual behavior was also generally considered off limits.

Certain things were deemed to be offensive. It was usually bad language.

Some people can do things and get away with it. Comics are famously like that. Why is it that some guys can say the most horrible things and it's not offensive, it's funny?

I don't really see the point in offensive comedy.

It's OK to burn a Bible, that's OK. OK to burn a flag, OK, that's all right. But just, you know, for heaven's sake, don't say anything that might offend someone of the Islamic religion.

I think babies are a bit boring, actually. They're OK when they're older; they make you laugh. I think we all think that, really - we just don't say it.

The words I use too often are X-rated, something an old man like me shouldn't be talking about anyway.

'Fifty Shades' opened the door and made it easier to write about any issue that's controversial. It has helped other authors talk honestly.

More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.

Don't talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened.