Quotes About Self-censorship

I'm too diplomatic. I tend to edit my mind before I speak - it can be incredibly draining.

It is tiring to be Turkish. The country is badly polarised, bitterly politicized. Every writer, journalist, poet knows that because of an article, a novel, an interview, a poem or a tweet you can be sued, put on trial, even arrested. Self-censorship is widespread.

Sometimes you can't speak, not because others won't let you, but because you are afraid of what you'll say.

The inner critic? His ass is not permitted in the building. Set forth without fear and without self-censorship. When you hear that voice in your head, blow it off. This draft is not being graded. There will be no pop quiz.

Romantic Egoist Nozomi: You've got an idea in your head... how you should act, but you can't act like, so you stifle yourself and don't even try.

I'm squandering invaluable gray matter by censoring myself.

If we believe we're being watched, we're far less likely to let our minds roam toward opinions that require courage or might take us beyond the bounds of acceptable opinion. We begin to bend our opinions to please our observer.

Post-9/11 surveillance has caused writers to self-censor. They avoid writing about and researching certain subjects; they're careful about communicating with sources, colleagues, or friends abroad.

I think a lot of writing, or a lot of young writers, especially, hold themselves back unnecessarily because they're so upset about the idea that they might be sentimental or so concerned about being criticized that way or even being that way that they just shy away from any strong expression or emotion.

Self-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak.

Sometimes I hold back from tweeting certain things. Sometimes you're emotional, and you want to tweet a lyric or whatever it may be. I can't do that because if I do, it's, 'Oh, this means this and that she must be going through this...' It's like, what the hell?

I think everyone holds back. I am always censoring myself and I'm sorry about it. But I always have to consider whether my remarks might cause someone pain.

The most efficient kind of censorship isn't the heavy-handed black inking of the secret policeman; it's the self-censorship we impose on ourselves when we're afraid that if we say what we think everyone around us will think us strange.

Mostly I have to try to censor myself so as not to write things that will hurt other people, or that will go too far.

When I was a kid, I was one of those really obnoxious 'oooh oooh' girls, with my hand up in the air constantly. I've learned over the years that that's not so attractive, so I've censored that.

I never say the things I really want to. If I did, I'd have no friends.

Deep inside, we all want to blurt out every obnoxious, politically incorrect, unpopular truism we think lurks inside us.

What is occurring on college campuses is about power and control - speech is impeded as a last resort, used when people fail to self-censor in response to a threat of crippling stigma and the destruction of their capacity to earn.

As you get older, as you become more sensitive, feel more, it becomes harder to make jokes. You censor yourself.

Self-censorship, whether known or unknown, is an unwelcome brake on creativity; it stifles self-expression and hence prevents a work from reaching the heights of great art.

I've tried in the past to blog about ghostwriting and have failed. I have a lot of opinions on the whole issue, and I'm constantly censoring myself to make sure I don't just sound like a bitter writer.

The difference between the insane and the not-insane person is that the latter doesn't do or say the things he thinks.

I suppress the vast majority of what I write.

I saw that publishing all over the world was deeply constrained by self-censorship, economics and political censorship, while the military-industrial complex was growing at a tremendous rate, and the amount of information that it was collecting about all of us vastly exceeded the public imagination.