Quotes About Censorship

Sometimes great, banned works defy the censor's description and impose themselves on the world - 'Ulysses,' 'Lolita,' the 'Arabian Nights.'

When I grew up, there were locked cabinets in public libraries. You needed parental permission if you were under eighteen. I was let down by the overblown reputations of some hardcore fictional works.

In 'Nineteen Eighty-Four,' protagonist Winston Smith works at a propaganda department for the state called the 'Ministry of Truth,' where inconvenient news can be discarded down a 'memory hole.' Orwell was fixated on the idea that under certain governments, the past can be altered or documents rewritten.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

I have not understood till date why we censor adult films. If someone over 18 can get married, produce children and drive cars, why can't they watch a movie?

In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.

Censorship is a strange situation. There was times when people would burn books because they didn't like what people were doing.

The 'Shawshank Redemption' has nothing to do with China, but that hasn't kept social media censors from blocking the movie's title from searches on the country's most popular Twitter-like microblogging service, Weibo.

No one today knows what is indecent.

When political correctness first started coming around, it ruined Andrew Dice Clay and Eddie Murphy's stand-up career. Sam Kinison died at just the right time, 'cause no one was going to tolerate what he was saying anymore either.

Xi has made plain that he will no longer tolerate hearing the words 'human rights' spoken out loud in the same sentence with the word 'China.'

Well, I'm not afraid to say something if I think it's funny, even if it's harsh or racist.

Obviously, there's a million things we're allowed to say on late-night cable that you're not allowed to say on a prime time broadcast.

People don't realize, or maybe they've forgotten, that there was a time in history when standup comedy wasn't something that you had to hide your kids' ears from.

That just sends the wrong message to everybody. [Donald Trump] should have the least amount of air time.

We live in a frightened time, and people self-censor all the time and are afraid of going into some subjects because they are worried about violent reactions.

The use of "religion" as an excuse to repress the freedom of expression and to deny human rights is not confined to any country or time.

I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time.

The world is filled with terrible things that can influence children, and movies have depicted them since time immemorial. Should every terrible thing warrant an R-rating?

There are," said Twain, "certain sweet-smelling, sugarcoated lies current in the world which all politic men have apparently tacitly conspired together to support and perpetuate… We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going and then go with the drove. We have two opinions: one private, which we are afraid to express, and another one -- the one we use -- which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy.

Censorship is telling a man he can't have steak just because a baby can't chew it.

Only in today's sick society can a man be persecuted for reading too many books.

Since Henry Miller's Tropic books, of course, it has become difficult to talk sensibly about girls' c*nts.

And Keith felt it again (he felt it several times a day): the tingle of license. Everyone could swear now, if they wanted to. The word *fuck* was available to both sexes. It was like a sticky toy, and it was there if you wanted it.