Jeff Ross Quotes

The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.

It's easier not to make a particular joke in case it offends. But every joke will offend someone, and I've always believed that the audience is bigger than one person. The danger is that things will become bland.

The notion of artistic responsibility begs questions with no satisfactory conclusions, the most inevitable and ineffectual being that we should just keep thinking and talking about it, given that the alternative - a governmental body monitoring the movies we make and see - is unacceptable.

The idea that the law should punish what is rude; that government should protect our tender sensibilities from those who would - quite often with shallow motivations but sometimes with deeper and more serious complaints - challenge our national certainties and rituals, should alarm and anger us.

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk.

I suspect that no community will become humane and caring by restricting what its members can say.

I don't think people shouldn't try to be edgy, but you have to take what the audience says to you in consideration.

I always tell students that writing a poem and publishing it are two quite separate things, and you should write what you have to write, and if you're afraid it's going to upset someone, don't publish it.

I can take an opinion, but I don't like when you try and spew hate and contaminate the way other people think. I feel like I'm one of the people that's always made music for the common man. That's why I don't really live my life the way I could. I don't stunt as much as I could stunt, 'cause that's not who my music is for.

Performers have the right to say what they want to, and anyone paying money has the right to accept or reject the art and entertainment that's available.

When you mutilate movies for mass media, you tamper with the hearts and minds of America.

Well, there are certain words and emotions I don't want kids hearing, and I'm not changing because they think it's going to sell better. This is going to sound horrible, but I got 12 million votes doing what I did.

Free speech is a valuable commodity, which we preserve and protect, but there quite rightly is restriction on free speech in the best interest of the good order of the community and common sense.

It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be that we were allowed to say absolutely anything without fear of punishment.

As soon as you judge communication a little more rigorously, there is a possibility that the message will not be democratized. I have to say what I believe to be right. I have to spread out the statement among all the means of expression available to us at present.

Obviously I don't want to make a film that offends people, but the whole world is so politically correct - I'm not going to not do something because it may be politically incorrect. At some point, the metaphors and allegories break down. They disappear, and you just have science fiction.

I am pro-expression. I am pro - you know, as long as you don't hurt anyone.

Every society has a right to preserve public peace and order, and therefore has a good right to prohibit the propagation of opinions which have a dangerous tendency.

These cartoons are an unnecessary abuse of freedom of speech.

We do not fear censorship for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue—the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word, that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.

How do we protect free speech, when it may well be seen by the majority of the population as something that undermines the “just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare…? Legislating against free speech is always dangerous. Worse, in some countries and contexts, lawsuits have been used to harass those who hold dissenting or contrarian views.

It seems to me that the surest way to remove from the stage really undesirable plays, is for the public to refuse to go to see them. Censorship by law has always seemed to me too difficult and complicated where art of any kind is concerned.

Freedom of expression and speech is guaranteed for everyone. However, the excessive use of this right … could represent a threat to social peace and the country’s best interest.

Beautiful speech doesn't need protection, it's ugly speech that needs protection. We have these cultural norms that allow people to say really ugly things. You don't have to invite them to your dinner party, but you should let them say it.

I was forced to say, 'I will not censor the Internet.' But I was never convinced.