Joe R. Lansdale Quotes

Freedom of choice and free speech without fear must be defended.

I have a big mouth, and I never met a petition I didn't like, so of course in the McCarthy days I got in trouble.

Why can't a democrat get fired up about protecting the environment and enacting gun control legislation just as right wing republicans get fired up about making sure that children have access to assault weapons and banning 'the Catcher in the Rye' and 'Harry Potter'?

No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom.

Americans who value freedom had better be more concerned about the gun control crowd than the criminals. The criminals want your money. The Neo-Totalitarians want your freedom.

We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.

The sanctity of a woman's right to control her own destiny is a moral force of its own... I came to realize that the question of choice is to be answered, not by the state, but by the individual.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

… it [liberty] denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint, but also the right of the individual to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home, bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of one's own conscience and generally, to enjoy those privileges long recognized in common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

The principle of self-government cannot be violated with impunity. The individual's right to it is sacred - regardless of class, caste, race, color, sex or any other accident or incident of birth.

We have so many issues in this country to focus on that worry us, that I question why there is such focus on the simple right of people to love whom they will.

Why is freedom such a hard sell? That's the question. In this country, why has the idea of individual liberty and responsibility become such a hard sell? That's something I never thought would happen here.

There is such little tolerance for women on the national stage who don't agree with the hosts of 'The View' or celebrities who march with Planned Parenthood.

You either respect people's liberties, or you don't.

The demand for individual freedom leads us to different realms, and it enables us to participate in social events.

They’re like,‘If you have an opinion against us, we’re gonna shut you down.' That’s not American. If you’re gay you should have the right to be gay in peace, and if you’re against it you should have the right to be against it in peace.

As soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individuals mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest details.

I'm as against restricting access to drugs as I am to burning books. It offends me in the same way.

The problem with this world is that there isn't enough liberty and freedom.

My feeling is that whatever people elect to do, insofar as they don't deny the rights of others, every effort should be made to defend their right to do it.

Liberty never meant the license to do anything at will.

Liberty means that a man is recognized as free and treated as free by those who surround him.

The artist must elect to fight for Freedom or for Slavery.

The right to carry a gun has nothing to do with the rights of other people.

Apparently the pro-choice types who jump up and down in the street demanding that you keep your rosaries off their ovaries are entirely relaxed about the government getting its bureaucratics all over your lymphatics.