John Mortimer Quotes

I mean, they censor your work when they're scared of it.

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself.

It's very difficult to have just a little bit of censorship.

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.

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

Censorship is the thing that stops you doing what you want to do, and what writers want to talk about is what they do, not what stops them doing it.

Free speech rights means that government officials are barred from creating lists of approved and disapproved political ideas and then using the power of the state to enforce those preferences.

Despite all the gains for democracy in the world, in many countries anyone who wants to publish truths unwelcome to the government risks suppression and criminal punishment.

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.

Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.

When you make the judgement as a network that there are only three candidates, you are censoring points of view.

I hate censorship, man. I really do.

If it were not for the fact that editors have become so timorous in these politically correct times, I would probably have a greater readership than I have.

The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.

The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I've written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks of what the book is about: fear of disapproval.

The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.

I find it very offensive when the government tells me what I can and cannot watch. Censor yourself.

Can someone within that society walk into the town square and say what they want without fear of being punished for his or her views? If so, then that society is a free society. If not, it is a fear society.

The censor boards are mere redundant forces conspiring to keep the 'bold' films out of reach of the audience.

I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.

If government were free to suppress disfavored speech by preventing potential speakers from being paid, there would not be much left of the 1st Amendment.

What is more tempting for a censor than to censor?

The government may not prohibit expression simply because it disagrees with its message.

Ideas are dangerous; and the traffic in them has been the concern of all dictators.