William O. Douglas Quotes

Nothing is harmful to literature except censorship, and that almost never stops literature going where it wants to go either, because literature has a way of surpassing everything that blocks it and growing stronger for the exercise.

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

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.

A lot of my movies were completely destroyed by the censors, who can be pretty arbitrary. They're not completely fair with how they treat one person vs. another.

I do not want to see censorship, yet I don't believe a dime of taxpayer money should go into art that is clearly and visibly filth.

The liberty of the press would be an empty sound, and no man would venture to write on any subject however pure his purpose, without an attorney at one elbow and a counsel at the other. From minds thus subdued by the fear of punishment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human reason, nor any masterly compositions on the general nature of governmetn ...

I'm deeply stressed as a filmmaker, and I know I'm not alone. The censorship crisis, the moral policing, the politics of it has most of us on edge. I'm scared to use certain words: like, if I use 'Bombay,' will there be a problem?

The imprisoning of a writer is the same as the burning of a book.

Music is an artform, and I always though art was beyond censorship. I thought this was a common view. Apparently, I was wrong.

Art penetrates, no matter how many bans you put out.

Everyone should have the right to go off and do their music or do their books. The people who are in the position to censor they're really not down to reality where that certain artists are coming from.

In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit an harmonious design or an inspirational tone.

If we ban whatever offends any group in our diverse society, we will soon have no art, no culture, no humor, no satire. Satire is by its nature offensive. So is much art and political discourse. The value of these expressions far outweighs their risk.

I understand that people are afraid. Because I think censorship is about fear. It's just fear being projected onto art.

I simply claim that what ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who denies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber.

When I started to write, it was the '70s, and throughout that decade, we didn't have any problems with book challenges or censorship.

There shouldn't be any censorship on making a film.

It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written.

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

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

I think the most un-American thing you can say is, 'You can't say that.'

One of the problems with defending free speech is you often have to defend people that you find to be outrageous and unpleasant and disgusting.

I love my country, but I believe that we are too quick to censor nudity.

When I found the book was condemned as soon as the book was printed, or rather as soon as it was set up ready to print, I held it in plates for a year nearly, waiting to see what would come out of all this discussion.