Jack Valenti Quotes

So long as men are corrupt and revel in sewer filth, entertainers will sell them what they want. Laws may be passed, arrests may be made, lawyers may argue, courts may sentence and jails may harbor men of corrupt minds, but pornography and allied insults to decency will never cease until men have cleansed their minds and cease to require and pay for such vile stuff.

Sex and obscenity are not synonymous.

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it

I'm always interested in what is seen as obscene or profane or unfit.

I would never condone anything which I thought was salacious, titillating, or gratuitous.

You could be as vulgar as you want, as long as three tiny spots were covered.

Vulgarity begins when imagination succumbs to the explicit.

Wonder Woman is not sufficiently dressed.

I may not be able to define pornography but I know it when I see it.

Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.

I didn't think there was anything more or less obscene about any part of the body. Now, I recognize that there are certain postures and angles that make people see red, which are evidence of original sin or something, and I avoid that.

My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.

It's true that obscenity is a matter of taste and in the eye of the beholder.

Those expressions are omitted which can not with propriety be read aloud in the family.

There is a fine line between censorship and good taste and moral responsibility.

As Chloe, I can honestly say I've never uttered a syllable of a curse word, not even behind closed doors.

I don't like swearing on the air. As a matter of fact, I'm not a prude, but... I watch HBO and some of the comedy stuff, and I'm constantly asking myself, 'Why have we gone there?' It seems like it's unfortunate. It's so cheap. It's so easy.

Certain things were deemed to be offensive. It was usually bad language.

Books are feeders of brothels.

Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters—because girls can read as well as boys—reading this book? Is it a book that you would have lying around in your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?

Would you want your wife or your servant to read this book?

I wish to join the Legion of Decency, which condemns vile and unwholesome moving pictures. I unite with all who protest against them as a grave menace to youth, to home life, to country and to religion. I condemn absolutely those salacious motion pictures which, with other degrading agencies, are corrupting public morals and promoting a sex mania in our land ... considering those evils, I hereby promised to remain away from all motion pictures except those which do not offend decency and Christian morality.

The community standards in New York are so low that nothing is obscene.

Pornography is a malady to be diagnosed and an occasion for judgment. It's something one is for or against. And taking sides about pornography is hardly like being against aleatoric music or Pop Art, but quite a bit like being for or against legalized abortion or federal aid to parochial schools.

It is obvious that "obscenity" is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means "anything that shocks the magistrate.