James Wolcott Quotes

There's only one thing to say to the censors: Shut up.

Let us refuse to be silent! Speaking freely is a decisive step forward on the road to freedom.

The more words we are allowed to take, the freer we become. If our mouth is banned, then we attempt to assert ourselves through gestures, even objects. They are more difficult to interpret, and take time before they arouse suspicion.

Ever since I came to Congress in 1992, there are those who have been trying to silence my voice. I've been told to 'sit down and shut up' over and over again. Well, I won't sit down and I won't shut up until the full and unvarnished truth is placed before the American people.

And I will never, ever respond to anybody - man, woman, vegetable, or mineral - who tells me to keep my mouth shut.

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

To try to be authentic these days, to ask questions of the people in power - it's difficult. This administration has evolved new techniques to handle people like me. Their strategy, in a word, is simple: ignore them.

I do not favor the gag order.

Thought that is silenced is always rebellious.

Only the suppressed word is dangerous.

I was imprisoned for talking.

Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.

My ideas are threatening to the government.

If Mumia Abu-Jamal has nothing important to say, why are so many powerful people trying to shut him up?

You can't shoot an idea.

When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship.

Don't join the book burners!

I wish I could shut up, but I can't, and I won't.

To silence criticism is to silence freedom.

The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.

When I used to model, the job description is 'shut up and pose.' There are people today who would really like me to go back to that old job description and 'just shut up and pose.'

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.

An understanding of Sor Juana's work must include an understanding of the prohibitions her work confronts. Her speech leads us to what cannot be said, what cannot be said to an orthodoxy, the orthodoxy to a tribunal, and the tribunal to a sentence.

Silence is the last thing the world will ever hear from me.

Every time you touch those who have power over the media, they seek to stop you.