Jack Zipes Quotes

Sometimes you have to censor books. When I read 'Peter Rabbit,' I skip the part about Peter's father ending up in one of Mrs. McGregor's pies. I also hid the book of 'Grimm Fairy Tales.' They're just too grim for my grandkids. Reality will come soon enough.

There are a lot of latchkey kids. I don't want to be sitting there when a guy blurts something out over the TV and have my daughters ask me what those words mean.

Fairy tales are really violent, the original ones.

A lot of my reading over the next few months will be the works of Hans Christian Andersen - I have been appointed an ambassador for the bicentenary celebrations of his birth next year.

Parents should watch what their children watch and not use TV as a babysitter. If a show is objectionable they should turn it OFF. They should write the president of the network and tell him they are never going to watch that program again and why.

Writing for children, you do bear a responsibility to not include overt or graphic adult content that they are not ready for and don't need, or to address adult concepts or themes from an oblique angle or a child's limited viewpoint, with appropriate context, without being graphic or distressing.

Children will be children, and they're inquisitive. If teenagers want to know what's out there, they'll look, but there are things that aren't for their eyes.

Putting lessons in young adult books is very dangerous.

Children simply don't make the distinction; a book is either good or bad. And some of the books they think are good are very, very bad indeed.

I think that children's books should be censored not for references to sex but for references to diseases. I mean, who didn't think after reading 'Madeline' that they were going to get appendicitis?

I understand why parents worry about books - they're worried about their kids. They want to keep their kids safe. But parents aren't always realistic.

They are always very lax about putting restrictions on violence for children's movies, which I think is much more harrowing than sexuality for children.

I like to protect children. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having adult programming for mature adults that can selectively decide what they want to watch and what they don't want to watch.

I don't want children cursing. I'm very strict on my nieces and my little brother. They have to listen to clean versions of music. Even my music.

It was only after the Grimms published two editions primarily for adults that they changed their attitude and decided to produce a shorter edition for middle-class families. This led to Wilhelm's editing and censoring many of the tales.

You go to a theater now and you literally see parents watching the movie and they suddenly cover their kid's ears. I figured I'd make one movie where they didn't have to do this.

To some extent, at least, you have to shield children from what you know and drip-feed information to them. Sometimes that is kindly meant, and sometimes not.

My children can't see many of the films that I've been in because I'm always either dying or taking my clothes off.

We have pleaded to the entertainment industry to raise their standards and protect our children.

Regardless of the strength of the government's interest [in protecting children,] the level of discourse reaching a mailbox simply cannot be limited to that which would be suitable for a sandbox.

Madeleine L'Engle's 'A Wrinkle in Time' has been targeted by censors for promoting New Ageism, and Mark Twain's 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' for promoting racism. Gee, where does that leave the kids?

My problem is I can't show any of my movies to my daughters. It's tough. 'Beauty and the Beast'... they liked it. But that's the only one, really. Otherwise, they've always been dark or violent.

If you are irresponsible as a parent and don't know what your kids are watching, that's your problem. It's not the creator's duty to create every show in a way that a six-year-old can watch it.

I'm not fighting for the right to do whatever we want without any restriction. We need to be careful of the fact that we also make games for kids and teenagers.

Once I fix what kids watch, I'll be moving on to everything else.