Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.
Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read.
Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.
Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.
There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.
[I]t's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.
The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail.
There is more than one way to burn a book.
There's more than one way to be a girl
He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.
There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.
If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.
Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance.
Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.
Don't join the book burners!
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
or simply:
