“Censors will try to censor a little bit more each year (because, like editors and other officious people, censors don't feel they are getting anywhere unless they are up and doing).”

— Wilfrid Sheed

"Dirty Business" (1973), p. 83
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)

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Wilfrid Sheed 50

English-American novelist and essayist 1930–2011

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

because, like editors and other officious people, censors don't feel they are getting anywhere unless they are up and doing
"Dirty Business" (1973), p. 83
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)

“A dead language is not only one no longer spoken or written, it is unyielding language content to admire its own paralysis. Like statist language, censored and censoring.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Nobel Prize Lecture (1993)
Context: A dead language is not only one no longer spoken or written, it is unyielding language content to admire its own paralysis. Like statist language, censored and censoring. Ruthless in its policing duties, it has no desire or purpose other than maintaining the free range of its own narcotic narcissism, its own exclusivity and dominance. However moribund, it is not without effect for it actively thwarts the intellect, stalls conscience, suppresses human potential. Unreceptive to interrogation, it cannot form or tolerate new ideas, shape other thoughts, tell another story, fill baffling silences.

“I love to do the things the censors won't pass.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Variant: I love to do the things the censors won't pass.

“Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion.”

David Cronenberg (1943) Canadian film director, screenwriter and actor

Source: Cronenberg on Cronenberg (1997), Ch. 5

“Governments are trying to wrestle, how do you censor without being so heavy-handed that you make people really, you know, can't live their lives.”

Noam Cohen (1999) American journalist

Interview with National Public Radio; quoted in — What Is The Value Of Tweets From Iran, June 22, 2009, Talk of the Nation, National Public Radio ; WBUR, Neal, Conan, October 29, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20141029150918/http://www.wbur.org/npr/105762132, w:Neal Conan, October 29, 2014 http://www.wbur.org/npr/105762132,

“… no one can do a thing about feelings, they exist and there's no way to censor them. We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

Source: Identity

“Censors feel they are safe from objectionable material but must protect others who are not as smart or moral. The same impulse tempts the reviewer of 'The Believer'… If the wrong people get the wrong message - well, there has never been any shortage of wrong messages. Or wrong people.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-believer-2002 of The Believer (14 June 2002)
Reviews, Three star reviews

“Intolerance is inclined to censor, and censorship promotes ignorance of the arguments of others and thus intolerance itself: a rigid, vicious circle that is hard to break.”

Primo Levi book The Drowned and the Saved

The Drowned and the Saved (1986)
Context: In countries and epochs in which communication is impeded, soon all other liberties wither; discussion dies by inanition, ignorance of the opinion of others becomes rampant, imposed opinions triumph. The well-known example of this is the crazy genetics preached in the USSR by Lysenko, which in the absence of discussion (his opponents were exiled to Siberia) compromised the harvests for twenty years. Intolerance is inclined to censor, and censorship promotes ignorance of the arguments of others and thus intolerance itself: a rigid, vicious circle that is hard to break.

“Rather than trying to put an end to Eminem or some other rapper, politicians should think about why they're rapping. It's easier to try to censor some kid who's swearing about poverty than it is to stop the poverty.”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

Playboy interview, November 2002.

“Only six months ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with the censorship and book-burning in the future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony. Judy-Lynn Del Rey, one of the new Ballantine editors, is having the entire book reset and republished this summer with all the damns and hells back in place.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Coda (1979)

“Censors will try to censor a little bit more each year (because, like editors and other officious people, censors don't feel they are getting anywhere unless they are up and doing).”

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Wilfrid Sheed 50

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