Thoughts & Things

10 Quotes Opposing Book Bans

September 24 through to September 30 allows us to celebrate Banned Books Week. Banned Books Week is not about celebrating the concept of banning books, to be clear, it is about celebrating our freedom to read whatever we should choose to read. Books are primarily challenged when the ideas within the books themselves are challenging ones. I have spoken out about the concept of banning books in the past ("Celebrating The Freedom To Read"  or "Banned Books Week"  or "Banned Books Week: Five Awful Reasons Books Are Banned" ), because it is a topic that is very dear to me, and I genuinely believe that if we all spoke out against book bans and challenges, the world would be a better place. With that in mind, today I share a list of ten quotes opposing the banning of books in some way, all said by people far more eloquent than I.

“A dangerous book will always be in danger from those it threatens with the demand that they question their assumptions. They’d rather hang on to the assumptions and ban the book.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame." - Oscar Wilde

"Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear." - Judy Blume

“A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad.” - Albert Camus

“The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding-which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together-blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author...” - Lemony Snicket, The Penultimate Peril

"Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost." - Neil Gaiman

"But censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld from them." - Laurie Halse Anderson

"We have always liked banning. And Hitler and his cohorts started banning books and then to killing people. You have got to be very careful of banning. What you ban is not going to hurt anybody, usually. But the act of banning is.” - Madeleine L'engle

"“Let us pick up our books and our pens,” I said. “They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”" - Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala

“These libraries should be open to all—except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors." - John F. Kennedy