What do Huxley, Vonnegut, Steinbeck, and Rushdie all have in common? Why, they’ve all authored some of the most frequently banned books of all time. Coincidentally enough, they’ve all also changed the landscape of modern literature.
Expression in the crux of authorship. When you take on the responsibility of authoring a book, you’re committing to say something that needs to be said in a way it has never before been said. You’re promising not to waste your audience’s time. It’s crucial that you feel free to say exactly what you mean in the exact way you mean to do so; fear has no place in that decision. Think of all the brilliant works of art—from classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird and For Whom the Bell Tolls to modern works such as the Harry Potter series and The Perks of Being a Wallflower to staple children’s books such as Alice in Wonderland and Charlotte’s Web—that could have been lost to us if people had not fought for their survival. Banning books is a crime against civilization.
We love books, and we also love the influential freedom that books can create. So, during this Banned Books Week, we’re not only celebrating notoriously banned books (by reading, buying, and sharing them), we’re also taking the time to reflect on censorship and on what banned books represent. We’ve gathered the twelve most powerful quotes on censorship from authors that we could find.
1.) “I hate it that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas as though they were diseases.” – Kurt Vonnegut, author of banned Cat’s Cradle and Slaughter-House Five
2.) “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” – Salman Rushdie, author of banned The Satanic Verses
3.) “Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.” – Laurie Halse Anderson, author of banned Speak
4.) “As a nation, we’ve been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn’t approve of them.” – Stephen King, author of banned Carrie, Christine, Cujo, and The Dead Zone
5.) “Something will be offensive to someone in every book, so you’ve got to fight it.” – Judy Blume, author of banned, Are You There God? It’s me, Margaret; Blubber; Deenie; Forever; and Tiger Eyes
6.) “Although there are those who wish to ban my books because I have used language that is painful, I have chosen to use the language that was spoken during the period, for I refuse to whitewash history.” – Mildred D. Taylor, author of banned Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
7.) “Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.” – Stephen Chbosky, author of banned Perks of Being a Wallflower
8.) “Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous—they contain ideas.” – Pete Hautman, author of banned How to Steal a Car
9.) “Well, the man who first translated the bible into English was burned at the stake, and they’ve been at it ever since. Must be all that adultery, murder and incest. But not to worry. It’s back on the shelves.” – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, author of banned Alice series
10.) “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” – Ray Bradbury, author of banned Fahrenheit 451 (Yes, we appreciate this irony, too.)
11.) “A word to the unwise. Torch every book. Char every page. Burn every word to ash. Ideas are incombustible. And therein lies your real fear.” – Ellen Hopkins, author of banned Crank
12.) “The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.” – Oscar Wilde, author of banned The Picture of Dorian Gray
What do you think, readers? How do you feel about banning books? Are you celebrating Banned Books Week?
