With very few exceptions, philosophers do not know much science and do — Censorship

"For several years now, various groups have urged the banning of crime pictures on the ground that they influence youths to turn to crime. When Jimmy Walker was minority leader of the New York legislature, there was a censorship fight on the floor of the House. A powerful group of pious bluenoses wanted to bar from circulation good books that dared to mention certain well-known facts of life. The bluenoses said the books were indecent, bawdy, lascivious and would lead their young and innocent daughters astray. Jimmy stood the debate as long as he could, then he said, "I have been around a good deal, but I have never heard of a womans being seduced by a book." That killed the censorship bill."

"Only six weeks 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."

"Its 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."

"Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we wont have as much censorship because we wont have as much fear."

"But while we may smile at these traders in corruption, the degree to which they have been able to infect the Bench, and through it large numbers of the least thoughtful people, supplies grave cause for alarm. There are some ugly chapters in English history connected with attempts to suppress conviction, to throttle its expression under pretence of its being wicked or immoral. But we are so far away from those eras, that many hardly remember their lesson; which is a pity, for such lessons are costly, and, if forgotten, can sometimes only be recovered at a heavier cost. The lesson taught by every effort to repress honest and public discussion of any subject whatever is, that all such efforts are revolutionary. Every honest man in prison is tenfold more dangerous than fire burning near fire-damp. The majesty of law is defiled when the innocent are punished deliberately with the guilty. Edward Truelove, in prison, has exchanged places with his judges, and his sentence on them, for their most immoral judgment, will be affirmed when their decisions have become byewords of judicial prejudice and folly. They who menace man’s freedom of thought and speech are tampering with something more powerful than gun powder. They who suppress by force even an erroneous book honestly meant for human welfare, are justifying all the crimes ever committed against human intelligence; they are laying again the trains that have always ended in revolution; and, right as it is to suppress books notoriously meant for corruption, and punish the vile who through them seek selfish ends at cost of the public good, even that is a task requiring the utmost care and wisdom. Better that many base men and many bad books escape, than that one honest woman be robbed of her child by violence calling itself law, or one honest man suffer the felon’s chain from the very hand provided for protection of honesty."

"If we dont believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we dont believe in it at all."

"Dave Foley: I once shot a man just to watch him die, then I got distracted and missed it. Oh my friends tried to describe it to me, but it just isnt the same."

"Sharon Tate was my best friend. Once, we were roommates. She introduced me to my husband. She was the godmother to my baby daughter who is named for her. In the six years time that I knew her, she never said an unkind word about anyone."

"Is it so small a thing To have enjoy’d the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanc’d true friends, and beat down baffling foes?"

"I cant play games. I have friends, older women, who tell me Im foolish to let Roman know how deeply I care about him. They tell me all sorts of things like "keep a man guessing", "men become bored with too much devotion". They tell me I am being foolish. Well, foolish I am."

"I guess you could say that I was somewhat withdrawn from my classmates. I spent a good deal of time being a loner. I suppose that had something to do with the way we lived — always on the move, never living in one town very long. Its very hard to make lasting friendships that way. And my father was rather strict with me and my two younger sisters. He insisted on proper behaviour and very often vetoed our choices of boyfriends. There was always a curfew whenever my sisters or I would go out on a date — we had to be home on time or else. But I never resented his authority. In fact, Im thankful for my strict upbringing; I feel it has helped me learn discipline — and thats very important in this business."

"You blessed my life! Never on me had rested womans love. My mother even could not find me fair: I had no sister; and, when grown a man, I feared the mistress who would mock at me. But I have had your friendship — grace to you A womans charm has passed across my path."