Quotes from Banned/Challenged Books
"But you see, Meg, just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist"
"Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything"
"Suddenly there was a great burst of light through the Darkness. The light spread out and where it touched the Darkness the Darkness disappeared. The light spread until the patch of Dark Thing had vanished, and there was only a gentle shining, and through the shining came the stars, clear and pure"
"You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you"
- Madeline Le'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (challenged/banned for religious content, challenging religious beliefs, witchcraft, listing of Jesus "with the names of great artists, philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders).
"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."
"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."
"I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (challenged/banned for racism, use of rape as a plot device being "immoral" (1966), language).
"You will be faced, now, with pain of a magnitude that none of us here can comprehend because it is beyond our experience. The Receiver himself was not able to describe it, only to remind us that you would be faced with it, that you would need immense courage."
"Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others."
"With his new, heightened feelings, he was overwhelmed by sadness at the way the others had laughed and shouted, playing at war. But he knew that they could not understand why, without the memories. He felt such love for Asher and for Fiona. But they could not feel it back, without the memories. And he could not give them those."
"It was not a grasping of thin and burdensome recollection; this was different. This was something that he could keep. It was a memory of his own"
"Well..." Jonas had to stop and think it through. "If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices!"
- Lois Lowry, The Giver (banned in 2001 for being sexually explicit, having occult themes, and violence. Challenged or banned for "promoting" infanticide, and euthanasia).
'I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues."
- Dr. Suess, The Lorax (banned in 1971 for "criminaliz[ing] the forestry industry")
"Both of them got eaten up (in full daylight, mind you, and on a crowded street) by an enormous angry rhinoceros which had escaped from the London Zoo. Now this, as you can well imagine, was rather a nasty experience for two such gentle parents."
- Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach (banned or challenged for language, being too scary for children, possible sexual references with the spider "licking her lips", references to snuff, tobacco and whiskey, and encouraging children to disobey adults.)
"Lincoln did something brilliant. Next to SLOW, he drew two neat perfect-size dots, one like a period and the other a little above it. Lucky knew it was a colon and it made the sign mean, "You must drive slow. There are children at play"
- Susan Patron, The Higher Power of Lucky (challenged/banned because of the use of the word "scrotum" on the first few pages. One objector said: “You won’t find men’s genitalia in quality literature.”).
"When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside -- walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck to come along and finish the job. It's the saddest thing I know."
Sometimes I think high school is just one long hazing activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, they'll let you become an adult. I hope it's worth it.
- Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak (banned/challenged for sexual references, in regard to the subject matter about the main character being raped).
"Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something."
- Stephenie Meyer, Twilight series (banned/challenged for being too sexual and going against religious beliefs - banned in 2010 in Austrailia for this).
"Some times somebody will say hey lookit Frank, or Joe or even Gimpy. He really pulled a Charlie Gordon that time. I don't know why they say it but they always laff and I laff too."
"It may sound like ingratitude, but that is one of the things I hate here - the attitude that I am a guinea pig. Nemur's constant references to having made me what I am, or that someday there will be others like me who will become real human beings. How can I make him understand that he did not create me?"
"They had pretended to be geniuses. But they were just ordinary men working blindly, pretending to be able to bring light into the darkness. Why is it that everyone lies? No one I know is what he appears to be."
- Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon (banned/challenged for being "filthy and immoral" where the main character, Charlie, struggles to understand and express his sexual desires)
"'I'm fine,' said her mother.
'Is that true?'
'No, it's a lie. I'm a wreck. And your father's at a soccer game so I couldn't call him to say you were missing again.'"
- Caroline B. Cooney, Face on the Milk Carton (banned/challenged for sexual reference to possible "first encounter," and "challenge to authority.")
"I have four sisters. And I'd trade them all in for a good dog."
"He believed her because here in the shadowy light of the stronghold everything seemed possible. Between the two of them they owned the world and no enemy, Gary Fulcher, Wanda Kay Moore, Janice Avery, Jess's own fears and insufficiencies, nor any of the foes whom Leslie imagined attacking Terabithia, could ever really defeat them."
- Katherine Peterson, Bridge to Terabithia (challenged/banned for profanity or inappropriate language, promoting witchcraft, the occult/satanism and violence, disrespect of adults, and "an elaborate fantasy world they felt might lead to confusion").
"It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."
- Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank (banned/challenged for being to sexually explicit, and in some cases for being too graphic or depressing for the age group).
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