Banning Quotes

You call for a constitutional amendment banning abortion? We call for federally-funded, partial-birth abortions at the drive-through at McDonald's. ~ Bill Maher

It's a responsibility that I take most seriously, so excuse me for banning you from killing them because you have reverse PMS. (Acheron)
Reverse PMS? (Artemis)
Yeah, unlike a normal woman, you're cranky twenty-eight days out of the month. (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

A new survey found that 12 percent of parents punish their kids by banning social networking sites. The other 88 percent punish their kids by joining social networking sites. ~ Jimmy Fallon

Let's get one thing out of the way: Mexican immigration is an oxymoron. Mexicans are indigenous. So, in a strange way, I'm pleased that the racist folks of Arizona have
officially declared, in banning me alongside Urrea, Baca, and Castillo, that their anti-immigration laws are also anti-Indian. I'm also strangely pleased that the folks of Arizona
have officially announced their fear of an educated underclass. You give those brown kids some books about brown folks and what happens? Those brown kids change the world. In the effort to vanish our books, Arizona has actually given them enormous power. Arizona has made our books sacred documents now. ~ Sherman Alexie

In the United States, liberals have made it virtually impossible [to increase the supply of oil] by banning drilling in all sorts of places and preventing any new refinery from being built anywhere in the country in the last 30 years. ~ Thomas Sowell

White nationalist, white supremacis feel like this is a watershed moment in the history of white supremacy in which something that had been cordoned off to the kind of white supremacist back waters, an idea like banning all Muslims from coming to the country is going to be . ~ Chris Hayes

Emancipation can only come from within; it cannot be dictated by someone else. A law banning the wearing of headscarves changes nothing, except perhaps external appearance. Naturally, Islamic feminism must also include the right to education, to work and the freedom to select one's own husband. ~ Tariq Ramadan

Develop and exercise the ability to understand your partner's point of view so completely that you're able to believe them. Keep listening until you get their point of view so entirely that you understand how it is true for them. ~ Beth Banning

The trouble with books is that you don't know what's in them 'till is too late ~ Jeanette Winterson

The Supreme Court is expected to rule this week whether banning cross burning by groups like the Klu Klux Klan violates the first amendment. The outcome could affect the entertainment at Trent Lott's Christmas party. ~ Tina Fey

Of course, now that we've made the glorious Fourth safe by banning fireworks," he said, "people take to the highways in droves and kill each other with their automobiles. I suppose I should take you down to the shore today but frankly I'm afraid to. I wouldn't drive anywhere for all the tea in China ~ Keith Robertson

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values ... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason.
Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. ~ Barack Obama

Why Banning Miller, what a vision you are in your fine dress. Must've taken a dozen slaves a dozen days to get you into that getup. 'Course, your daddy tells me it takes the space of a schoolboy's wink to get you out of it again. ~ Jane Espenson

You think the politicians that run my country and your country don't have guns in the schools their kids go to? They do. And we should be allowed the same rights. Banning guns is like banning forks in an attempt to stop making people fat. Taking away guns, taking away drugs, the booze, it won't rid the world of criminality, ~ Vince Vaughn

Cleaning up with children around is like shoveling during a blizzard ~ Margaret Culkin Banning

Banning paper and plastic and making shoppers carry their groceries home in their mouths like dogs is just the thing to make a little tin humanist in the Obama West Wing think he's admiral of the Uzbek Navy. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book. ~ Walt Whitman

And if torture were uniformly ineffective, there would be no need for a treaty banning it - which the Geneva Conventions do. ~ Anonymous

Banning guns is like banning forks in an attempt to stop making people fat. ~ Vince Vaughn

What does one save for, anyhow? For a few tired hours at the end of life when one sits and counts dollars? Or do we save so that those last years will not be mentally barren or esthetically shabby? I try to save a few things to furnish my mind decently, on the theory that no auctioneer can get in there to sell off all the furniture. ~ Margaret Culkin Banning

I find it extremely ironic that Bush says that personal opinion should not be a tool in the interpretation of the Constitution, when he's the one who's lobbying for a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. If that doesn't stem from personal opinion, I don't know what does. ~ Jessi Klein

Did you ever hear anyone say, 'That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me'? ~ Joseph Henry Jackson

Sentences that begin with "all women" are never, never true. ~ Margaret Culkin Banning

My use of their is socially motivated and, if you like, politically correct: a deliberate response to the socially and politically significant banning of our genderless pronoun by language legislators enforcing the notion that the male sex is the only one that counts. I consistently break a rule I consider to be not only fake but pernicious. I ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

There is no way the American public will sit still for the banning of or putting any significant restrictions on the kinds of guns they want. ~ James Q. Wilson

Banning all Muslims will make it harder for us to do exactly what we need to do, which is to destroy ISIS. We need a strategy. We need to get the lawyers off the back of the warfighters. ~ Jeb Bush

All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Congratulations to Prince Charles for banning foie gras from all his functions. ~ Morrissey

After Independence, Uganda -- A European artefact -- was still forming as a country rather than a kingdom in the minds of ordinary Gandas. They were lulled by the fact that Kabaka Muteesa II was made president of the new Uganda. Nonetheless most of them felt that 'Uganda' should remain a kingdom for the Ganda under their kabaka so that things would go back to the way things were before the Europeans came. Uganda was a patchwork of fifty or so tribes. The Ganda did not want it. The union of tribes brought no apparent advantage to them apart from a deluge of immigrants from wherever, coming to Kampala to take their land. Meanwhile, the other fifty or so tribes looked on flabbergasted as the British drew borders and told them that they were now Ugandans. Their histories, cultures and identities were overwritten by the mispronounced name of an insufferably haughty tribe propped above them. But to the Ganda, the reality of Uganda as opposed to Buganda only sank in when, after independence, Obote overran the kabakas lubiri with tanks, exiling Muteesa and banning all kingdoms. The desecration of their kingdom by foreigners paralyzed the Ganda for decades. ~ Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

It isn't easy to be the person who sometimes has to try to preserve your happiness at the expense of your fun. ~ Margaret Culkin Banning

We also heard the usual old nonsense that banning hunting would affect employment if we abolished crime we would put all the police out of work. If we abolished ill-health we would put all the nurses and doctors out of work. Will anybody argue that we should preserve crime and ill-health in order to keep people in jobs? ~ Ann Widdecombe

In many schools, teachers have been told, falsely, that there is an "opportunity zone" in which a child's gender identification is malleable. They have used this zone to try to stamp out boyhood: banning same-sex play groups and birthday parties, forcing children to do gender-atypical activities, suspending boys who run during recess or play cops and robbers. In her book the War Against Boys, the philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers rightly calls this agenda "meddlesome, abusive and quite beyond what educators in a free society are mandated to do(172). ~ Steven Pinker

I could not move them. They would not even agree to a modification, of the ruling (banning the Rand vaccine), which would at least allow the 100 (cancer) patients at Richmond Heights (Ohio) to complete their injections. The Justice Department was prepared to go along, but the FDA commissioner, Dr. James Goddard, was adamant, even belligerent. It's wrong of the government to snatch away this hope when there is no evidence against its use offered in court. It's damnably wrong. ~ Stephen Young

Here's a thought: what if we ban the word 'healthy food' from our culinary vocabulary? I'm not talking about banning foods that are considered healthy. I'm talking about changing the way we think about food overall. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

[B]y banning psychedelic research we have not only given up the study of an interesting drug or group of substances, but also abandoned one of the most promising approaches to the understanding of the human mind and consciousness. ~ Stanislav Grof

Sleep hygiene is a set of practices sleep experts recommend to obtain quality rest on a daily basis. Recommendations include low levels of stimulation in the evening, exercise and exposure to lots of natural light during the day, banning electronics from the bedroom, and sticking to a regular sleep-wake schedule. Children and teens who are stressed tend to have poor sleep hygiene if left to their own devices. ~ Victoria L. Dunckley

I had a terrible dream yesterday with military helicopters and the Taliban. I have had such dreams since the launch of the military operation in Swat. My mother made me breakfast and I went off to school. I was afraid going to school because the Taliban had issued an edict banning all girls from attending schools. ~ Malala Yousafzai

Are we to deny our daughters the works of Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck or Shakespeare?....Where is the equality in banning girls from enjoying wonderful works of literature?....What kind of society defines suitable reading material by sex? This is indefensible censorship encouraging ignorance and bias. [About Caitlin Moran's statement.] ~ Diane Davies

President John F. Kennedy's Cigars
On February 7, 1962, President Kennedy announced to his staff that he needed some help finding as many of the prestigious Cuban Petit Upmann cigars as possible. He let it be known that he would like to have 1,000 of these cigars by the next morning. Being the President of the United States, his wish was granted when, on the morning of February 8th, his Press Secretary Pierre Salinger came in and deposited 1,200 cigars on Kennedy's desk. Smiling, Kennedy opened his desk, took out a document and signed it, banning importation of all Cuban-made products into the United States. Some years later when asked about that moment, Salinger said that there were actually 1,201 cigars. ~ Hank Bracker

Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them. ~ Anna Quindlen

My father was a Muslim immigrant; when Donald Trump started talking about banning Muslim immigrants from this country, I grew my beard out. My mother hated it. She never wanted me to look particularly "Muslim." She thought if I grew my beard out that people would know, right? "Don't make it hard for yourself. Don't let people know." ~ Andrew Aydin

Banning refugees from fleeing west Africa is like shuttering up the windows while a house burns down, ~ Sarah Hanson-Young

For a while, some schools across the country were banning spelling bees. For obvious reasons, of course - steroids ~ Craig Ferguson

Banning human cloning reflects our humanity. It is the right thing to do. Creating a child through this new method calls into question our most fundamental beliefs. It has the potential to threaten the sacred family bonds at the very core of our ideals and our society. At its worst, it could lead to misguided and malevolent attempts to select certain traits, even to create certain kind of children
to make our children objects rather than cherished individuals. ~ William J. Clinton

Word-banning seems to be a trend of late. It's become fashionable to try to ban words we're uncomfortable with, which you really can't do in the first place. You can no more ban a word than you can ban the air. In fact, language is a lot like air – ban it all you want, it's still there. ~ Andrew Heller

If you do not like anything in a particular book, then sit and discuss it. Banning a book is not a solution. We have to tackle it ideologically. ~ Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Why do the Fascists want violence?" Ethel asked rhetorically. "Those out there in Hills Road may be mere hooligans, but someone is directing them, and their tactics have a purpose. When there is fighting in the streets, they can claim that public order has broken down, and drastic measures are needed to restore the rule of law. Those emergency measures will include banning democratic political parties such as Labour, prohibiting trade union action, and jailing people without trial - people such as us, peaceful men and women whose only crime is to disagree with the government. Does this sound fantastic to you, unlikely, something that could never happen? Well, they used exactly those tactics in Germany - and it worked." She went on to talk about how Fascism ~ Ken Follett

It is stupid on my part to think of banning the media. ~ Shah Rukh Khan

Unfortunately, many controllists suffer from magical thinking. They believe that banning guns will somehow make them safer, as though laws are all we need to stop criminals. But consider for a second that you feel threatened for some reason and then ask yourself this: 'would you feel safer with a sign on your front window saying 'This house is a gun-free zone' or with an armed guard on call whenever you were home? If you wouldn't put this sign on your home, why would anyone think it's okay to put them in places where young children gather nearly every day? ~ Glenn Beck

So should we ban or restrict synthetic chemicals until we have a full understanding of their effects? This attractively simple idea is a lot more complicated than it appears. If pesticides were banned, agricultural yields would decline, fruits and vegetables would get more expensive and people would buy and eat fewer of them. But cancer scientists believe that fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk of cancer if we eat enough of them, which most people do not do even now. And so banning pesticides in order to reduce exposure to carcinogens could potentially result in more people getting cancer. ~ Daniel Gardner

Indeed cocktail parties are death as I am sure 99 per cent of DS colleagues would agree. Whoever it was who suggested an international treaty banning National Day receptions should be canonised. ~ S.J. Parris

I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, and it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. ~ Mark Twain

I didn't know that President Bush would endorse a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. ~ Mary Cheney

Fiction is not a dream. Nor is it guesswork. It is imagining based on facts, and the facts must be accurate or the work of imagining will not stand up. ~ Margaret Culkin Banning

Banning capital punishment takes us to a higher state of consciousness. ~ Jerry Brown

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading. ~ Isaac Asimov

We're not looking at banning all weapons. ~ Gary Ackerman

As governor of New Mexico, I would have - I signed a bill banning late term abortion. I've always favored parental notification. I've always favored counseling. I've always favored the notion of no public funds used for abortion. ~ Gary Johnson

Embarrassingly for Obama, it appeared that his administration had jumped the gun on banning the bullets. ~ John R. Lott Jr.

The idea that somehow or other you can deal with all the problems in the world by banning a particular religious group from entering the U.S.A. is offensive and absurd. ~ Jeremy Corbyn

Republicans don't want to shrink government. They want more and more military, more and more surveillance. They'd like to have the government banning gay marriage and so forth. ~ John Zerzan

We don't mind having sanctions banning us from Europe. We are not Europeans. ~ Robert Mugabe

When Johnson decided to fight for passage of the law John F. Kennedy had put before Congress in June 1963 banning segregation in places of public accommodation, he believed he was taking considerable political risks. ~ Robert Dallek

Banning prayer in school in effect made God unconstitutional. ~ Rush Limbaugh

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

She never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn't take them along. ~ Margaret Culkin Banning

I'd never thought of aqua as a particular offensive color before, but looking at those bedspreads, I knew that next school year I was totally banning anything even approaching that shade from any school dance decorations. I'd never be able to look at it again without wanting to slit my own throat. ~ Rachel Hawkins

If I was president, of course I'd want an amendment banning boy bands, but it just wouldn't be right, and I wouldn't do it. Then again ... I don't want to paint myself into a corner on this one. Let me think about it. ~ Jessi Klein

You owe me this. You made me get rid of my assassin and now I have no control over those creatures that - "
That you created," he added, interrupting her angry tirade. "Don't forget the important part here. The Dark-Hunters wouldn't exist at all had someone, and for the sake of your missing intellect let me clarify that, you, not stolen powers from me that could bring back the dead. I didn't need the Dark-Hunters to help me fight against the Daimons and protect the humans. I was doing fine on my own. But you wouldn't have it. You created them and made me responsible for their lives. It's a responsibility that I take most seriously, so excuse me for banning you from killing them because you have reverse PMS."
She scowled. "Reverse PMS?"
Yeah, unlike a normal woman, you're cranky twenty-eight days out of the month. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

In 1738, the Pope issued an encyclical banning all participation in Masonry under threat of excommunication. ~ James Wasserman

Regrets are as personal as fingerprints. ~ Margaret Culkin Banning

The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons, but children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed. ~ G.K. Chesterton

This research suggests that banning the box is not enough. We must also get rid of the mind-set that puts black men "in the box." This is no small challenge. ~ Michelle Alexander

Here is how I propose to end book-banning in this country once and for all: Every candidate for school committee should be hooked up to a lie detector and asked this question: "Have you read a book from start to finish since high school?" or "Did you even read a book from start to finish in high school?"

If the truthful answer is "no," then the candidate should be told politely that he cannot get on the school committee and blow off his big bazoo about how books make children crazy.

Whenever ideas are squashed in this country, literate lovers of the American experiment write careful and intricate explanations of why all ideas must be allowed to live. It is time for them to realize that they are attempting to explain America at its bravest and most optimistic to orangutans.

From now on, I intend to limit my discourse with dimwitted Savonarolas to this advice: "Have somebody read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution out loud to you, you God damned fool!"

Well--the American Civil Liberties Union or somebody like that will come to the scene of trouble, as they always do. They will explain what is in the Constitution, and to whom it applies.

They will win.

And there will be millions who are bewildered and heartbroken by the legal victory, who think some things should never be said--especially about religion.

They are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hi ho. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I have been instrumental in banning bottled water on the set. It hasn't gone that well with the crew ... so I replaced it with tequila. ~ Hugh Laurie

In my world, you don't get to call yourself "pro-life" and be against common-sense gun control - like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don't get to call yourself "pro-life" and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don't get to call yourself "pro-life" and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children ... The term "pro-life" should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth. What about the rest of life? Respect for the sanctity of life, if you believe that it begins at conception, cannot end at birth. ~ Thomas L. Friedman

I am against censorship. I prefer the chaos of uncontrollable communication of all sorts to selective banning of certain materials. I do not think human beings can be trusted to be above politics and to promote the common good. One group's common good is another group's evil. ~ Erica Jong

In Scotland football hooliganism has been met by banning alcohol from grounds but in England this solution has been circumnavigated ~ Wallace Mercer

Banning guns is an idea whose time has come. ~ Joe Biden

Jefferson grasped the import of the moment, issuing a proclamation banning armed British ships from U.S. waters.9 At a cabinet meeting he decided to call on the governors of the states to have their quotas of one hundred thousand militiamen ready, and he ordered the purchase of arms, ammunition, and supplies.10,11 The president gave the order unilaterally, without congressional approval. He ~ Jon Meacham

I do not wish to ban antibiotics or Cesarian sections any more than anyone would suggest banning automobiles. I ask only that they be used more wisely and that antidotes to their worst side effects be developed. The truth is always obvious in retrospect. How could people really have thought that the sun revolves around Earth or that Earth is flat? Yet dogma are powerful and to their adherents infallible. ~ Martin J. Blaser

Liquor, guns, motorcycle helmets (legislation had gone back and forth on that) - mainly white masculine pursuits - are fairly unregulated. But for women and black men, regulation is greater. Within given parameters, federal law gives women the right to decide whether or not to abort a fetus. But the state of Louisiana has imposed restrictions on clinics offering the procedure, which, if upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court, would prevent all but one clinic, in New Orleans, from offering women access to it. Any adult in the state can also be jailed for transporting a teenager out of state for the purposes of an abortion if the teen has not informed her parents. Young black males are regulated too. Jefferson Davis Parish passed a bill banning the wearing of pants in public that revealed "skin beneath their waists or their underwear" and newspaper accounts featured images, taken from the back, of two black teenage boys exposing large portions of their undershorts. The parish imposed a $50 fine for a first offense and $100 for a second. ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild

Kuhnen and Brian Knutson have found that men who are shown erotic pictures just before they gamble take more risks than those shown neutral images like desks and chairs. This is because anticipating rewards - any rewards, whether or not related to the subject at hand - excites our dopamine-driven reward networks and makes us act more rashly. (This may be the single best argument yet for banning pornography from workplaces.) ~ Susan Cain

Gay marriage isn't a threat to traditional marriage. Divorce is a threat to traditional marriage. Is anyone going to propose a constitutional amendment banning divorce? ~ Karlyle Tomms

Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous - they contain ideas. ~ Pete Hautman

In order to validate our Africanness, we hold on to tradition at all cost, banning critical engagement in an attempt to preserve its sacredness ~ Malebo Sephodi

We are deeply concerned about the situation in Russia with regards to human rights. There are several examples of this situation, such as the new law requiring NGOs to register as "foreign agents", the law banning homosexual "propaganda", problems with the rule of law and arbitrary judicial processes, and court rulings against the opposition. ~ Cecilia Malmstrom

Reagan filled his inner circle with pro-industry scientists who denied the reality of every environmental ill from acid rain to climate change. And seemingly overnight, banning and tightly regulating harmful industrial practices went from being bipartisan political practice to a symptom of command and control environmentalism. ~ Naomi Klein

I support the President's plan to amend the Constitution, banning same-sex marriage. ~ Dick Cheney

I think that banning sanctuary cities should be upheld in court. ~ Greg Abbott

When did banning anything, ever work? I mean, we banned liquor once in this country, oh, that worked like a charm, didn't it, folks? You couldn't find a drink in the roaring 20's, could ya? See that's the problem with the banning thing! I say why stop there, let's not ban guns, I know, let's ban crime! ~ Brad Stine

I don't support gay marriage, but I also don't support a constitutional amendment banning it. However, I do support same sex unions that would give gay couples all the rights, privileges and protections of marriage. ~ Bob Casey, Jr.

Because how dare we write our own stories, in our own voices?' CaZZ answers.

'True that,' Tanya says.

'Banning our books would be their way of erasing us, of making us - and the world we live in - invisible,' CaZZ says. ~ R. Zamora Linmark

I don't believe that it's true that the poor will always be with us. I think that kind of pious fatalism is just an excuse for keeping things the way they are. ~ Margaret Culkin Banning

The law needs to be applied to everyone equally and the Home Office has previous in banning hate preachers engaging in rhetoric similar to that of [Donald] Trump. ~ Tulip Siddiq

I get a little angry about this highhanded scrapping of the look of things. What else have we to go by? How else can the average person form an opinion of a girl's sense of values or even of her chastity except by the looks of her conduct? ~ Margaret Culkin Banning

Bloomberg says in this poll, leaders from across the political spectrum have condemned this policy, saying banning members of an entire religion from entering the country goes against everything we believe in as Americans, and it will make our country less safe by alienated the allies we need to fight ISIS. ~ Steve Inskeep

Safety concerns are reasonable. Banning refugees is certainly not. ~ Lawrence O'Donnell

Drones are a tool, not a policy. The policy is assassination. While every president since Gerald Ford has upheld an executive order banning assassinations by U.S. personnel, Congress has avoided legislating the issue or even defining the word assassination. ~ Jeremy Scahill

And by banning [smartphones] from the set, the whole crew tends to work tighter with each other. And then it just becomes a thing where people kind of fall in love with the idea, 'This is the film-industry that I signed up for! This is really wonderful.' But then they go back to another set and everybody's on their cellphone, everyone's in their own little box, and they get depressed about it. ~ Quentin Tarantino