"God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide."
"But once a culture develops sufficiently to become skeptical, the idea of censorship becomes less attractive. To suppress a book or a picture or a sculpture or a play or a film is a terrible act of aggression against the artist who created it. This is a miming of capital punishment; it destroys the life that has been emanated by a life."
4 likes
Source: Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.818, Open Road Media
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Rebecca West
"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."
"Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse."
"The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots."
"There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence."
"Behind it was that vast suspension bridge which always troubles me because it reminds me that in this mechanized age I am as little able to understand my environment as any primitive woman who thinks that a waterfall is inhabited by a spirit, and indeed less so, for her opinion might from a poetical point of view be correct."