“There are so many comics about violence. I'm not entertained or amused by violence, and I'd rather not have it in my life. Sex, on the other hand, is something the vast majority of us enjoy, yet it rarely seems to be the subject of comics. Pornography is usually bland, repetitive and ugly, and, at most, 'does the job.' I always wanted to make a book that is pornographic, but is also, I hope, beautiful, and mysterious, and engages the mind.” MindDoeBookHandsSeemsWantedJobsBeautifulSexEnjoyViolenceSubjectsMajorityUglyMysteriousPornographyAmusedRepetitiveBland Author:Dave McKean
“I am committed to writing appropriate books for the middle grades. This means no bad language, no gratuitous or explicit violence, and no sexual content beyond what you might find in a PG-rated movie – expressions of who likes whom, holding hands, and perhaps the occasional kiss. The idea that we should treat sexual orientation itself as an adults-only topic, however, is absurd. Non-heterosexual children exist. To pretend they do not, to fail to recognize that they have needs for support and validation like any child, would be bad teaching, bad writing, and bad citizenship.” NeedsShouldWritingMeanChildrenBookIdeasHandsMightWould BeLanguageSupportViolenceFailingTeachingMiddleExpressionKissingAdultsTreatsCommittedLikesAbsurdGradesAppropriateCitizenshipTopicsOccasionalOrientationValidationExplicitHolding HandsBad WritingBad Language Author:Rick Riordan
“In my books, I never portray violence as a reasonable solution to a problem. If the lead characters in the story are driven to it, it's at the extreme end of their experience.” IfsBookEndsCharacterStoriesProblemLiteratureViolenceSolutionsExtremesDrivenReasonableSolution To A ProblemLead Characters Author:Dean Koontz
“There really is no difference in the actual writing or plotting. I choose to tell different stories for the younger reader and, of course, I would never put sex and extreme violence in a YA book. But writing for adults and children requires the same care and attention.” WritingChildrenBookDifferentStoriesCareCoursesSexDifferencesAttentionViolenceReaderAdultsExtremes Author:Michael Scott
“Trees and flowers were often more meaningful to me than people. They always helped me, consoled me, giving the soul a chance to believe once more than the world was beautiful and sensible, that the mad absurdities and cruelties of men were against the laws of Nature and the Universal Mind; that sooner or later violence would suffer utter defeat on this Earth. No words collected in books were more effectively convincing to me than foliage, clouds, rippling waters, rain.” PeopleMenWorldGivingMindBelieveBookSoulEarthBeautifulLawSufferingWaterNatureChanceViolenceTreeFlowerRainUniversalMadDefeatCloudsMeaningfulCrueltySensibleSooner Or LaterAbsurdityConvincingLaws Of NatureFoliage Author:Svetlana Alliluyeva
“It is quite reasonable to subscribe both to the old saw that no good girl was ever ruined by a book and to the perception that it is not good for children to be constantly exposed to the sexual violence in our popular culture. Protecting children seems to me logically, legally, and rather easily differentiated from censorship.” ChildrenBookSeemsCultureGirlSawsViolencePerceptionReasonableExposedCensorshipRuinedPornographyPopular CultureGood GirlProtecting Children Author:Molly Ivins
“Lizzie Harris's Stop Wanting is an unflinching book about a girlhood filled with violence, doubt, vulnerability, and loss. These gorgeously crafted and hauntingly memorable poems are a bleak place full of life, prayer, and the kind of answers only poems like these can provide.” KindBookPrayerLossAnswersDoubtViolenceFilledMemorableVulnerabilityBleakGirlhood Author:Rachel Zucker
“Speak Peace is a book that comes at an appropriate time when anger and violence dominates human attitudes. Marshall Rosenberg gives us the means to create peace through our speech and communication. A brilliant book.” GivingHumansMeanBookSpeakAttitudeViolenceCommunicationSpeechBrilliantAppropriateNonviolent CommunicationAppropriate Time Author:Arun Manilal Gandhi
“Learn how to cook. Read books that will educate you. Get an education. Get a career. And support yourself. And live in a section of town that isn't conducive to violence.” BookCareersSupportViolenceTownsCooksEducateSections Author:Chris Rock
“Ambivalence reaches the level of schizophrenia in our treatment of violence among the young. Parents do not encourage violence, but neither do they take up arms against the industries which encourage it. Parents hide their eyes from the books and comics, slasher films, videos and lyrics which form the texture of an adolescent culture. While all successful societies have inhibited instinct, ours encourages it. Or at least we profess ourselves powerless to interfere with it.” BookEyeFilmFormYoungCultureParentLevelsSuccessfulViolenceArmsIndustryInstinctVideoTreatmentInterfereAdolescencePowerlessTextureSchizophreniaAmbivalenceYoung Parents Author:C. Sommerville
“For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.” MenKindChildrenBookDifferentHomeSchoolNightPoorViolenceColorShotsDestructionSkinsRelationInstitutionsWinterHungerIndifferenceHeatPoisonBombsDestructiveDecayInactionDifferent Colors Author:Robert Kennedy
“Society definitely encourages and condones men's violence toward women. Not as much as it used to be when it was less visible, and there were still laws on the books that made it alright for men to beat their wives, as long as it was within certain limits, and women were chattel.” MenLongMadeStillsBookLawUsedCertainWifeViolenceLimitsBeatsUsed To BeMade ItVisibleAlright Author:Gloria Steinem
“Violence has been a part of storytelling forever and there's obviously a reason for it. Fairy tales are really violent, the original ones. I think there's something cathartic about having kids live through their fears through a book or any kind of story.” ThinkingKindHas BeensBookReasonStoriesKidsForeverViolenceOriginalsViolentTalesStorytellingFairyFairy TaleHaving KidsCathartic Author:Jane Levy
“The violence and double-talk in the Alice books probably does no harm to children, but the novels should not be allowed to circulate indiscriminately among adults who are undergoing analysis.” ShouldChildrenDoeBookNovelViolenceAdultsHarmAnalysis Author:Martin Gardner
“Part of battle has been getting Hollywood to recognize that comic books and superheroes are not synonymous. That's been a huge breakthrough, just in recent years really, and as a result of that recent breakthrough, we've had movies like 300, Road to Perdition, and A History of Violence, that very few people realize were based on comic books and graphic novels. It's very important to make that differentiation.” PeopleYearsHas BeensImportantBookRealizingResultsNovelViolenceHugeBattleHollywoodComicComic BookSuperheroBreakthroughGraphicGraphic NovelsDifferentiationPerdition Author:Michael Uslan
“The most dangerous thing I've ever encountered was a run-in with Boko Haram around 2007 in a small town in Nigeria. I got caught along with the photographer I was working with, the same one I worked with on the Afghanistan book, Seamus Murphy. We were caught in an attack by a mob after Friday prayers. And the level of violence was so extreme. It was more violent than any other mob violence I have ever seen.” BookRunningPrayerLevelsViolenceDangerousTownsPhotographerCaughtExtremesViolentAfghanistanSmall TownFridayNigeriaDangerous ThingsMurphyBoko HaramHaram Author:Eliza Griswold
“My mother was a tremendous woman. I was just cleaning up old trunks and I found a book with her notes written during the war years, in the 1940s. She was studying in Lahore, which became Pakistan. She was writing about how women alone could bring peace to the world, that the men with all their greed and egos were creating all these tensions and violence. I always knew she was a feminist, ahead of her time.” MenWorldWritingYearsBookWarMotherFoundStudyViolenceWrittenHe ManEgoCreatingNotesGreedFeministTensionPakistanCleaningTrunksCleaning UpLahore Author:Vandana Shiva
“If you had a front row seat at the Renaissance, you would have seen Machiavelli come by plotting, and you would have seen murders in the streets, you would have seen violence, you have seen people burning books and it would have looked like the world was a horrible place, but that's where all these incredible stuff we're still living with comes out of.” PeopleIfsWorldStillsBookStuffViolenceStreetsFrontsMurderIncrediblesHorribleBurningSeatsRenaissance Author:Juan Enriquez
“All my life I've been involved with racial politics. I was a Freedom Rider in the South. I was the author of books on gang violence, I was a community organizer in Newark, New Jersey, and when I spoke to the Black Caucus, congressional and state, I realized they were going all the way for Hillary [Clinton] and so was the Latino caucus in Sacramento and I asked myself this question: "Do I really want to cast my vote against these people who have been central to my life and to the soul of the country?" And so I went with them. Period.” PeopleWayWantHas BeensBookSoulCountryStatesBlackCommunityViolenceInvolvedPeriodsVoteClintonSouthCastsI RealizedSpokesGangJerseyLatinoRidersNew JerseyOrganizerCaucusSacramentoNewarkGang Violence Author:Tom Hayden
“I personally think that people should get the book because it is like a blueprint. It shows you the work that needs to be done if we're ever going to get economic equality, health, reproductive health, violence. I mean, it's every category.” PeopleIfsThinkingNeedsShouldMeanBookDoneShowsViolenceEconomicCategoriesBlueprintsReproductive HealthEconomic Equality Author:Eleanor Smeal
“[Thich Nhat Hanh] the one that revolutionized Buddhism. Instead of being monks just engaged in meditation, it was active Buddhism. You went out and felt the ills of the community around you. Instead of retreating to a monastery, you were out in the streets working. And he's been a great help to me, just reading his book, so I don't feel helpless about what I can do about all the violence around me.” FeelsI CanBookHelpingReadingFeltCan DoCommunityMeditationViolenceStreetsBuddhismActiveEngagedHelplessMonkMonasteriesThich Nhat Hanh Author:Sandra Cisneros
“I've always liked reading books that contain funny lines or situations, and maybe because my work is known chiefly for its violence and misery, I made a more conscious attempt with The Heavenly Table to do that myself.” MadeBookReadingLinesSituationKnownViolenceConsciousTablesMiseryHeavenlyReading Books Author:Donald Ray Pollock
“I'm also interviewing a guy who's just written a book about his experience living in Iraq, faced with the type of violence as he said, an unimaginable scale. And I think that the combination of that is very hard to shake.” ThinkingSaidBookHardGuyViolenceWrittenTypeIraqScalesCombinationShakesUnimaginable Author:Jon Stewart
“The left has written books and done little short vignette movies about assassinating George W. Bush. And once again, for all the CNN fear running around about violence against journalists, the only people I've seen picking up guns is Democrats aiming at Republicans.” PeopleBookDoneRunningViolenceRepublicanGunDemocratJournalist Author:Rush Limbaugh