Lionel Shriver Quotes

I began in an era where four-letter words were not allowed.

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.

The practice of hinting by single letters those expletives with which profane and violent persons are wont to garnish their discourse, strikes me as a proceeding which, however, well meant, is weak and futile. I cannot tell what good it does - what feeling it spares - what horror it conceals.

It's true that obscenity is a matter of taste and in the eye of the beholder.

There are things that can only be said with a good string of cussing. I'm definitely fond of a few choice words. They say things that nothing else can say. Gotta love it.

My definition of cursing is probably different from what other people's definitions are.

Vulgarity begins when imagination succumbs to the explicit.

But I enjoy the opportunity to use swear symbols.

Certain things were deemed to be offensive. It was usually bad language.

I'm trying to cut down my cursing.

I don't condone bad language.

I probably shouldn't curse as much as I do.

I'm always interested in what is seen as obscene or profane or unfit.

My God, look at the words people use today. They use profanity like it's nothing. Christ almighty.

If I'm gonna get my balls blown off for a word, my word is "poontang".

If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth.

It's a sin to swear.

They'll say, That's funny, but you can't do that on TV.

Sex and obscenity are not synonymous.

No one today knows what is indecent

It is obvious that "obscenity" is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means "anything that shocks the magistrate.

Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government.

I find a lot of swearing in films. And I guess that shows my age. But I also feel that where they say those words, they could just as easily have written other words.

I swear like a sailor, assuming the sailor in question died in 1800 and was really square.

In my film 'Queen', there was a funny moment with the bra. My director called and said they are blurring the bra. They said it is vulgar. Our director was furious about it. We are artistes... We see props as they are. A woman's bra is not a danger to the society.