Good old-fashioned, puritanical work guilt is, for me, a better colleague than any Muse. If I reach my weekly word target by Friday afternoon, then the weekend is guilt-free.

Jim Crace

It's a cliche, but Americans are puritanical. In their movies, they are scared of sex, but they overindulge in violence. I could have cut a G-rated version of 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' that would have pleased the American ratings board, but it would have been five minutes long.

Alfonso Cuaron

I've always been extremely puritanical.

Ann-Margret

The United States is considered a puritanical society by many Western nations. For example, they can't believe we hassle public servants like General David Petraeus because he had a mistress. In France, if a powerful man doesn't have a mistress, he's considered a wimp.

Bill O'Reilly

Puritanical attempts to cure society by taking toys away from children are hypocritical and futile.

Brian Sutton-Smith

I have a weak stomach. My wife is a doctor, so she finds it funny that I actually pass out when I get my blood drawn. I physically can't stand gore on screen. I can't stand blood and guts. Not for any puritanical/moral high-ground reason. I just don't want to black out.

Christopher Denham

I was raised to think that if you behaved badly with men, you went to hell. I realise now it is puritanical and not very adult.

Debbie Reynolds

Public displays of puritanical religiosity mask the private perversions of the real Washington behind closed doors.

Gavin Esler

Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue.

James Buchan

We still have this prudish, puritanical culture, but we also have so little exposure to a diversity of bodies. Bodies are beautiful and great and compelling.

Jenji Kohan

Good old-fashioned, puritanical work guilt is, for me, a better colleague than any Muse. If I reach my weekly word target by Friday afternoon, then the weekend is guilt-free.

Jim Crace

But we're still in somewhat a Puritanical society in a lot of ways.

Joe Mantegna

We're more sexually repressed than men, having been given a much more strict puritanical code of behavior than men ever have.

Kate Millett

I'm cursed with this puritanical streak that makes me want everything to be about something. It's a terrible affliction.

Kenneth Oppel

There's something about that puritanical narrative of progress and upward mobility and work ethic that the glorification of abstinence fits pretty neatly into. That pairs with the fact that 12-step recovery has had too large a monopoly on how treatment is understood in America.

Leslie Jamison

I've discovered I am quite a puritanical person.

Louis Theroux

We're warriors, this culture, and we're very puritanical about sex and very embracing about violence and I don't know why that is.

Mark Ruffalo

When the forces are aligning against hybridity, it harms everyone, as we are all migrants. Growing up in Pakistan, I know just how oppressive that kind of puritanical mindset can be.

Mohsin Hamid

American society is still puritanical.

Nick Nolte

My parents were teetotalers and my grandparents were - it's all the way back. It's New English puritanical tradition.

Penn Jillette

I think our nation cannot stomach the notion of a woman in sexual terms whatsoever: that we are so puritanical that we cannot dismiss the notion of sex from our minds when it comes to women.

Rod Lurie