What I do think is evident is that those countries in the world where Islamic extremism has recovered the most power, those are also the countries which are most disliked.
SALMAN RUSHDIEWhat I do think is evident is that those countries in the world where Islamic extremism has recovered the most power, those are also the countries which are most disliked.
SALMAN RUSHDIEMy horizon’s have shrunk and I have only endings to write.
SALMAN RUSHDIESelf-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak.
SALMAN RUSHDIEFor every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake.
SALMAN RUSHDIEWe were language’s magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny.
SALMAN RUSHDIEFrom the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.
SALMAN RUSHDIEPeople can do bad things with free speech as well as good. You have to defend the Ku Klux Klan as well as Martin Luther King. It’s like that. If you’re going to defend the principle, then you have to defend people who use the principle badly.
SALMAN RUSHDIEWhat kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?
SALMAN RUSHDIENo, I don’t think it’s fair to label Islam ‘violent.’ But I will say that to my knowledge, no writer has ever gone into hiding for criticizing the Amish.
SALMAN RUSHDIEFriendships are the family we make – not the one we inherit. I’ve always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family.
SALMAN RUSHDIEIf you’re offended, it’s your problem.
SALMAN RUSHDIEWhen a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced.
SALMAN RUSHDIEWhat’s real and what’s true aren’t necessarily the same.
SALMAN RUSHDIEI have never really thought of myself as a writer about religion. And I think one of the things that happened to me as a result of all that is that I think it did for some people, many people, obscure the kind of writer that I actually am.
SALMAN RUSHDIETwo things form the bedrock of any open society – freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a free country.
SALMAN RUSHDIEIn the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.
SALMAN RUSHDIE