black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

We were language’s magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny.

Salman Rushdie

The only people who see the whole picture,’ he murmured, ‘are the ones who step out of the frame.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Deep Frame People Photograph Thinking Wisdom
Our lives, our stories, flowed into one another’s, were no longer our own, individual, discrete.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Live Ourselves Story
In the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the nonbelongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Art Celebration Different Dreams Law Mythology Society Song Wake Up
You can’t have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Ideas Modern Old Time Yourself
Only the foolish, blinded by language’s conventions, think of fire as red or gold. Fire is blue at it’s melancholy rim, green in it’s envious heart. It may burn white, or even, in it’s greatest rages, black.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Black Blind Fire Fools Gold Language Thinking
My horizon’s have shrunk and I have only endings to write.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

End Limitation Myself Restriction Write
It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Legal Name
Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Ability Courage Language Talk Thinking True
Where there is no belief, there is no blasphemy.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Belief One Liner
Science fiction is always a vehicle for ideas. It’s the form which allows either movies or books to be an exploration of how we should live.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Exploration Fiction Ideas Love Movie Science
If you take a look at history, you will find that the understanding of what is good and evil has always existed before the individual religions. The religions were only invented by people afterwards, in order to express this idea.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Evil Existence Expression Goodness History Ideas People Understand
One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Difficult Question Stay Talk Writing
One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don’t like the glare of negative publicity.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Negative Public Strange Violence
Self-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 RUSHDIE

Decision Lying Serious Talk Try
Two 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 RUSHDIE

Country Expression Freedom Law Rule Society
A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Fake Mistake Name Poet Sleep Stop Work World

We were language’s magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny.

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We were language’s magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny.

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Popular Authors

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