black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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 RUSHDIE

Country Evidence Hate Power Recover Thinking World
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
We have come to think of taking offence as a fundamental right. We value very little more highly than our rage, which gives us, in our opinion, the moral high ground. From there we can shoot down at our enemies and inflict heavy fatalities.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Enemy Fundamental heavy Offense Opinion Ourselves Thinking
What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Funny Kind Present
Of course, there is nothing intrinsic linking any religion with any act of violence. The crusades don’t prove that Christianity was violent. The Inquisition doesn’t prove that Christianity tortures people. But that Christianity did torture people.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Act Link People Religion Terrorism Torture Violence
From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Beginning God Justice Man People
I didn’t become a writer to write about me.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Myself Writing
He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Himself Magic Reality World
I 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 RUSHDIE

Community Myself People Religious Result Writing
What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Destroy Easy Oneself Power Room Solitude Writing
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
Once you put a thought into the world, it can be disagreed with, but it can’t be unthought.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Thinking World Yourself
Our lives, our stories, flowed into one another’s, were no longer our own, individual, discrete.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Live Ourselves Story
You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Bed Frame Hang Home Notice Shame Wall
I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Art Defense Myself Poem Stand Support
In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Chocolate Friendship Life

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Salman Rushdie Quotes