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Perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin.

Salman Rushdie

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
I write books I’d enjoy reading, I’m the reader standing behind my shoulder.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Myself Reading Writing
I don’t dictate to anyone what to believe and what not to. And I don’t want that to be dictated to me either.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Believe Direction Myself
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
It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Easy Yourself
Literature is the one place in any society where, within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear voices talking about everything in every possible way.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Head Literature Place Possible Secret Society Talk Voice Way
No, 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 RUSHDIE

Criticism Hide Knowledge Thinking Violence Writing
The world, somebody wrote, is the place we prove real by dying in it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Death Place Reality World
How do you defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorized.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Deep Defeat Fear Terrorism Yourself
I have always thought that these two ways of talking, one is the fantastic, the fable, the fairy tale, and the other being history, the scholarly study of what happened, I think they’re both amazing ways to understand human nature.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Fairy Tale Fantasy Human Myself Talk Thinking Understand Way
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’ve been worrying about God a little bit lately. It seems like he’s been in a bad mood. And I think it has to do with the quality of lovers he’s been getting.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Bad God Himself Lover Mood Quality Worry
Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Freedom Game Life Talk
From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Beginning God Justice Man People
Reality is a question of perspective.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Deep One Liner Perspective Question Reality
Ignorantly is how we all fall in love; for it is a kind of fall. Closing our eyes, we leap from that cliff in hope of a soft landing. Nor is it always soft; but still, without that leap nobody comes to life.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Eyes Fall In Love Hope Ignorance Kind Life Soft
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
Where there is no belief, there is no blasphemy.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Belief One Liner
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Existence Expression Freedom Offense
It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Legal Name
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
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
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
Once you put a thought into the world, it can be disagreed with, but it can’t be unthought.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Thinking World Yourself
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
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
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

Perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin.

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Perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin.

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