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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

Among the great struggles of man-good/evil, reason/unreason, etc.-there is also this mighty conflict between the fantasy of Home and the fantasy of Away, the dream of roots and the mirage of the journey.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Dreams Evil Fantasy Goodness Greatness Home Journey Man
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
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
The lessons one learns at school are not always the ones the school thinks it’s teaching.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Education Learning Lesson Oneself Teaching Thinking
I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Art Defense Myself Poem Stand Support
Where there is no belief, there is no blasphemy.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Belief One Liner
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
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
Too many people spouting too many words, and in the end those words will turn to bullets and stones.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

End People Weapon Word
Faith without doubt is addiction.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Addiction Doubt Faith
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
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
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
Friendships 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 RUSHDIE

Family Friendship Important Inheritance Myself
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
It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

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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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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