One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.
SALMAN RUSHDIEWe 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.
More Salman Rushdie Quotes
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He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.
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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.
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Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today.
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What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?
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For every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake.
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Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.
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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.
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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.
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If you’re offended, it’s your problem.
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You can’t have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.
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Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow.
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The world, somebody wrote, is the place we prove real by dying in it.
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I write books I’d enjoy reading, I’m the reader standing behind my shoulder.
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Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.
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If you actually want to change your world, there is a better way of doing it than blowing yourself up.
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I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire.
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What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
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One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don’t like the glare of negative publicity.
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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.
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Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, to rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.
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Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.
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We cannot allow religious hooligans to place limiting points on thought.
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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.
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To understand just one life you have to swallow the world do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?
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The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.
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People 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 RUSHDIE