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It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.

Salman Rushdie

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
An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship – it is a crime against our nature as human beings.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Ability Crime Human Nature Story
Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it’s not something that I practice or recommend, but to each his own.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

History Kind Man Problem Religion Responsible
When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Essence Fall In Love Growth Leaving Production Reading Strange
Our lives, our stories, flowed into one another’s, were no longer our own, individual, discrete.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Live Ourselves Story
I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Fear Mad Myself Weird
For every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Advice Game Ladder Life Snake
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Existence Expression Freedom Offense
I didn’t become a writer to write about me.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Myself Writing
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
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
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
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
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
Free speech is not just free speech for people you admire. It’s also for people who you think of as reprehensible.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Freedom People Talk Thinking Voice

It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.

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It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.

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