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For every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake.

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
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
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
We cannot allow religious hooligans to place limiting points on thought.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Limitation Place Religious Thinking
The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Criticism Freedom Ideas Impossible Moments Thinking
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
What’s real and what’s true aren’t necessarily the same.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Home Necessary Reality True
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.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Change Domination Live Power Story Thinking Time True
Until you know who you are you can’t write.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Writing Yourself
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
From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Beginning God Justice Man People
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
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
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
In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Chocolate Friendship Life
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

For every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake.

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For every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake.

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