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 RUSHDIEFor every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake.
More Salman Rushdie Quotes
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But there’s one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn’t one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people.
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What I do think is evident is that those countries in the world where Islamic extremism has recovered the most power, those are also the countries which are most disliked.
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If you’re offended, it’s your problem.
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So India’s problem turns out to be the world’s problem. What happened in India has happened in God’s name. The problem’s name is God.
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Too many people spouting too many words, and in the end those words will turn to bullets and stones.
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Once you put a thought into the world, it can be disagreed with, but it can’t be unthought.
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The world, somebody wrote, is the place we prove real by dying in it.
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Free speech is not just free speech for people you admire. It’s also for people who you think of as reprehensible.
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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.
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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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Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow.
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Where there is no belief, there is no blasphemy.
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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.
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It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.
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Something was badly amiss with the spiritual life of the planet, Too many demons inside people claiming to believe in God.
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