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Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

Salman Rushdie

I have always thought that these two ways of talking, one is the fantastic, the fable, the fairy tale, and the other being history, the scholarly study of what happened, I think they’re both amazing ways to understand human nature.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Fairy Tale Fantasy Human Myself Talk Thinking Understand Way
I’ve been worrying about God a little bit lately. It seems like he’s been in a bad mood. And I think it has to do with the quality of lovers he’s been getting.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Bad God Himself Lover Mood Quality Worry
The only people who see the whole picture,’ he murmured, ‘are the ones who step out of the frame.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Deep Frame People Photograph Thinking Wisdom
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
I think if we wish to live in any kind of a moral universe, we must hold the perpetrators of violence responsible for the violence they perpetrate. It’s very simple. The criminal is responsible for the crime.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Crime Kind Moral Responsible Simplicity Thinking Universe Violence
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.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Achievement Creation Goal Innocence Legal Murder People Pursuit Terrorism
Only the foolish, blinded by language’s conventions, think of fire as red or gold. Fire is blue at it’s melancholy rim, green in it’s envious heart. It may burn white, or even, in it’s greatest rages, black.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Black Blind Fire Fools Gold Language Thinking
I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Fear Mad Myself Weird
The world, somebody wrote, is the place we prove real by dying in it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Death Place Reality World
Where there is no belief, there is no blasphemy.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Belief One Liner
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
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
I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Art Defense Myself Poem Stand Support
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
What’s real and what’s true aren’t necessarily the same.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Home Necessary Reality True
In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Chocolate Friendship Life
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.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Country Evidence Hate Power Recover Thinking World
Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Admire Fall Fame Shadow
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.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Exploration Fiction Ideas Love Movie Science
Liberate yourself, because no one else is going to liberate you.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Freedom Liberty Yourself
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
My horizon’s have shrunk and I have only endings to write.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

End Limitation Myself Restriction Write
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.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Community Myself People Religious Result Writing
We are the storytelling animal.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Animal Story Talk
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
Once you put a thought into the world, it can be disagreed with, but it can’t be unthought.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Thinking World Yourself
If you actually want to change your world, there is a better way of doing it than blowing yourself up.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Better Change Way World Yourself

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

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Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

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