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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.

Salman Rushdie

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
Our lives, our stories, flowed into one another’s, were no longer our own, individual, discrete.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Live Ourselves Story
You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Bed Frame Hang Home Notice Shame Wall
What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Funny Kind Present
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
Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Admire Fall Fame Shadow
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.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

God Name Problem Religious World
Every time you finish a book, you have a terrible feeling that there’s just never going to be another one. But fortunately, so far, the next one has always shown up.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Fortunate Terrible Time Yourself
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

Bad Defense Freedom People Principle Yourself
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
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
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
One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don’t like the glare of negative publicity.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Negative Public Strange Violence
Until you know who you are you can’t write.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Writing Yourself
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.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Exploration Heart Human Imagination Literature Place Society Spirit Truth
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
The world, somebody wrote, is the place we prove real by dying in it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Death Place Reality World
One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Difficult Question Stay Talk Writing
You can’t have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Ideas Modern Old Time Yourself
Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Freedom Game Life Talk
No, I don’t think it’s fair to label Islam ‘violent.’ But I will say that to my knowledge, no writer has ever gone into hiding for criticizing the Amish.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Criticism Hide Knowledge Thinking Violence Writing
It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Easy Yourself
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
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
I write books I’d enjoy reading, I’m the reader standing behind my shoulder.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Myself Reading Writing
It seems that the right of freedom of speech that was enshrined in numerous constitutions is now under attack by religious institutions.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Constitution Freedom Religious Right Talk
We all owe death a life.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Death Life One Liner

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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