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

Salman Rushdie

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In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Chocolate Friendship Life
Where there is no belief, there is no blasphemy.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Belief One Liner
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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Advice Game Ladder Life Snake
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.
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Book Essence Fall In Love Growth Leaving Production Reading Strange
One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.
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Difficult Question Stay Talk Writing
If you take a look at history, you will find that the understanding of what is good and evil has always existed before the individual religions. The religions were only invented by people afterwards, in order to express this idea.
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Evil Existence Expression Goodness History Ideas People Understand
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.
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Head Literature Place Possible Secret Society Talk Voice Way
Once you put a thought into the world, it can be disagreed with, but it can’t be unthought.
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Thinking World Yourself
I didn’t become a writer to write about me.
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Myself Writing
What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?
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Funny Kind Present
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.
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Bad God Himself Lover Mood Quality Worry
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.
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Act Link People Religion Terrorism Torture Violence
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
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Existence Expression Freedom Offense
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
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
Until you know who you are you can’t write.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Writing Yourself
An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship – it is a crime against our nature as human beings.
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Ability Crime Human Nature Story
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
You can’t have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.
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Ideas Modern Old Time Yourself
The only people who see the whole picture,’ he murmured, ‘are the ones who step out of the frame.
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Deep Frame People Photograph Thinking Wisdom
My horizon’s have shrunk and I have only endings to write.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

End Limitation Myself Restriction Write
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.
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History Kind Man Problem Religion Responsible
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.
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Dreams Evil Fantasy Goodness Greatness Home Journey Man
We are the storytelling animal.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Animal Story Talk
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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Change Domination Live Power Story Thinking Time True
We all owe death a life.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Death Life One Liner

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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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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Popular Authors

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