Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow.

Salman Rushdie

Download

I don’t dictate to anyone what to believe and what not to. And I don’t want that to be dictated to me either.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Believe Direction Myself
An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship – it is a crime against our nature as human beings.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Ability Crime Human Nature Story
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
Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Criticism Deserve Fear Religion Respect
I didn’t become a writer to write about me.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Myself Writing
Where there is no belief, there is no blasphemy.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Belief One Liner
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
Stories in families are colossally important. Every family has stories: some funny, some proud, some embarrassing, some shameful. Knowing them is proof of belonging to the family.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Evidence Family Funny Important Shame Story
You can’t have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.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
Our lives, our stories, flowed into one another’s, were no longer our own, individual, discrete.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Live Ourselves Story
It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Easy Yourself
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
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
Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Combination Freedom Heart Reason Religion Threat Tragedy
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
Liberate yourself, because no one else is going to liberate you.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Freedom Liberty Yourself
We all owe death a life.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Death Life One Liner
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
Until you know who you are you can’t write.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Writing Yourself
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Existence Expression Freedom Offense
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
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
Perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Beginning End Story Yourself
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.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Head Literature Place Possible Secret Society Talk Voice Way
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
What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Funny Kind Present
It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Legal Name

Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Salman Rushdie Quotes