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Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

Salman Rushdie

To understand just one life you have to swallow the world do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Children heavy Life Understand World
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
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
It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Legal Name
If you’re offended, it’s your problem.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Offense Problem Yourself
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
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
What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Funny Kind Present
I write books I’d enjoy reading, I’m the reader standing behind my shoulder.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Myself Reading Writing
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
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
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 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
Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Admire Fall Fame Shadow
If somebody’s trying to shut you up, sing louder, and if possible, better.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Better Loud Possible Sing Try 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

Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

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Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

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