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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

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
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 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
Liberate yourself, because no one else is going to liberate you.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Freedom Liberty Yourself
We cannot allow religious hooligans to place limiting points on thought.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Limitation Place Religious Thinking
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
Free speech is not just free speech for people you admire. It’s also for people who you think of as reprehensible.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Freedom People Talk Thinking Voice
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
Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Admire Fall Fame Shadow
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Existence Expression Freedom Offense
The world, somebody wrote, is the place we prove real by dying in it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Death Place Reality World
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
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
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
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 write books I’d enjoy reading, I’m the reader standing behind my shoulder.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Myself Reading Writing
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
Even when things are at their worst, there’s a little voice in your head saying, ‘Good story!’
SALMAN RUSHDIE

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

Live Ourselves Story
For every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Advice Game Ladder Life Snake
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
I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Fear Mad Myself Weird
Faith without doubt is addiction.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Addiction Doubt Faith
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
It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Book Easy Yourself
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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