Salman Rushdie Quotes

"Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: History, Purity)

"Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Facts, Legends, Reality)

"Our lives teach us who we are."
- Salman Rushdie

"Such is the miraculous nature of the future of exiles: what is first uttered in the impotence of an overheated apartment becomes the fate of nations."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Nature, Fate, First, Future, Nations)

"The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Morality, Acceptance, Fiction, Reality)

"The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Change, Idea, Progress, Ideas, Conservative, Culture, Uncertainty)

"Vertigo is the conflict between the fear of falling and the desire to fall."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Fear, Conflict, Desire, Vertigo)

"What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Imagination, Artist, First, Sensibility, Tenderness)

"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Expression, Freedom)

"What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Power, Solitude, Writer)

"Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Fight, Politicians, World, Writers)

"Our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many ways deficient."
- Salman Rushdie

"When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Thought, Action)

"I hate admitting that my enemies have a point."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Enemies, Hate)

"Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Habit, Being, Earth, Names)

"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
(Related: Work, Arguments, Name, Sleep, World)

"Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Meaning)

"Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Act, Books, Creation)

"Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Being, Doubt)

"I do not need the idea of God to explain the world I live in."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: God, Idea, World)

"I used to say, 'There is a God-shaped hole in me.' For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Time, God, Absence, Now)

"If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion, I would say I was against it."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Religion, Sound)

"If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he'd be dead by now."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Muslim, Now)

"In this world without quiet corners, there can be no easy escapes from history, from hullabaloo, from terrible, unquiet fuss."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: History, Quiet, World)

"Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Music, People, Conservative, Defense, Freedom)

"It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it."
- Salman Rushdie

"A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: World)

"Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Life, Absence)

"Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself."
- Salman Rushdie
(Related: Life, Free speech)