Salman Rushdie Quotes

One of the extraordinary things about human events is that the unthinkable becomes thinkable... view

By: Salman Rushdie

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... view

By: Salman Rushdie

Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts... view

By: Salman Rushdie

Our lives teach us who we are... view

By: 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... view

By: Salman Rushdie

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... view

By: Salman Rushdie

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... view

By: Salman Rushdie

Vertigo is the conflict between the fear of falling and the desire to fall... view

By: Salman Rushdie

What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness.. view

By: Salman Rushdie

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist... view

By: Salman Rushdie

What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy... view

By: Salman Rushdie

Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images.. view

By: Salman Rushdie

Our lives are not what we deserve.. view

By: Salman Rushdie

When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy... view

By: Salman Rushdie

I hate admitting that my enemies have a point... view

By: Salman Rushdie

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... view

By: Salman Rushdie

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... view

By: Salman Rushdie

Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours... view

By: Salman Rushdie

Books choose their authors.. view

By: Salman Rushdie

Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century... view

By: Salman Rushdie

I do not need the idea of God to explain the world I live in... view

By: Salman Rushdie

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... view

By: Salman Rushdie

If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion, I would say I was against it... view

By: Salman Rushdie

If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he'd be dead by now... view

By: Salman Rushdie

In this world without quiet corners, there can be no easy escapes from history, from hullabaloo, from terrible, unquiet fuss... view

By: Salman Rushdie

Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms... view

By: Salman Rushdie

It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it... view

By: Salman Rushdie

A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it.. view

By: Salman Rushdie

Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence... view

By: Salman Rushdie

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself... view

By: Salman Rushdie