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Salman Rushdie Quotes - Page 12

All Quotes Age Arguing Art Atheism Atheist Belief Betrayal Birth Blasphemy Censorship Challenges Character Childhood Children Choices Christianity Conflict Country Crime Criticism Culture Desire Destiny Doubt Evil Falling In Love Fate Feelings Fighting Film Free Speech Freedom Freedom Of Speech Fun Giving Growing Up Growth Hate Heart Hell History Home Honesty Human Nature Identity Imagination Islam Journey Language Liberty Life Literature Loss Love Lying Magic Memories Mountain Optimism Past Perception Perspective Pride Prophet Reading Reality Religion Revolution Running Safety Satire School Shame Silence Son Soul Speed Storytelling Struggle Study Terrorism Tolerance Values Victory Violence War Water Worry Writing

Five mysteries hold the keys to the unseen: the act of love, and the birth of a baby, and the contemplation of great art, and being in the presence of death or disaster, and hearing the human voice lifted in song.

Five mysteries hold the keys to the unseen: the act of love, and the birth of a baby, and the contemplation of great art, and being in the presence of death or disaster, and hearing the human voice lifted in song.

Song, Baby, Art

Salman Rushdie (2000). “The Ground Beneath Her Feet: A Novel”, p.20, Macmillan

In any authoritarian society, the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside, he will come after you. This is equally true of Sovietism, of China and of Iran, and in our time it has happened a lot in Islam. The point is that it's worse when the authoritarianism is supported by something supernatural.

Iran, Islam, Trying

My friend Lou Reed came to the end of his song. So very sad.But hey, Lou, you'll always take a walk on the wild side. Always a perfect day.

Song, Wild Side, Perfect Days

Twitter post from Oct 27, 2013

The Republicans were not always insane. They might've had politics I didn't agree with, but they weren't always actually certifiable.

Insane, Might, Republican

The suicide bomber's imagination leads him to believe in a brilliant act of heroism, when in fact he is simply blowing himself up pointlessly and taking other people's lives.

Suicide, Believe, People

"Terror Is Glamour". "Spiegel" Interview, www.spiegel.de. August 28, 2006.

In today's US, it's possible for almost anyone - women, gays, African-Americans, Jews - to run for, and be elected to, high office.

Running, Gay, Office

"In bad faith" by Salman Rushdie, www.theguardian.com. March 13, 2005.

Live on, survive, for the earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention.

Heart, Giving, Attention

Salman Rushdie (2000). “The Ground Beneath Her Feet: A Novel”, p.145, Macmillan

As I look back, I feel a touch of pride at my younger self's dedication to literature, which gave him the strength of mind to resist the blandishments of the enemies of promise. The sirens of ad-land sang sweetly and seductively, but I thought of Odysseus lashing himself to the mast of his ship, and somehow stayed on course.

Pride, Dedication, Land

Meaning is a shaky edifice we build out of scraps, dogmas, childhood injuries, newspaper articles, chance remarks, old fillms, small victories, people hated, people loved; perhaps it is because our sense of what is the case is constructed from such inadequate materials that we defend it so fiercely, even to death.

People, Childhood, Victory

"Imaginary Homelands". Book by Salman Rushdie, 1991.

The response of anybody interested in liberty is that we all have a say and the ability to have an argument is exactly what liberty is, even though it may never be resolved. In any authoritarian society the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside he will come after you.

Trying, Liberty, May

I have had many more close women friends than men, and I've always assumed that comes from the fact that in my family there was such a disproportionate female element.

Men, Female, Facts

She's no flibberti-gibberti mamzell, but a whir-stir-get-lost-sir bundla dynamite!

Lost, Dynamite, Rushdie

Salman Rushdie (1989). “The Satanic Verses”, New York, N.Y. : Viking

At the height of the British Empire very few English novels were written that dealt with British power. It's extraordinary that at the moment in which England was the global superpower the subject of British power appeared not to interest most writers.

Height, Empires, England

My children are English, and both of their mothers were English.

Mother, Children, My Children

Like everybody else, I've had relationships in which I was passionately in love but was completely miserable all the time and didn't trust the person I was in love with one inch.

Miserable, Inches, Persons

I have always thought, the secret purpose of the book tour is to make the writer hate the book he's written. And, as a result, drive him to write another book.

Hate, Book, Writing

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.

Nature, Fate, Firsts

Salman Rushdie (1989). “The Satanic Verses”, New York, N.Y. : Viking

Why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect sentences?

Perfect, Closure, Speak

Salman Rushdie (1989). “The Satanic Verses”, New York, N.Y. : Viking

I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I'm gone which would not have happened if I had not come.

Life, Destiny, Gone

Salman Rushdie (2010). “Midnight's Children”, p.535, Random House

Believe in your own eyes and you'll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess.

Believe, Eye, Water

Salman Rushdie (1990). “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”, Penguin Books

It's one thing to say, 'I don't like what you said to me and I find it rude and offensive,' but the moment you threaten violence in return, you've taken it to another level, where you lose whatever credibility you had.

Taken, Rude, Levels

The real risks for any artist are taken in pushing the work to the limits of what is possible, in the attempt to increase the sum of what it is possible to think. Books become good when they go to this edge and risk falling over it -when they endanger the artist by reason of what he has, or has not, artistically dared.

Real, Book, Fall

A man who invents himself needs someone to believe in him... Not only the need to be believed in, but the need to believe in another. You've got it: Love.

Love, Dream, Believe

Salman Rushdie (1989). “The Satanic Verses”, New York, N.Y. : Viking

I fell victim to the temptation of every autobiographer, to the illusion that since the past exists only in one's memories and the words which strive vainly to encapsulate them, it is possible to create past events simply by saying they occurred.

Memories, Past, Temptation

Everything has shape, if you look for it. There is no escape from form.

Looks, Shapes, Form

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