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Salman Rushdie Quotes - Page 4

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

It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.

It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.

Names, Matter, Rubbish

"Outside The Whale" by Salman Rushdie, granta.com. March 1, 1984.

Free speech is not just free speech for people you admire. It's also for people who you think of as reprehensible.

Thinking, People, Speech

Source: www.teachingbooks.net

Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes.

Challenges, Moral, Originality

"On Censorship". www.newyorker.com. May 11, 2012.

I was living in New York at the time of the 9/11 attacks. And I remember, you know, in those weeks that followed, when none of us spoke about anything else really, a number of friends of mine, people I knew, including very experienced journalists, I heard them saying things like, well, now we understand what happened to you.

New York, Remember You, Remembers You

"In 'Joseph Anton,' Salman Rushdie Writes Novelistically About His Own Life". "PBS NewsHour" with Jeffrey Brown, www.pbs.org. October 7, 2012.

You can't have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.

Years, Ideas, Modern

We have seen many other not just writers and intellectuals, but including writers and intellectuals in the Muslim world being attacked and murdered by Islamic fanatics, accused of exactly the same things that I was, these medieval crimes of apostasy And heresy, but then broadening from that into a broader attack on all of us.

Islamic, World, Medieval

"In 'Joseph Anton,' Salman Rushdie Writes Novelistically About His Own Life". "PBS NewsHour" with Jeffrey Brown, www.pbs.org. October 7, 2012.

The world, somebody wrote, is the place we prove real by dying in it.

Real, Dying, World

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

Well, we're still in the middle of it. And it doesn't show any sign of going away. And these attacks that were - that seemed so odd at the time, with "Satanic Verses," because we didn't have any context for this. You know, where did that come from? It seemed to come out of nowhere.

Going Away, Satanic, Odd

"In 'Joseph Anton,' Salman Rushdie Writes Novelistically About His Own Life". "PBS NewsHour" with Jeffrey Brown, www.pbs.org. October 7, 2012.

Ignorantly is how we all fall in love; for it is a kind of fall. Closing our eyes, we leap from that cliff in hope of a soft landing. Nor is it always soft; but still, without that leap nobody comes to life.

Love, Fall, Eye

Salman Rushdie (2011). “The Moor's Last Sigh”, p.289, Random House

In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.

Chocolate, Cookies, Chips

I have always thought that these two ways of talking, one is the fantastic, the fable, the fairy tale, and the other being history, the scholarly study of what happened, I think they're both amazing ways to understand human nature.

Thinking, Talking, Two

Source: www.pbs.org

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.

Religious, Real, Heart

"Salman Rushdie condemns attack on Charlie Hebdo". www.englishpen.org. January 7, 2015.

In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?

Issues, Blood, World Religions

"Religion, as ever, is the poison in India's blood" by Salman Rushdie, www.theguardian.com. March 8, 2002.

The lessons one learns at school are not always the ones the school thinks it's teaching.

Teaching, School, Thinking

Freedom to reject is the only freedom.

Freedom, Rejects

Salman Rushdie (2000). “The Ground Beneath Her Feet: A Novel”, p.146, Macmillan

Our lives, our stories, flowed into one another's, were no longer our own, individual, discrete.

Stories, Individual, Our Lives

Even when things are at their worst, there's a little voice in your head saying, 'Good story!'

Voice, Stories, Littles

"Salman Rushdie: Beyond the tabloids". Interview with Hector Tobar, articles.latimes.com. September 25, 2012.

I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire.

Art, Charlie Hebdo, Satire

"Charlie Hebdo magazine attack: vigils held as French hunt suspects – as it happened". Statement, www.theguardian.com. January 7, 2015.

Stories in families are colossally important. Every family has stories: some funny, some proud, some embarrassing, some shameful. Knowing them is proof of belonging to the family.

Knowing, Important, Stories

"Salman Rushdie: My family values". Interview with Anita Sethi, www.theguardian.com. December 14, 2012.

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.

Courage, Sleep, Names

The Satanic Verses pt. 2 (1988)

Masks beneath masks until suddenly the bare bloodless skull.

Honesty, Skulls, Mask

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

India is my kid sister.

Kids, India

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

Reality, Ideas, Religion

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.

Simple, Thinking, Wish

"Something's 'Gone Wrong Inside The Muslim World'". "Morning Edition" with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. September 17, 2012.

We all owe death a life.

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