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Salman Rushdie Quotes about Writing

All Salman Rushdie 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 quotes

Until you know who you are you can’t write.

Until you know who you are you can’t write.

Writing, Knows, Who You Are

I didn't become a writer to write about me.

Writing

Source: www.pbs.org

Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.

Book, Writing, Creation

Salman Rushdie (1990). “In good faith”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.

Dream, Stars, Writing

Salman Rushdie, Michael Reder (2000). “Conversations with Salman Rushdie”, p.11, Univ. Press of Mississippi

In general, writers shouldn't be killed for what they write, though I can think of exceptions.

Writing, Thinking, Exception

"'Everybody needs to get thicker skins'". Interview with Stuart Jeffries, www.theguardian.com. July 10, 2008.

I write books I'd enjoy reading, I'm the reader standing behind my shoulder.

Book, Reading, Writing

One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.

Writing, Difficult Questions, Speak

In writing 'The Satanic Verses,' I think I was writing for the first time from the whole of myself. The English part, the Indian part. The part of me that loves London, and the part that longs for Bombay. And at my typewriter, alone, I could indulge this.

Writing, Thinking, Typewriters

All art began as sacred art, you know? I mean, all painting began as religious painting. All writing began as religious writing.

Religious, Art, Writing

My horizon's have shrunk and I have only endings to write.

Writing, Horizon

When I was writing The Satanic Verses, if you had asked me about the phenomenon that we all now know as radical Islam, I wouldn't have had much to say. As recently as the mid-1980s, it didn't seem to be a big deal.

Writing, Islam, Satanic

"A translated man". Interview with James Campbell, www.theguardian.com. September 29, 2006.

Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory.

Writing, Fighting, Trying

In the end, you write the book that grabs you by the throat and demands to be written.

Book, Writing, Demand

When you write, you write out of your best self. Everything else drops away.

Writing, Self, Best Self

"'I have the hatred in a trunk in storage'". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. August 24, 2005.

A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.

Book, Reading, Writing

Salman Rushdie (1990). “In good faith”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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

Sometimes you find your voice by trying to write like people, and sometimes you find it by trying to write unlike people.

Writing, Voice, People

In the experience of art, time seems not to exist. When I'm writing and think, "I've been working for two hours," I've actually been working for seven.

Art, Writing, Thinking

If you want to be a serious writer, then you have to write what there is to write about. If you're going to pull your punches and second-guess yourself and not do things because you're worried, then don't write. Stay home and do something else.

Home, Writing, Want

Source: www.sfgate.com

When you write you in a way write out of what you think of as your best self, the part of you that is lacking in foibles and weaknesses and egotism and vanities and so on. You're just trying to really say something as truthful as you can out of the best that you have in you.

Writing, Thinking, Vanity

Source: bigthink.com

If you want to draw people into the story, you really have to write as if you're writing a novel and make these actually-existing people, including the actually-existing person with my name, into a believable person on the page. And that requires distance. That requires not being right up against the events you're talking about.

Distance, Writing, Names

Source: www.teachingbooks.net

What I found interesting writing a screenplay as opposed to writing a novel is not the obvious thing, which is having to pare everything down and find the kind of essence, the skeleton if you like, which can then be fleshed out by performance and cinematography.

Writing, Skeletons, Essence

"Salman Rushdie brings 'Midnight's Children' to big screen". Interview with Matt Carey, www.cnn.com. May 6, 2013.

The accidents of my life have given me the ability to make stories in which different parts of the world are brought together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes both - usually both. The difficulty in these stories is that if you write about everywhere you can end up writing about nowhere.

Writing, Together, Different

I do not read the works of Salman Rushdie, I write them. By the time I have finished writing them all I can think of is never reading them again. It's so deep, your involvement with a book, that once it's finished, then you are really done with it.

Book, Reading, Writing

Source: brightestyoungthings.com

When you're writing for the screen, you have to be hyper-conscious every moment of how the audience is going to react. If you write just one scene where the audience is confused or it breaks their concentration in some way, then you've lost them, and you might never get them back.

Confused, Writing, Might

"Salman Rushdie brings 'Midnight's Children' to big screen". Interview with Matt Carey, www.cnn.com. May 6, 2013.

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