Salman Rushdie Quotes
Literature is the most democratic of all the arts.
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.
To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world.
When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy.
Literature is the one place in any society where, within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear voices talking about everything in every possible way.
The world is inside out, and its bottom is its top.
A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.
In a world of monsters, it’s time to behave like a monster and fight back.
Writing is my way of making other chances.
People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.
If you don’t have the power to provoke, you don’t have the power to inspire.
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems – but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems increasingly incredible.
Love is the great antidote to fear.
The only way of measuring a writer’s honesty is by his or her ability to change.
All conservative parties throughout history are parties of the status quo. They are all, inherently, defenders of existing inequities and injustices.
The world is a mixed-up place, filled with saints and sinners, beauty and ugliness, excitement and boredom.
Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.
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.
No author likes to have his books turned into movies, and nobody hates it more than I do.
When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy.
It was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they’d have no heart to start at all.
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world.
You must accept the reality of other people. You think that reality is up for negotiation, that we think it’s whatever you say it is. You must accept that we are as real as you are; you must accept that you are not God.
I do not envy people who think they have a complete explanation of the world, for the simple reason that they are obviously wrong.
We are all equal in front of a novel.
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.
To be born again is to die first.
I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the freedom of speech.
Envy is the religion of the mediocre. It comforts them, it soothes their worries, and finally it rots their souls, allowing them to justify their meanness and their greed until they believe these to be virtues. Such people are convinced that the doors of heaven will be opened only if they manage to make the world a worse place than it already is.
How easy it was to capitalize on a person’s own bent for self-destruction; how simple to nudge a person into non-being, then to stand back and shrug and agree that it had been the inevitable result of a chaotic, catastrophic life.
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you.
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems – but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems increasingly incredible.
A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.
Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn’t exist in any declaration I have ever read.
You can recognize a pioneer by the arrows in his back.
Good, honest fiction is portrayal of the complexity of the human mind.
A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.
Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.
War is not a picnic.
Without access to true sources of information, our minds become prisoners of a prison we cannot see, taste or touch.
Some people believe that what I write is controversial simply because I write.
In this world, it is empathy that makes mankind stronger.
Fiction can be more honest than any memoir.
Love is the great antidote to fear.
People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.
When power becomes implicated with censorship, it becomes the enemy of art and freedom.
Creation is layered. It’s evolutionary. It’s an opera. Not always rational. The argument of good versus bad doesn’t hold water in the creative sphere.
The truth is people change their minds all the time; they just like to pretend they don’t.