Salman Rushdie quotes - page 10

I had a very difficult relationship with my father, which ended up okay, but there were many difficult years. (Salman Rushdie)
Perhaps because my relationship with my father went through such a long, bumpy time, it's been very important for me to work to try to keep lines of communication open between my sons and myself to try to avoid my father's mistakes. At least if you're making mistakes, make different mistakes. View quote
Salman Rushdie
It's obvious that I come down on the side of free speech for anybody's work. View quote
Salman Rushdie
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. View quote
Salman Rushdie
In the movies, the writer is just the servant, the employee. View quote
Salman Rushdie
We live in a frightened time, and people self-censor all the time and are afraid of going into some subjects because they are worried about violent reactions. View quote
Salman Rushdie
Someone asked me if I was afraid to write my memoirs. I told him: 'We have to stop drawing up accounts of fear! We live in a society in which people are allowed to tell their story, and that is what I do.' View quote
Salman Rushdie
You can't have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years. View quote
Salman Rushdie
In the real world, immeasurable hurt is caused by terrorists based in Pakistan who attack countries like India. View quote
Salman Rushdie
Have you noticed the physical resemblance between Imran Khan and Gaddafi? If you were making a movie of the life of Gaddafi and you wanted a slightly better-looking version of Gaddafi, you might cast Imran Khan. View quote
Salman Rushdie
I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women. (Salman Rushdie)
Human beings, you see, do absolutely two primary things. We see like and unlike. Like becomes, in literature, simile and metaphor. Unlike becomes uniqueness and difference, from which I believe, the novel is born. View quote
Salman Rushdie
Free societies are societies in motion, and with motion comes friction. View quote
Salman Rushdie
My children are English, and both of their mothers were English. View quote
Salman Rushdie
The frustrating part of being tagged 'controversial' is people go looking for trouble where there isn't any to look for. View quote
Salman Rushdie
This is going to make me sound ancient, but I remember Juhu Beach when there weren't any buildings on it. You'd go through countryside and arrive at this amazing beach. I remember driving from Delhi to the Qutab Minar through countryside. Mehrauli was a little village - that's all gone. View quote
Salman Rushdie
The writers of the French enlightenment had deliberately used blasphemy as a weapon, refusing to accept the power of the Church to set limiting points on thought. View quote
Salman Rushdie
I am certainly not a good Muslim. But I am able now to say that I am Muslim; in fact it is a source of happiness to say that I am now inside, and a part of the community whose values have always been closest to my heart. View quote
Salman Rushdie
I will come back to India - so deal with it. View quote
Salman Rushdie
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. View quote
Salman Rushdie
I was very happy in Bombay. I was good at school. There was no reason to change anything. I suppose it must have been some spirit of adventure, of wanting to see the world. (Salman Rushdie)
Sometimes when you finish a book, you don't know quite what you've got. View quote
Salman Rushdie
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. View quote
Salman Rushdie
When you start writing about the stuff that is the central experience of your own life, you can talk about whatever you want, in whatever way you want. View quote
Salman Rushdie
If I were dead, then nobody in England would have to fuss about the cost of my security and whether or not I merited such special treatment for so long. View quote
Salman Rushdie