Salman Rushdie quotes - page 15

The Christian Coalition is still about Christianity, even if it's an idea of Christianity that many Christians might not go along with. (Salman Rushdie)
Rock n' roll was a kid when I was a kid. View quote
Salman Rushdie
The field of the novel is very rich. If you're a composer, you're well aware of the history of composition, and you are trying to make your music part of that history. You're not ahistorical. In the same way, I think, if you write now, you are writing in the historical context of what the novel has been and what possibilities it has revealed. View quote
Salman Rushdie
Whores and writers, Mahound. We are the people you can't forgive. View quote
Salman Rushdie
Certainly, the Hollywood cinema, there's almost nothing of interest coming out of there. View quote
Salman Rushdie
It's so disappointing, to put it mildly, that people know so much about my life. Because it means that they're always trying to look at my books in terms of my life. View quote
Salman Rushdie
I didn't want to become some embittered old hack getting his revenge for the rest of my life. And I didn't want to become some scared creature cowering in a corner. I remember telling myself not to carry the hatred around, although I know where it is. I have it in a trunk in storage. View quote
Salman Rushdie
I've never had very high regard for therapists. I owe my health, my mental survival, to my friends and loved ones. View quote
Salman Rushdie
I'm a big-city boy. What I like is big cities. It's not just what I like. It's what I write about. View quote
Salman Rushdie
You don't that often see writers being sought out when there are matters of great moment to discuss. And I think that's a loss. View quote
Salman Rushdie
One of the things I've thought about 'Midnight's Children' is that it is a novel which puts a Muslim family at the centre of the Indian experience. (Salman Rushdie)
It's Kennedy's war, Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson got all the flak, but it's Kennedy's war. View quote
Salman Rushdie
I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing. View quote
Salman Rushdie
The liveliness of literature lies in its exceptionality, in being the individual, idiosyncratic vision of one human being, in which, to our delight and great surprise, we may find our own vision reflected. View quote
Salman Rushdie
My first novel - the novel I wrote before 'Midnight's Children' - feels, to me, now, very - I mean, I get embarrassed when I see people reading it. You know, there are some people who, bizarrely, like it. Which I'm, you know, I'm happy for. View quote
Salman Rushdie
Matthew Wiener on Mad Men writes the entire series before they start shooting, and if you have that, then what you can do with character and story is not at all unlike what you can do in a novel. View quote
Salman Rushdie
Islam is unusual in that it's the only one of the great world religions which was born inside recorded history. That there's an enormous amount of factual historical record about the life of a prophet and about social conditions in Arabia at that time. So it's possible to look at the origin of Islam in a scholarly way. View quote
Salman Rushdie
I've met the Dalai Lama briefly, but I would probably say my grandfather was the wisest person I ever met. He was my mother's father, an Indian, a family doctor, and very unlike me in that he was deeply religious. View quote
Salman Rushdie
One of the things I've learnt is not to depend on there being a woman in your life to make it work. I love my work, I love my children, I've got wonderful friends, you know, I have a nice life. View quote
Salman Rushdie
The novel does not seek to establish a privileged language but it insists upon the freedom to portray and analyse the struggle between the different contestants for such privileges. View quote
Salman Rushdie
Sometimes I think that when people become famous, there's a public perception that they are not human beings any more. They don't have feelings; they don't get hurt; you can act and say as you like about them. (Salman Rushdie)
I make no complaint. I am a writer. I do not accept my condition I will strive to change it but I inhabit it, I am trying to learn from it. View quote
Salman Rushdie
Pakistan is alarmed by the rising Indian influence in Afghanistan, and fears that an Afghanistan cleansed of the Taliban would be an Indian client state, thus sandwiching Pakistan between two hostile countries. The paranoia of Pakistan about India's supposed dark machinations should never be underestimated. View quote
Salman Rushdie
Out-of-step intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and the deceased Edward Said have often been dismissed as crazy extremists, 'anti-American,' and in Mr. Said's case even, absurdly, as apologists for Palestinian 'terrorism.' View quote
Salman Rushdie
I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don't like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don't like it, nobody is telling you to finish it. View quote
Salman Rushdie