Salman Rushdie Quotes

Free societies are societies in motion, and with motion comes friction.

We are the storytelling animal.

In the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the nonbelongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks.

Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts.

The only people who see the whole picture,' he murmured, 'are the ones who step out of the frame.

Our lives teach us who we are.

Too many people spouting too many words, and in the end those words will turn to bullets and stones.

For every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder,a snake

Once you put a thought into the world, it can be disagreed with, but it can't be unthought.

The problem's name is God.

Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that's what.

What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?

Friendships are the family we make - not the one we inherit. I've always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family.

He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.

What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry.

I don't dictate to anyone what to believe and what not to. And I don't want that to be dictated to me either.

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

It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.

Human beings understand themselves and shape their futures by arguing and challenging and questioning and saying the un-sayable, not by bowing the knee whether to gods or to men.

One of the characteristics of mudslinging is that mud sticks if it's thrown with enough force for long enough.

Prophet Mohammed would have no objection to The Satanic Verses.

We are described into corners, and then we must describe ourselves out of corners.

Happy endings must come at the end of something,' the Walrus pointed out. 'If they happen in the middle of a story, or an adventure, or the like, all they do is cheer things up for awhile.

Many men start being friendly with women because they are trying to seduce them. I'm not trying to seduce them. I just like hanging out with them.

A man who invents himself needs someone to believe in him... Not only the need to be believed in, but the need to believe in another. You've got it: Love.

When you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible.

What's the use of stories that aren't even true?

Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.

A book is not completed till it's read.

I would argue that religion comes from a desire to get to the questions of, 'Where do we come from?' and 'How shall we live?' And I would say I don't need religion to answer those questions.

Without water we are nothing", the traveler thought. "Even an emperor, denied water, would swiftly turn to dust. Water is the real monarch and we are all its slaves.

Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin.

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.

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

We crave permission openly to become our secret selves.

I think the book is less emotional than the film. With the film, the emotions are much more raw and in front. In the book, they are kind of ironized and seen through comedy.

Liberate yourself, because no one else is going to liberate you

Sometimes great, banned works defy the censor's description and impose themselves on the world - 'Ulysses,' 'Lolita,' the 'Arabian Nights.'

Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.

Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence.

You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more.

A photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second.

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

The suicide bomber's imagination leads him to believe in a brilliant act of heroism, when in fact he is simply blowing himself up pointlessly and taking other people's lives.

Free societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.

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 more and more incredible.

You never know the answers to the questions of life until you are asked.

I've been worrying about God a little bit lately... It seems like he's been in a bad mood. And I think it has to do with the quality of lovers he's been getting.

[...] the inevitable triumph of illusion over reality that was the single most obvious truth about the history of the human race [...]

People are always telling me that they've seen people reading my books on the subway, or the beach, or whenever.