World Quotes by Salman Rushdie

The world is a very abnormal place.

— Salman Rushdie

The world is always terrible.

— Salman Rushdie

In the real world, immeasurable hurt is caused by terrorists based in Pakistan who attack countries like India.

— Salman Rushdie

Writers have an opinion about the world and offer arguments about the world. They should offer contemplation.

— Salman Rushdie

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

— Salman Rushdie

Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin? The Blood of Jesus whispers peace within.

— Salman Rushdie

We are the only animals that tell stories to understand the world we live in.

— Salman Rushdie

I learned: the first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time.

— Salman Rushdie

I do not need the idea of God to explain the world I live in.

— Salman Rushdie

Hyperrealism can create an atmosphere of surrealism because nobody sees the world in such detail.

— Salman Rushdie

When I'm writing books, something weird happens; and the result is the books contain a large amount of what you could call…

— Salman Rushdie

If terrorism is to be defeated, the world of Islam must take on board the secularist-humanist principles on which the modern is…

— Salman Rushdie

So India’s problem turns out to be the world’s problem. What happened in India has happened in God’s name. The problem’s name…

— Salman Rushdie

Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I…

— Salman Rushdie

I do not envy people who think they have a complete explanation of the world, for the simple reason that they are…

— Salman Rushdie

What I do think is evident is that those countries in the world where Islamic extremism has recovered the most power, those…

— Salman Rushdie

There is a widespread difficulty in the Muslim world, which has to do with how the people are taught about examining their…

— Salman Rushdie

In this world without quiet corners, there can be no easy escapes from history, from hullabaloo, from terrible, unquiet fuss.

— Salman Rushdie

We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution…

— Salman Rushdie

War used to be something you could stand on the nearby hill and watch. Now we have total war; everybody's in it.…

— Salman Rushdie

Fundamentalists believe that we don't believe in anything. In their view of the world, they are in possession of absolute certainties, while…

— Salman Rushdie

Certainly, poverty and economic decline have a lot to do with the so-called rage of Islam. You've got all these young men…

— Salman Rushdie

What kind of idea are you? Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accomodates itself to society, aims to find a…

— Salman Rushdie

Abraham Zogoiby covered his face that night in August 1939 because he had been assailed by fear, [...] a sudden apprehension that…

— Salman Rushdie

In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no…

— Salman Rushdie

I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I…

— Salman Rushdie

Sometimes by a woodland stream he watched the water rush over the pebbled bed, its tiny modulations of bounce and flow. A…

— Salman Rushdie

The desire for story is very, very deep in human beings. We are the only creature in the world that does this;…

— Salman Rushdie

I suppose authoritarians don't like being made fun of because authoritarian rulers have a very inflated sense of themselves and don't like…

— Salman Rushdie

Our human tragedy is that we are unable to comprehend our experience, it slips through our fingers, we can't hold on to…

— Salman Rushdie

Everest silences you...when you come down, nothing seems worth saying, nothing at all. You find the nothingness wrapping you up, like a…

— Salman Rushdie

I have a general feeling that writers and artists who are in this peculiar situation, of being a persecuted artist, all anyone…

— Salman Rushdie

Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been…

— Salman Rushdie

If you have children, you worry about the world you're leaving them.

— Salman Rushdie

To understand just one life you have to swallow the world ... do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?

— Salman Rushdie

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

— Salman Rushdie

A sigh isn't just a sigh. We inhale the world and breathe out meaning. While we can. While we can.

— Salman Rushdie

The world, somebody wrote, is the place we prove real by dying in it.

— Salman Rushdie

“nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time.”

— Salman Rushdie

Not all possibilities are open to us. The world is finite; our hopes spill over its rim.

— Salman Rushdie