Not all possibilities are open to us. The world is finite; our hopes spill over its rim. — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
The world, somebody wrote, is the place we prove real by dying in it. — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
If you actually want to change your world, there is a better way of doing it than blowing yourself up. — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
I remember when I was young, many cities in the Muslim world were cosmopolitan cities with a lot of culture. — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
I've never rejected the world I came from. To be rejected by it is horrible. — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
Once you put a thought into the world, it can be disagreed with, but it can't be unthought. — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
In this world without quiet corners, there can be no easy escapes from history, from hullabaloo, from terrible, unquiet fuss. — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
The world is full of things that upset people. But most of us deal with it and move on and don't try… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
I was very happy in Bombay. I was good at school. There was no reason to change anything. I suppose it must… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
I believe in the art of literature, I believe in freedom of the imagination, I believe in the kind of liberties that… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
There is a widespread difficulty in the Muslim world, which has to do with how the people are taught about examining their… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
The world is about the way in which our dreams intersect with our real life. Endlessly, the world of the imagination changes… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
How to forgive the world for its beauty, which merely disguises its ugliness; for its gentleness, which merely cloaks its cruelty; for… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
Most American writers don't get asked their opinion on current affairs, whereas in Europe and England, we still do. There are writers… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
In an ideal world, you could reunite the Pakistan-occupied part of Kashmir with the Indian-occupied part and restore the old borders. You… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
But there's one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
We all dream things into being; you imagine yourself having a child, and then you have a child. An inventor will think… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
We have seen many other not just writers and intellectuals, but including writers and intellectuals in the Muslim world being attacked and… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
You can adhere to your faith, but that faith needs to march in line with the rest of the world and needs… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
Sometimes great, banned works defy the censor's description and impose themselves on the world - 'Ulysses,' 'Lolita,' the 'Arabian Nights.' — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it's not something that I practice… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
This strange business of what it is to be a writer is this increasingly insane world in which we live, in which… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
I think that England made a very big, historical mistake to allow itself to become the kind of terrorist capital of the… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
A poet's work is to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I've always… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
I determined to make my peace with Islam, even at the cost of my pride. Those who were surprised and displeased by… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
The rate of change is global now. I think there's a kind of mind that is so ill at ease with that… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
Islam is unusual in that it's the only one of the great world religions which was born inside recorded history. That there's… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
The accidents of my life have given me the ability to make stories in which different parts of the world are brought… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
When you are writing a book, it feels as if you are simply concentrating on the world of the book and that… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
I've never seen anywhere in the world as beautiful as Kashmir. It has something to do with the fact that the valley… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
Not even the visionary or mystical experience ever lasts very long. It is for art to capture that experience, to offer it… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
He would dream of discovering a magic optometrist from whom he would purchase a pair of green-tinged spectacles which would correct his… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
How does newness come into the world? How is it born? Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made? How does it… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
I always thought the front line was the bookstores. And bookstores around America, around the world did astonishingly well. They held the… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
The question I'm always asking myself is: are we masters or victims? Do we make history, or does history make us? Do… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
If my child had prejudice in his head, I'd be ashamed. I would see it as my failure as a parent. — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
Sometimes by a woodland stream he watched the water rush over the pebbled bed, its tiny modulations of bounce and flow. A woman's body… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
I want to write novels. I want to write stories. I want to do the stuff that I became a writer to do. — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
If you want to be a serious writer, then you have to write what there is to write about. If you're going to pull… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
“Después de exigir mi marcha, ya no posees jurisdicción en lo concerniente a mi salud.” — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
If there is a choice between absolute safety and freedom, then freedom must always prevail. — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
I'm not a prophet, but I always thought it was natural for dictatorships to fall. I remember in 1989, two months before the fall… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
I'd wanted to create a storm so that I could become more famous and richer. — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done,… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
“information, in a stream-of-consciousness soliloquy that revealed the extent to which he had internalised the adversarial fragmentation of American culture and made it a… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
A little bit of one story joins onto an idea from another, and hey presto, . . . not old tales but new ones.… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
The First Amendment defends all forms of speech including hate speech, which is why groups like Ku Klux Klan are allowed to utter their… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share
