History Quotes by Salman Rushdie

The history of a culture can be determined by its untranslatable words.

— Salman Rushdie

“Is history to be considered the property of the participants only?”

— Salman Rushdie

My heart broke open and history fell in.

— Salman Rushdie

Look at history. It's not the account of a species at peace.

— Salman Rushdie

The problem of telling contemporary history is that your message gets outdated.

— Salman Rushdie

“The people with whom you share a history: these are the people who can leave you shipwrecked and drowning.”

— Salman Rushdie

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

— Salman Rushdie

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

— Salman Rushdie

History could claw upward as well as down. The powerful could be deafened by the cries of the poor.

— Salman Rushdie

“Methwold's hair, parted in the middle has a lot to do with my beginnings. It was one of those hairlines along which…

— Salman Rushdie

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

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

— Salman Rushdie

“Why, alone of all the more-than-five-hundred-million, should I have to bear the burden of history?”

— Salman Rushdie

So when I studied history at Cambridge, I did a special subject in that, exactly that. And then actually that - while…

— Salman Rushdie

I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and…

— Salman Rushdie

“...they all were, in the grip of a huge fantasy: the idea that men would not be judged by who they once…

— 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

The history of life was not the bumbling progress - the very English, middle-class progress - Victorian thought had wanted it to…

— Salman Rushdie

The interesting thing about history sometimes. is that you know these people existed, and you knew what jobs they did, but you…

— Salman Rushdie

“She allowed history to leave her without trying to hold it back, the way children allow a grand parade to pass, holding…

— Salman Rushdie

“Family history, of course, has its proper dietary laws. One is supposed to swallow and digest only the permitted parts of it,…

— Salman Rushdie

“Nobody ever wanted to go to war, but if a war came your way, it might as well be the right war,…

— Salman Rushdie

“Study history, Alleluia. In this century history stopped paying attention to the old psychological orientation of reality. I mean, these days, character…

— Salman Rushdie

“nothing is sacred in and of itself...Ideas, texts, even people can be made sacred... the act of making sacred is in truth…

— 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…

— Salman Rushdie

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

All migrants leave their pasts behind, although some try to pack it into bundles and boxes-but on the journey something seeps out…

— Salman Rushdie

“She, whose life had blown up, emptying her of history and leaving in its place only that dark dream of majesty, that…

— Salman Rushdie

“In this century history stopped paying attention to the old psychological orientation of reality. I mean, these days, character isn't destiny any…

— Salman Rushdie

“For a long while I have believed – this is perhaps my version of Sir Darius Xerxes Cama’s belief in a fourth…

— Salman Rushdie

“And eventually in that house where everyone, even the fugitive hiding in the cellar from his faceless enemies, finds his tongue cleaving…

— Salman Rushdie

“One day, perhaps, the world may taste the pickles of history. They may be too strong for some palates, their smell may…

— Salman Rushdie

If you take a look at history, you will find that the understanding of what is good and evil has always existed…

— Salman Rushdie

There are two things in Indian history - one is the incredible optimism and potential of the place, and the other is…

— Salman Rushdie

I have always thought that these two ways of talking, one is the fantastic, the fable, the fairy tale, and the other…

— Salman Rushdie

One of the things I know from the study of history is that history surprises you. History is not written. It's not…

— Salman Rushdie

When 'Midnight's Children' came out, people in the West tended to respond to the fantasy elements in the novel, to praise it…

— Salman Rushdie

“A few seconds later, my father broke his big toe; but his accident was a mere trifle when set beside what had…

— 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…

— Salman Rushdie

“History is natural selection. Mutant versions of the past struggle for dominance; new species of fact arise,and old, saurian truths go to…

— Salman Rushdie