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‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

Salman Rushdie

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Salman Rushdie
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: June 19
Actor
Essayist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Bombay
Rushdie
Joseph Anton
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie
Inspirational
Code
Become
Criticism
Ideas
Deserve
Disrespect
Life
Meaning
Satire
Like
Growth
Phrase
Respect
Fearless
Religion
Religions
Fear
Phrases

More quotes by Salman Rushdie

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I know who I am, I know what I'm for, and I know what I'm willing to fight for.
Salman Rushdie
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You never know the answers to the questions of life until you are asked.
Salman Rushdie
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In an ideal world, you could reunite the Pakistan-occupied part of Kashmir with the Indian-occupied part and restore the old borders. You could have both India and Pakistan agreeing to guarantee those borders, demilitarise the area, and to invest in it economically. In a sane world that would happen, but we don't live in a sane world.
Salman Rushdie
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Sometimes great, banned works defy the censor's description and impose themselves on the world - 'Ulysses,' 'Lolita,' the 'Arabian Nights.'
Salman Rushdie
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If I were dead, then nobody in England would have to fuss about the cost of my security and whether or not I merited such special treatment for so long.
Salman Rushdie
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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.
Salman Rushdie
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I always thought storytelling was like juggling [...] You keep a lot of different tales in the air, and juggle them up and down, and if you're good you don't drop any.
Salman Rushdie
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As I look back, I feel a touch of pride at my younger self's dedication to literature, which gave him the strength of mind to resist the blandishments of the enemies of promise. The sirens of ad-land sang sweetly and seductively, but I thought of Odysseus lashing himself to the mast of his ship, and somehow stayed on course.
Salman Rushdie
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The mistake of the West was to put the Sauds on the throne of Saudi Arabia and give them control of the world's oil fortune, which they then used to propagate Wahhabi Islam.
Salman Rushdie
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I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.
Salman Rushdie
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The worst, most insidious effect of censorship is that, in the end, it can deaden the imagination of the people. Where there is no debate, it is hard to go on remembering, every day, that there is a suppressed side to every argument.
Salman Rushdie
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I do think of Bombay as my hometown. Those are the streets I walked when I was learning to walk. And it's the place that my imagination has returned to more than anywhere else.
Salman Rushdie
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Look at history. It's not the account of a species at peace.
Salman Rushdie
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English, no longer an English language, now grows from many roots.
Salman Rushdie
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I get a lot of letters - a lot of letters saying, who knew that you were funny?
Salman Rushdie
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With death comes honesty.
Salman Rushdie
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Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century.
Salman Rushdie
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I had a very difficult relationship with my father, which ended up okay, but there were many difficult years.
Salman Rushdie
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Nobody ever recognizes themselves unless they are not the character. There are many people who have claimed to be in my books, but unfortunately they were usually people that I didn't know.
Salman Rushdie
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Don't you know girls have to fool people every day of their lives if they want to get anywhere?
Salman Rushdie