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If there is a choice between absolute safety and freedom, then freedom must always prevail.

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
Freedom
Must
Always
Prevail
Absolutes
Absolute
Safety
Choice
Choices

More quotes by Salman Rushdie

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If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion, I would say I was against it.
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You can't have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.
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Airport security exists to guard us against terrorist attacks.
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A novel, I think, is partly about the contemporary and partly about the eternal, and it's the balance of that that's difficult to achieve.
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One of the things I've learnt is not to depend on there being a woman in your life to make it work. I love my work, I love my children, I've got wonderful friends, you know, I have a nice life.
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[My work] is a love song to our mongrel selves.
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Language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough.
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The PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award is a way of spotlighting individual cases. If you look at the history of the award, the freedom rate is very high: a very high percentage of people who receive those awards are freed in the next six months to a year. The only weapon there is attention, but interestingly it works.
Salman Rushdie
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Can one drown in one's element... If fish can drown in water, can human beings suffocate in air?
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You can adhere to your faith, but that faith needs to march in line with the rest of the world and needs to find a way of expressing itself in the modern world.
Salman Rushdie
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Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.
Salman Rushdie
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I do think there was a period there when my sanity was under intense pressure, and I didn't know what to say or do or how to act. I was literally living from day to day.
Salman Rushdie
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I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire.
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And using that - the birth of a religion, it suggests that you have got two tests. You have the test of weakness. When you're weak, do you compromise, do you bend, do you give in, do you accommodate? And then the test of strength. When you're strong, are you merciful, are you generous, or are you cruel?
Salman Rushdie
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Sometimes, people trying to commit suicide manage it in a manner that leaves them breathless with astonishment.
Salman Rushdie
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I grew up in a family in which there was very little religion. My father wasn't religious at all. But he was really interested in the subject of, you know, the birth and growth of Islam. And he basically transmitted that interest to me.
Salman Rushdie
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Before I came to England, my favorite authors were P. G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie. I used to devour both.
Salman Rushdie
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When you know what you're against you have taken the first step to discovering what you're for.
Salman Rushdie
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Perhaps because my relationship with my father went through such a long, bumpy time, it's been very important for me to work to try to keep lines of communication open between my sons and myself to try to avoid my father's mistakes. At least if you're making mistakes, make different mistakes.
Salman Rushdie
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Live on, survive, for the earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention.
Salman Rushdie