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But I - and I just think it's very - one of the problems of defending the extraordinary principle of freedom of speech is that you have to defend freedom of speech for people like that too.

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
Extraordinary
Like
Speech
People
Problems
Principles
Freedom
Problem
Defending
Think
Defend
Principle
Thinking

More quotes by Salman Rushdie

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I am certainly not a good Muslim. But I am able now to say that I am Muslim in fact it is a source of happiness to say that I am now inside, and a part of the community whose values have always been closest to my heart.
Salman Rushdie
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One of the characteristics of mudslinging is that mud sticks if it's thrown with enough force for long enough.
Salman Rushdie
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I remember when I was young, many cities in the Muslim world were cosmopolitan cities with a lot of culture.
Salman Rushdie
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I did a lot of student acting when I was young.
Salman Rushdie
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I didn't become a writer to write about me.
Salman Rushdie
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What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. Without the freedom to challenge, even to satirize all orthodoxies, it ceases to exist. Language and the imagination cannot be imprisoned, or art will die, and with it, a little of what makes us human.
Salman Rushdie
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Writers have an opinion about the world and offer arguments about the world. They should offer contemplation.
Salman Rushdie
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It doesn't matter whether characters are real people or not if they're not vivid on the page, then the reader doesn't care about them that much, and, if the reader doesn't care about them that much, then they don't care what happens to them.
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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Rock n' roll was a kid when I was a kid.
Salman Rushdie
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There are two things in Indian history - one is the incredible optimism and potential of the place, and the other is the betrayal of that potential - for example, corruption. Those two strands intertwine through the whole of Indian history, and maybe not just Indian history.
Salman Rushdie
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I hate admitting that my enemies have a point.
Salman Rushdie
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England in a way is lucky. It's an island, so the frontiers are given by the sea.
Salman Rushdie
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The suicide bomber's imagination leads him to believe in a brilliant act of heroism, when in fact he is simply blowing himself up pointlessly and taking other people's lives.
Salman Rushdie
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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman Rushdie
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You want all your books to stick around after you've gone.
Salman Rushdie
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Meaning is a shaky edifice we build out of scraps, dogmas, childhood injuries, newspaper articles, chance remarks, old fillms, small victories, people hated, people loved perhaps it is because our sense of what is the case is constructed from such inadequate materials that we defend it so fiercely, even to death.
Salman Rushdie
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Everybody loves 'The Wire,' and I think it's okay, but in the end it's just a police series.
Salman Rushdie
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Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today.
Salman Rushdie
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Your blasphemy, Salman, can't be forgiven. To set your words against the Words of God.
Salman Rushdie