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Unfortunately, the problem of the free speech argument is that you have to defend people you can't stand.

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
Unfortunately
Defend
Argument
Speech
Stand
Free
Problem
People

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Anyone who has had the experience of going through American security checks knows the purpose of these checks is not to make you safer it's just to annoy you.
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The liveliness of literature lies in its exceptionality, in being the individual, idiosyncratic vision of one human being, in which, to our delight and great surprise, we may find our own vision reflected.
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If you give in to the threat of violence, if you give in to bullying, what you know is that there will be more bullying. There will not be less bullying. If you appease the bully, you make sure that he will bully you some more. Not less. It doesn't solve the problem. It makes the problem worse.
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The only privilege literature deserves - and this privilege it requires in order to exist - is the privilege of being in the arena of discourse, the place where the struggle of our languages can be acted out.
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The West should be tougher on Pakistan. It is trying to play both ends against the middle - to look like the friend of the revolutionaries on the one hand and a friend of the West in the fight against terrorism. It can't be both things.
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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.
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It just requires so much of you, and most of the time you feel dumb.
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Bin Laden was born filthy rich and died in a rich man's house, which he had painstakingly built to the highest specifications.
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Friendships are the family we make - not the one we inherit. I've always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family.
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You can't assume if you do something contentious that people will be on your side. The moment violence enters the story, the story changes. Then the question is, How do you face up to violence? And then you have to have a no-compromise position. And this is quite simply a lesson we learn in the school playground.
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What's the use of stories that aren't even true?
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I get a lot of letters - a lot of letters saying, who knew that you were funny?
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It seems that the right of freedom of speech that was enshrined in numerous constitutions is now under attack by religious institutions.
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Liberate yourself, because no one else is going to liberate you
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One of the characteristics of mudslinging is that mud sticks if it's thrown with enough force for long enough.
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I seem to have fallen for women with missing parents. Goodness knows what it signifies.
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What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
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Ideas are interesting to me, and religions are a place where ideas have been very subtly embodied for thousands of years. All literature started as sacred literature.
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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.
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Two things form the bedrock of any open society - freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don't have those things, you don't have a free country.
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