|

|

Advertisements

Salman Rushdie Quotes

The lessons one learns at school are not always the ones the school thinks it’s teaching Picture Quote #1

I learned: the first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time Picture Quote #1

When you know what you’re against you have taken the first step to discovering what you’re for Picture Quote #1

One either loves, or waits for love, or banishes love for good. That is the full range of possible choices Picture Quote #1

Five mysteries hold the keys to the unseen: the act of love, and the birth of a baby, and the contemplation of great art, and being in the presence of death or disaster, and hearing the human voice lifted in song Picture Quote #1

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 Picture Quote #1

Advertisements

For a fellow who’s not to much to look at, you have the instincts of a champion Picture Quote #1

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 Picture Quote #1

And so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in none Picture Quote #1

Shame is like everything else; live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture Picture Quote #1

You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more Picture Quote #1

Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it’s not something that I practice or recommend, but to each his own Picture Quote #1

Advertisements

Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, to rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts Picture Quote #1

The thing that I think was very brave of my younger self was that he decided he would be an idiot. Just persevere. That feels brave to me: deciding that I’m going to damn well be this person that I’ve set my heart on being Picture Quote #1

One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions Picture Quote #1

Not even the visionary or mystical experience ever lasts very long. It is for art to capture that experience, to offer it to, in the case of literature, its readers; to be, for a secular, materialist culture, some sort of replacement for what the love of God offers in the world of faith Picture Quote #1

I didn’t want to become some embittered old hack getting his revenge for the rest of my life. And I didn’t want to become some scared creature cowering in a corner. I remember telling myself not to carry the hatred around, although I know where it is. I have it in a trunk in storage Picture Quote #1

I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn’t occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don’t like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don’t like it, nobody is telling you to finish it Picture Quote #1

Advertisements

If you live in free countries, you don’t have to spend all your life arguing about freedom because it is all around you. It seems redundant to make a lot of noise about something when, in fact, there it is. But if someone tries to remove it, it becomes important for you to formulate your own defenses of it Picture Quote #1

If you’re on a freeway and want to know if you’re being followed, what you do is enormously vary your speed. You accelerate to 100 and slow down to 30 and then accelerate again. In a city, you make a lot of turns against the stream of traffic. You go around a roundabout twice Picture Quote #1

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 Picture Quote #1

The field of the novel is very rich. If you’re a composer, you’re well aware of the history of composition, and you are trying to make your music part of that history. You’re not ahistorical. In the same way, I think, if you write now, you are writing in the historical context of what the novel has been and what possibilities it has revealed Picture Quote #1

The question I’m always asking myself is: are we masters or victims? Do we make history, or does history make us? Do we shape the world, or are we just shaped by it? The question of do we have agency in our lives or whether we are just passive victims of events is, I think, a great question, and one that I have always tried to ask Picture Quote #1

The response of anybody interested in liberty is that we all have a say and the ability to have an argument is exactly what liberty is, even though it may never be resolved. In any authoritarian society the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside he will come after you Picture Quote #1

Advertisements

When you are writing a book, it feels as if you are simply concentrating on the world of the book and that whatever is happening in your personal life is outside the room, as it were. But maybe that’s just the way you have to talk to yourself to make it possible Picture Quote #1

When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced Picture Quote #1

Once you have been in an earthquake you know, even if you survive without a scratch, that like a stroke in the heart, it remains in the earth’s breast, horribly potential, always promising to return, to hit you again, with an even more devastating force Picture Quote #1

In spite of all evidence that life is discontinuous, a valley of rifts, and that random chance plays a great part in our fates, we go on believing in the continuity of things, in causation and meaning. But we live on a broken mirror, and fresh cracks appear in its surface every day Picture Quote #1

They lived in a great city, a metropolis of many narratives that converged briefly and then separated for ever, discovering their different dooms in that crowd of stories through which all of us, following our own destinies, had to push and shove to find our way through, or out Picture Quote #1

As though she had entered a fable, as though she were no more than words crawling along a dry page, or as though she were becoming that page itself, that surface on which her story would be written and across which there blew a hot and merciless wind, turning her body to papyrus, her skin to parchment, her soul to paper Picture Quote #1

1 - 9 10 11 12 13 14

Friendship Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

Advertisements

Text Quotes

The lessons one learns at school are not always the ones the school thinks it’s teaching (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I learned: the first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time (Salman Rushdie Quotes) When you know what you’re against you have taken the first step to discovering what you’re for (Salman Rushdie Quotes) One either loves, or waits for love, or banishes love for good. That is the full range of possible choices (Salman Rushdie Quotes) Five mysteries hold the keys to the unseen: the act of love, and the birth of a baby, and the contemplation of great art, and being in the presence of death or disaster, and hearing the human voice lifted in song (Salman Rushdie Quotes) 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 Quotes) For a fellow who’s not to much to look at, you have the instincts of a champion (Salman Rushdie Quotes) 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 Quotes) And so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in none (Salman Rushdie Quotes) Shame is like everything else; live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture (Salman Rushdie Quotes) You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more (Salman Rushdie Quotes) Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it’s not something that I practice or recommend, but to each his own (Salman Rushdie Quotes) Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, to rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts (Salman Rushdie Quotes) The thing that I think was very brave of my younger self was that he decided he would be an idiot. Just persevere. That feels brave to me: deciding that I’m going to damn well be this person that I’ve set my heart on being (Salman Rushdie Quotes) One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions (Salman Rushdie Quotes) Not even the visionary or mystical experience ever lasts very long. It is for art to capture that experience, to offer it to, in the case of literature, its readers; to be, for a secular, materialist culture, some sort of replacement for what the love of God offers in the world of faith (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I didn’t want to become some embittered old hack getting his revenge for the rest of my life. And I didn’t want to become some scared creature cowering in a corner. I remember telling myself not to carry the hatred around, although I know where it is. I have it in a trunk in storage (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn’t occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don’t like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don’t like it, nobody is telling you to finish it (Salman Rushdie Quotes) If you live in free countries, you don’t have to spend all your life arguing about freedom because it is all around you. It seems redundant to make a lot of noise about something when, in fact, there it is. But if someone tries to remove it, it becomes important for you to formulate your own defenses of it (Salman Rushdie Quotes) If you’re on a freeway and want to know if you’re being followed, what you do is enormously vary your speed. You accelerate to 100 and slow down to 30 and then accelerate again. In a city, you make a lot of turns against the stream of traffic. You go around a roundabout twice (Salman Rushdie Quotes) 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 Quotes) The field of the novel is very rich. If you’re a composer, you’re well aware of the history of composition, and you are trying to make your music part of that history. You’re not ahistorical. In the same way, I think, if you write now, you are writing in the historical context of what the novel has been and what possibilities it has revealed (Salman Rushdie Quotes) The question I’m always asking myself is: are we masters or victims? Do we make history, or does history make us? Do we shape the world, or are we just shaped by it? The question of do we have agency in our lives or whether we are just passive victims of events is, I think, a great question, and one that I have always tried to ask (Salman Rushdie Quotes) The response of anybody interested in liberty is that we all have a say and the ability to have an argument is exactly what liberty is, even though it may never be resolved. In any authoritarian society the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside he will come after you (Salman Rushdie Quotes) When you are writing a book, it feels as if you are simply concentrating on the world of the book and that whatever is happening in your personal life is outside the room, as it were. But maybe that’s just the way you have to talk to yourself to make it possible (Salman Rushdie Quotes) When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced (Salman Rushdie Quotes) Once you have been in an earthquake you know, even if you survive without a scratch, that like a stroke in the heart, it remains in the earth’s breast, horribly potential, always promising to return, to hit you again, with an even more devastating force (Salman Rushdie Quotes) In spite of all evidence that life is discontinuous, a valley of rifts, and that random chance plays a great part in our fates, we go on believing in the continuity of things, in causation and meaning. But we live on a broken mirror, and fresh cracks appear in its surface every day (Salman Rushdie Quotes) They lived in a great city, a metropolis of many narratives that converged briefly and then separated for ever, discovering their different dooms in that crowd of stories through which all of us, following our own destinies, had to push and shove to find our way through, or out (Salman Rushdie Quotes) As though she had entered a fable, as though she were no more than words crawling along a dry page, or as though she were becoming that page itself, that surface on which her story would be written and across which there blew a hot and merciless wind, turning her body to papyrus, her skin to parchment, her soul to paper (Salman Rushdie Quotes)

1 - 9 10 11 12 13 14