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Salman Rushdie Quotes

Writers have an opinion about the world and offer arguments about the world. They should offer contemplation Picture Quote #1

The accidents of my life have given me the ability to make stories in which different parts of the world are brought together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes both - usually both. The difficulty in these stories is that if you write about everywhere you can end up writing about nowhere Picture Quote #1

But there’s one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn’t one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people Picture Quote #1

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 Picture Quote #1

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 Picture Quote #1

In the 50s, listening to Elvis and others on the radio in Bombay - it didn’t feel alien. Noises made by a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi, seemed relevant to a middle-class kid growing up on the other side of the world. That has always fascinated me Picture Quote #1

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At the height of the British Empire very few English novels were written that dealt with British power. It’s extraordinary that at the moment in which England was the global superpower the subject of British power appeared not to interest most writers Picture Quote #1

I don’t read my books, I write them. Once I’ve finished the many years it usually takes me to write them, I can’t bear to read them, because I’ve spent too long with them already. I’m not advertising them very well, am I? Picture Quote #1

I only met Margaret Thatcher twice. The thing that I thought about meeting her was how extraordinarily intelligent she was. You really had to be on your game; otherwise, she’d make mincemeat of you Picture Quote #1

I saw Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained,’ and you could say a lot of things against it, but it was incredible fun. I don’t like blood and gore, and I am very squeamish about violence, but Tarantino’s violence is actually funny Picture Quote #1

I used to write a monthly column for the ‘New York Times’ syndicate. But I stopped because I found it really hard to have one extreme opinion a month. I don’t know how these columnists have two or three ideas a week; I was having difficulty having 12 things to say a year Picture Quote #1

I was 21 in 1968, so I’m as much a child of the 60s as is possible to be. In those years the subject of religion had really almost disappeared; the idea that religion was going to be a major force in the life of our societies, in the West anyway, would have seemed absurd in 1968 Picture Quote #1

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I was very happy in Bombay. I was good at school. There was no reason to change anything. I suppose it must have been some spirit of adventure, of wanting to see the world Picture Quote #1

I would argue that religion comes from a desire to get to the questions of, ‘Where do we come from?’ and ‘How shall we live?’ And I would say I don’t need religion to answer those questions Picture Quote #1

I’m a reader of Chinese literature, I like their films, but also: I’ve had great difficulty getting my work published in China; very little of it has been published there. The first two attempts to have all of my work published, for instance, were refused without any reason ever being given Picture Quote #1

I’m not a very big fan of ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’ I think it’s visually brilliant. But I have problems with the story line. I find the storyline unconvincing Picture Quote #1

I’ve been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I’ve always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government Picture Quote #1

I’ve met the Dalai Lama briefly, but I would probably say my grandfather was the wisest person I ever met. He was my mother’s father, an Indian, a family doctor, and very unlike me in that he was deeply religious Picture Quote #1

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I’ve never seen anywhere in the world as beautiful as Kashmir. It has something to do with the fact that the valley is very small and the mountains are very big, so you have this miniature countryside surrounded by the Himalayas, and it’s just spectacular. And it’s true, the people are very beautiful too Picture Quote #1

If you look at Indian movies, every time they wanted an exotic locale, they would have a dance number in Kashmir. Kashmir was India’s fairyland. Indians went there because in a hot country you go to a cold place. People would be entranced by the sight of snow Picture Quote #1

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 Picture Quote #1

In writing ‘The Satanic Verses,’ I think I was writing for the first time from the whole of myself. The English part, the Indian part. The part of me that loves London, and the part that longs for Bombay. And at my typewriter, alone, I could indulge this Picture Quote #1

Most American writers don’t get asked their opinion on current affairs, whereas in Europe and England, we still do. There are writers here who are the most sophisticated commentators, but they’re not asked. Like Don DeLillo, who sort of forecast most of the modern world before it happened Picture Quote #1

My first novel - the novel I wrote before ‘Midnight’s Children’ - feels, to me, now, very - I mean, I get embarrassed when I see people reading it. You know, there are some people who, bizarrely, like it. Which I’m, you know, I’m happy for Picture Quote #1

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Out-of-step intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and the deceased Edward Said have often been dismissed as crazy extremists, ‘anti-American,’ and in Mr. Said’s case even, absurdly, as apologists for Palestinian ‘terrorism.’ Picture Quote #1

Pakistan is alarmed by the rising Indian influence in Afghanistan, and fears that an Afghanistan cleansed of the Taliban would be an Indian client state, thus sandwiching Pakistan between two hostile countries. The paranoia of Pakistan about India’s supposed dark machinations should never be underestimated Picture Quote #1

The miniatures of the Mughal period are really the pinnacle of Indian artistic achievement. And not a single one of those paintings is done by an individual artist Picture Quote #1

The thing that always attracted me to New York was the sense of being in a place where a lot of people had a lot of stories not unlike mine. Everybody comes from somewhere else. Everyone’s got a Polish grandmother, some kind of metamorphosis in their family circumstances. That’s a very big thing - the experience of not living where you started Picture Quote #1

There is nothing intrinsic linking any religion with any act of violence. The crusades don’t prove that Christianity was violent. The Inquisition doesn’t prove that Christianity tortures people. But that Christianity did torture people Picture Quote #1

There was a series called ‘Game of Thrones’ which was very popular here in the United States, a post-Tolkien kind of thing. It was garbage, yet very addictive garbage - because there’s lots of violence, all the women take their clothes off all the time, and it’s kind of fun Picture Quote #1

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Friendship Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

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Text Quotes

Writers have an opinion about the world and offer arguments about the world. They should offer contemplation (Salman Rushdie Quotes) The accidents of my life have given me the ability to make stories in which different parts of the world are brought together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes both - usually both. The difficulty in these stories is that if you write about everywhere you can end up writing about nowhere (Salman Rushdie Quotes) But there’s one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn’t one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people (Salman Rushdie Quotes) 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 (Salman Rushdie Quotes) 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 Quotes) In the 50s, listening to Elvis and others on the radio in Bombay - it didn’t feel alien. Noises made by a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi, seemed relevant to a middle-class kid growing up on the other side of the world. That has always fascinated me (Salman Rushdie Quotes) At the height of the British Empire very few English novels were written that dealt with British power. It’s extraordinary that at the moment in which England was the global superpower the subject of British power appeared not to interest most writers (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I don’t read my books, I write them. Once I’ve finished the many years it usually takes me to write them, I can’t bear to read them, because I’ve spent too long with them already. I’m not advertising them very well, am I? (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I only met Margaret Thatcher twice. The thing that I thought about meeting her was how extraordinarily intelligent she was. You really had to be on your game; otherwise, she’d make mincemeat of you (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I saw Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained,’ and you could say a lot of things against it, but it was incredible fun. I don’t like blood and gore, and I am very squeamish about violence, but Tarantino’s violence is actually funny (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I used to write a monthly column for the ‘New York Times’ syndicate. But I stopped because I found it really hard to have one extreme opinion a month. I don’t know how these columnists have two or three ideas a week; I was having difficulty having 12 things to say a year (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I was 21 in 1968, so I’m as much a child of the 60s as is possible to be. In those years the subject of religion had really almost disappeared; the idea that religion was going to be a major force in the life of our societies, in the West anyway, would have seemed absurd in 1968 (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I was very happy in Bombay. I was good at school. There was no reason to change anything. I suppose it must have been some spirit of adventure, of wanting to see the world (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I would argue that religion comes from a desire to get to the questions of, ‘Where do we come from?’ and ‘How shall we live?’ And I would say I don’t need religion to answer those questions (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I’m a reader of Chinese literature, I like their films, but also: I’ve had great difficulty getting my work published in China; very little of it has been published there. The first two attempts to have all of my work published, for instance, were refused without any reason ever being given (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I’m not a very big fan of ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’ I think it’s visually brilliant. But I have problems with the story line. I find the storyline unconvincing (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I’ve been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I’ve always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I’ve met the Dalai Lama briefly, but I would probably say my grandfather was the wisest person I ever met. He was my mother’s father, an Indian, a family doctor, and very unlike me in that he was deeply religious (Salman Rushdie Quotes) I’ve never seen anywhere in the world as beautiful as Kashmir. It has something to do with the fact that the valley is very small and the mountains are very big, so you have this miniature countryside surrounded by the Himalayas, and it’s just spectacular. And it’s true, the people are very beautiful too (Salman Rushdie Quotes) If you look at Indian movies, every time they wanted an exotic locale, they would have a dance number in Kashmir. Kashmir was India’s fairyland. Indians went there because in a hot country you go to a cold place. People would be entranced by the sight of snow (Salman Rushdie Quotes) 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 Quotes) In writing ‘The Satanic Verses,’ I think I was writing for the first time from the whole of myself. The English part, the Indian part. The part of me that loves London, and the part that longs for Bombay. And at my typewriter, alone, I could indulge this (Salman Rushdie Quotes) Most American writers don’t get asked their opinion on current affairs, whereas in Europe and England, we still do. There are writers here who are the most sophisticated commentators, but they’re not asked. Like Don DeLillo, who sort of forecast most of the modern world before it happened (Salman Rushdie Quotes) My first novel - the novel I wrote before ‘Midnight’s Children’ - feels, to me, now, very - I mean, I get embarrassed when I see people reading it. You know, there are some people who, bizarrely, like it. Which I’m, you know, I’m happy for (Salman Rushdie Quotes) Out-of-step intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and the deceased Edward Said have often been dismissed as crazy extremists, ‘anti-American,’ and in Mr. Said’s case even, absurdly, as apologists for Palestinian ‘terrorism.’ (Salman Rushdie Quotes) Pakistan is alarmed by the rising Indian influence in Afghanistan, and fears that an Afghanistan cleansed of the Taliban would be an Indian client state, thus sandwiching Pakistan between two hostile countries. The paranoia of Pakistan about India’s supposed dark machinations should never be underestimated (Salman Rushdie Quotes) The miniatures of the Mughal period are really the pinnacle of Indian artistic achievement. And not a single one of those paintings is done by an individual artist (Salman Rushdie Quotes) The thing that always attracted me to New York was the sense of being in a place where a lot of people had a lot of stories not unlike mine. Everybody comes from somewhere else. Everyone’s got a Polish grandmother, some kind of metamorphosis in their family circumstances. That’s a very big thing - the experience of not living where you started (Salman Rushdie Quotes) There is nothing intrinsic linking any religion with any act of violence. The crusades don’t prove that Christianity was violent. The Inquisition doesn’t prove that Christianity tortures people. But that Christianity did torture people (Salman Rushdie Quotes) There was a series called ‘Game of Thrones’ which was very popular here in the United States, a post-Tolkien kind of thing. It was garbage, yet very addictive garbage - because there’s lots of violence, all the women take their clothes off all the time, and it’s kind of fun (Salman Rushdie Quotes)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 - 14