Quotes by Salman Rushdie

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.

If you actually want to change your world, there is a better way of doing it than blowing yourself up.

Vertigo is the conflict between the fear of falling and the desire to fall.

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms.

Such is the miraculous nature of the future of exiles: what is first uttered in the impotence of an overheated apartment becomes the fate of nations.

I do not need the idea of God to explain the world I live in.

What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness second, their imagination, and third, their industry.

I've never had very high regard for therapists. I owe my health, my mental survival, to my friends and loved ones.

Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.