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.
Salman Rushdie

The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins.
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.
Salman Rushdie

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.
Salman Rushdie

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

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

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

What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy.
Salman Rushdie

When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy.
Salman Rushdie

Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory.
Salman Rushdie