A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep. Salman Rushdie More Quotes by Salman Rushdie More Quotes From Salman Rushdie If by some bizarre chance there turns out to be a god [...], I'm willing to bet he's an atheist too. Salman Rushdie atheism chance atheist Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century. Salman Rushdie century humans doubt I know who I am, I know what I'm for, and I know what I'm willing to fight for. Salman Rushdie willing who-i-am fighting I think it's a very important function of art to challenge accepted reality, especially when that reality is created by powerful interest groups. Salman Rushdie powerful reality art When you write you in a way write out of what you think of as your best self, the part of you that is lacking in foibles and weaknesses and egotism and vanities and so on. You're just trying to really say something as truthful as you can out of the best that you have in you. Salman Rushdie vanity writing thinking Hell is other people's fantasies. Salman Rushdie fantasy hell people 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 agency events thinking The glamour of being forbidden must not be underestimated. Salman Rushdie forbidden underestimated glamour Prophet Mohammed would have no objection to The Satanic Verses. Salman Rushdie satanic prophet motivational You don't just - you often have to defend the freedoms of people you don't like, you know, whose work you don't like, because freedom of speech is not just for serious people. It's also for trashy people. So, and, unfortunately, this is at the trashy end of the scale. Salman Rushdie freedom-of-speech serious people Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin? The Blood of Jesus whispers peace within. Salman Rushdie dark peace jesus A people that has remained convinced of its greatness and invulnerability, that has chosen to believe such a myth in the face of all the evidence, is a people in the grip of a kind of sleep, or madness. Salman Rushdie greatness sleep believe we look up and we hope the stars look down, we pray that there may be stars for us to follow, stars moving across the heavens and leading us to our destiny, but it's only our vanity. We look at the galaxy and fall in love, but the universe cares less about us than we do about it, and the stars stay in their courses however much we may wish upon them to do otherwise. It's true that if you watch the sky-wheel turn for a while you'll see a meteor fall, flame and die. That's not a star worth following; it's just an unlucky rock. Our fates are here on earth. There are no guiding stars. Salman Rushdie falling-in-love stars moving If a birth is the fall-out from the explosion caused by the union of two unstable elements, then perhaps a half-life is all we can expect. Salman Rushdie elements two fall 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 mystical-experiences love art The desire for story is very, very deep in human beings. We are the only creature in the world that does this; we are the only creature that tells stories, and sometimes those are true stories and sometimes those are made up stories. Then there are the larger stories, the grand narratives that we live in, which are things like nation and family and clan and so on. Those stories are considered to be treated reverentially. They need to be part of the way in which we conduct the discourse of our lives and to prevent people from doing something very damaging to human nature. Salman Rushdie desire people world Self-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak. Salman Rushdie self lying art Even the Islam stuff I thought was pretty respectful about Islam in a funny way. I mean, yes, from a secular point of view, but it talks about the birth of this religion, and I thought it was pretty admiring of the person at the center of it, the prophet of Islam. Salman Rushdie islam views mean Human beings do not perceive things whole; we are not gods but wounded creatures, cracked lenses, capably only of fractured perceptions. Partial beings, in all the senses of that phrase. Salman Rushdie lenses phrases perception 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 answers desire needs
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