I used to say, 'There is a God-shaped hole in me.' For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important. Salman Rushdie More Quotes by Salman Rushdie More Quotes From Salman Rushdie We live in an age where the rate of change has been colossal. Colossal. Almost every week there's some transformation of some kind, whether technological or political or scientific, whatever. And I think it's bewildering to human beings to live in a time when they can't take anything as fixed - when everything is shifting and changing all the time. Salman Rushdie political age thinking What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy. Salman Rushdie being-alone creativity powerful We were language's magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny. Salman Rushdie magpies stealing language I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. Salman Rushdie charlie-hebdo stupidity art What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. Without the freedom to challenge, even to satirize all orthodoxies, it ceases to exist. Language and the imagination cannot be imprisoned, or art will die, and with it, a little of what makes us human. Salman Rushdie imagination expression art 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 atheist ideas religion A photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second. Salman Rushdie photography taken decision In television, the 60-minute series, 'The Wire' and 'Mad Men' and so on, the writer is the primary creative artist. Salman Rushdie mad artist men One of the problems with defending free speech is you often have to defend people that you find to be outrageous and unpleasant and disgusting. Salman Rushdie speech problem people Good advice is rarer than rubies. Salman Rushdie good-advice rubies advice 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 scratches heart earthquakes Make as much racket as you like people. Noise is life and an excess of noise is a sign that life is good. There will be time for us all to be quiet when we are safely dead. Salman Rushdie excess life-is-good people A sigh isn't just a sigh. We inhale the world and breathe out meaning. While we can. While we can. Salman Rushdie sigh breathe world Censorship is the thing that stops you doing what you want to do, and what writers want to talk about is what they do, not what stops them doing it. Salman Rushdie doing-what-you-want censorship want If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he'd be dead by now. Salman Rushdie positive-atheism woody atheism Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. Salman Rushdie modern form real Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms. Salman Rushdie rock-and-roll rocks people Everest silences you...when you come down, nothing seems worth saying, nothing at all. You find the nothingness wrapping you up, like a sound. Non-being. You can't keep it up, of course. the world rushes in soon enough. What shuts you up is, I think, the sight you've had of perfection: why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect sentences? It feels like a betrayal of what you've been through. But it fades; you accept that certain compromises, closures, are required if you're to continue. Salman Rushdie betrayal sight thinking Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit. Salman Rushdie dust names sound Free societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence. Salman Rushdie atheism society people
