Memory is a way of telling you what's important to you. Salman Rushdie More Quotes by Salman Rushdie More Quotes From Salman Rushdie I'll tell you what divorce hasn't taught me. It didn't teach me not to get married again. Salman Rushdie divorcemarriedtaught All names mean something. Salman Rushdie namesmean I fell victim to the temptation of every autobiographer, to the illusion that since the past exists only in one's memories and the words which strive vainly to encapsulate them, it is possible to create past events simply by saying they occurred. Salman Rushdie temptationmemoriespast Everything has shape, if you look for it. There is no escape from form. Salman Rushdie formshapeslooks How does newness come into the world? How is it born? Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made? How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? What compromises, what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it make to stave off the wrecking crew, the exterminating angel, the guillotine? Is birth always a fall? Do angels have wings? Can men fly? Salman Rushdie betrayalangelfall Why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect sentences? Salman Rushdie closurespeakperfect Believe in your own eyes and you'll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess. Salman Rushdie eyewaterbelieve It's one thing to say, 'I don't like what you said to me and I find it rude and offensive,' but the moment you threaten violence in return, you've taken it to another level, where you lose whatever credibility you had. Salman Rushdie rudelevelstaken Can one drown in one's element... If fish can drown in water, can human beings suffocate in air? Salman Rushdie elementsairwater Laila Lalami has fashioned an absorbing story of one of the first encounters between Spanish conquistadores and Native Americans, a frightening, brutal, and much-falsified history that here, in her brilliantly imagined fiction, is rewritten to give us something that feels very like the truth. Salman Rushdie encountersnative-americangiving perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque. Salman Rushdie individualismconformitywish We crave permission openly to become our secret selves. Salman Rushdie permissionselfsecret People are always telling me that they've seen people reading my books on the subway, or the beach, or whenever. Salman Rushdie readingbeachbook Well, we're still in the middle of it. And it doesn't show any sign of going away. And these attacks that were - that seemed so odd at the time, with "Satanic Verses," because we didn't have any context for this. You know, where did that come from? It seemed to come out of nowhere. Salman Rushdie satanicgoing-awayodd What's the use of stories that aren't even true? Salman Rushdie usestories Nothing comes from nothing, Thieflet; no story comes from nowhere; new stories are born from old--it is the new combinations that make them new. Salman Rushdie combinationbornstories It's fun to read things when you don't know all the words. Even children love it... they come up against weird words, and the weird words excite them. Salman Rushdie come-upfunchildren We have come to think of taking offence as a fundamental right. We value very little more highly than our rage, which gives us, in our opinion, the moral high ground. From there we can shoot down at our enemies and inflict heavy fatalities. Salman Rushdie moral-high-groundgivingthinking You never know the answers to the questions of life until you are asked. Salman Rushdie answersknows [...] the inevitable triumph of illusion over reality that was the single most obvious truth about the history of the human race [...] Salman Rushdie triumphracereality
