People must be protected from prejudice against their person. But people cannot be protected from prejudice against their ideas - because otherwise we're all done. Salman Rushdie More Quotes by Salman Rushdie More Quotes From Salman Rushdie What kind of idea are you? Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accomodates itself to society, aims to find a niche, to survive; or are you the cussed, bloody-minded, ramrod-backed type of damnfool notion that would rather break than sway with the breeze? – The kind that will almost certainly, ninety-nine times out of hundred, be smashed to bits; but, the hundredth time, will change the world. Salman Rushdie ninety-ninelifeideas Science fiction is always a vehicle for ideas. It's the form which allows either movies or books to be an exploration of how we should live. Salman Rushdie bookfictionideas I grew up kissing books and bread. Salman Rushdie kissingreadingbook An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship - it is a crime against our nature as human beings. Salman Rushdie censorshipcrimestories The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible. Salman Rushdie criticismimpossibleideas How do you defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorized. Salman Rushdie civil-societydefeatterrorism You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more. Salman Rushdie wallbedhouse I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire. Salman Rushdie satirecharlie-hebdoart I've never seen anywhere in the world as beautiful as Kashmir. It has something to do with the fact that the valley is very small and the mountains are very big, so you have this miniature countryside surrounded by the Himalayas, and it's just spectacular. And it's true, the people are very beautiful too. Salman Rushdie mountainbeautifulpeople Until you know who you are you can’t write. Salman Rushdie who-you-areknowswriting Stories in families are colossally important. Every family has stories: some funny, some proud, some embarrassing, some shameful. Knowing them is proof of belonging to the family. Salman Rushdie importantknowingstories Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. Salman Rushdie realreligiousheart In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name? Salman Rushdie world-religionsissuesblood I have always thought that these two ways of talking, one is the fantastic, the fable, the fairy tale, and the other being history, the scholarly study of what happened, I think they're both amazing ways to understand human nature. Salman Rushdie talkingtwothinking Free speech is not just free speech for people you admire. It's also for people who you think of as reprehensible. Salman Rushdie speechpeoplethinking From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable. Salman Rushdie justifyusedmen Two things form the bedrock of any open society - freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don't have those things, you don't have a free country. Salman Rushdie expressionlawcountry Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. Salman Rushdie speechfreedomgames We have seen many other not just writers and intellectuals, but including writers and intellectuals in the Muslim world being attacked and murdered by Islamic fanatics, accused of exactly the same things that I was, these medieval crimes of apostasy And heresy, but then broadening from that into a broader attack on all of us. Salman Rushdie medievalislamicworld Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow. Salman Rushdie shadowfall
