“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
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Religion
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“The liveliness of literature lies in its exceptionality, in being the individual, idiosyncratic vision of one human being, in which, to our delight and great surprise, we may find our own vision reflected.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Literature
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“Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Literature
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“What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Imagination
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“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
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Art
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“Whores and writers, Mahound. We are the people you can’t forgive.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Writing
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“Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Writing
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“When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Thinking
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“Your blasphemy, Salman, can’t be forgiven. To set your words against the Words of God.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“Where there is no belief, there is no blasphemy.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“Our lives teach us who we are.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Knowledge
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“Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he’d be dead by now.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Freedom
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“One of the extraordinary things about human events is that the unthinkable becomes thinkable.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“No, I don’t think it’s fair to label Islam ‘violent.’ But I will say that to my knowledge, no writer has ever gone into hiding for criticizing the Amish.”

Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Religion