Salman Rushdie

“This is going to make me sound ancient, but I remember Juhu Beach when there weren't any buildings on it. You'd go through countryside and arrive at this amazing beach. I remember driving fr...”

“When people do the cowardly thing, it's not about respect, it's about fear.”

“In television, the 60-minute series, 'The Wire' and 'Mad Men' and so on, the writer is the primary creative artist.”

“If the creative artist worries if he will still be free tomorrow, then he will not be free today.”

“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 w...”

“There is nothing intrinsic linking any religion with any act of violence. The crusades don't prove that Christianity was violent. The Inquisition doesn't prove that Christianity tortures peo...”

“I've met the Dalai Lama briefly, but I would probably say my grandfather was the wisest person I ever met. He was my mother's father, an Indian, a family doctor, and very unlike me in that h...”

“The First Amendment defends all forms of speech including hate speech, which is why groups like Ku Klux Klan are allowed to utter their poisonous remarks.”

“Our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many ways deficient.”

“Actually, I don't even like parties. I would much prefer a room with four friends who sit around and have dinner. I detest nightclubs. And I don't like places where the noise is so loud you...”

“The accidents of my life have given me the ability to make stories in which different parts of the world are brought together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes bo...”

“It's so disappointing, to put it mildly, that people know so much about my life. Because it means that they're always trying to look at my books in terms of my life.”

“I have had many more close women friends than men, and I've always assumed that comes from the fact that in my family there was such a disproportionate female element.”

“What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry.”

“Children like being a little scared, but they don't want to be disturbed.”

“When you write, you write out of your best self. Everything else drops away.”

“Certainly, poverty and economic decline have a lot to do with the so-called rage of Islam. You've got all these young men in countries which are economically in bad shape. The idea that they...”

“Friendships are the family we make - not the one we inherit. I've always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family.”

“I didn't want to become some embittered old hack getting his revenge for the rest of my life. And I didn't want to become some scared creature cowering in a corner. I remember telling myself...”

“I write books I'd enjoy reading, I'm the reader standing behind my shoulder.”