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Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Book by Salman Rushdie · 10 quotes · Art, Bombay, Change

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Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder Quotes

“The most important of these things is that art challenges orthodoxy. To reject or vilify art because it does that is to fail to understand its nature. Art sets the artist’s passionate personal vision against the received ideas of its time. Art knows that received ideas are the enemies of art, as Flaubert told us in Bouvard and Pécuchet. Clichés are received ideas and so are ideologies, both those which depend on the sanction of invisible sky gods and those which do not. Without art, our ability to think, to see freshly, and to renew our world would wither and die.Art is not a luxury. It stands at the essence of our humanity, and it asks for no special protection except the right to exist.It accepts argument, criticism, even rejection. It does not accept violence.And in the end, it outlasts those who oppress it. The poet Ovid was exiled by Augustus Caesar, but the poetry of Ovid has outlasted the Roman Empire. The poet Mandelstam’s life was ruined by Joseph Stalin, but his poetry has outlasted the Soviet Union. The poet Lorca was murdered by the thugs of General Franco, but his art has outlasted the fascism of the Falange.”

Art
Book:Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
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“The most important of these things is that art challenges orthodoxy. To reject or vilify art because it does that is to fail to understand its nature. Art sets the artist's passionate personal vision against the received ideas of its time. Art knows that recieved ideas are the enemies of art, as Flaubert told us in Bouvard and Pecuchet. Cliches are received ideas and so are ideologies, both those which depend on the sanction of invisible sky gods and those which do not. Without art, our ability to think, to see freshly, and to renew our world would wither and die. Art is not a luxury. It stands at the essence of our humanity, and it asks for no special protection except the right to exist. It accepts argument, criticism, even rejection. It does not accept violence.”

Art
Book:Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
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“The most upsetting thing about the attack is that it has turned me once again into somebody I have tried very hard not to be. For more than thirty years I have refused to be defined by the fatwa and insisted on being seen as the author of my books—five before the fatwa and sixteen after it. I had just about managed it. When the last few books were published, people finally stopped asking me about the attack on The Satanic Verses and its author. And now here I am, dragged back into that unwanted subject. I think now I’ll never be able to escape it. No matter what I’ve already written or may now write, I’ll always be the guy who got knifed. The knife defines me. I’ll fight a battle against that, but I suspect I will lose.Living was my victory. But the meaning the knife had given my life was my defeat. In Victory City, my central character, Pampa Kampana, writes a mighty narrative poem in Sanskrit, named Jayaparajaya, meaning “Victory and Defeat.” That could also be the title for the story of my life.”

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Book:Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
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