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Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie Quotes

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Famous Salman Rushdie Quotes

“Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each "I", every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you’ll have to swallow the world.”

IfsWorldMatterHappensLastsAnswersMillionsGoneHappenedMinesSixHundredRepeatsPlusAffectedMultitudesLast TimeExceptionalUnderstand Me
Author:Salman Rushdie
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“Abraham Zogoiby covered his face that night in August 1939 because he had been assailed by fear, [...] a sudden apprehension that the ugliness of life might defeat its beauty; that love did not make lovers invulnerable. Nevertheless, he thought, even if the world's beauty and love were on the edge of destruction, theirs would still be the only side to be on; defeated love would still be love, hate's victory would not make it other than it was.”

IfsWorldStillsMightFacesNightHateSidesLoversVictoryDestructionAnd LoveDefeatEdgesCoveredNeverthelessDefeatedUglinessAbrahamAugustLove HateApprehensionBeauty And Love
Author:Salman Rushdie
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“Sometimes by a woodland stream he watched the water rush over the pebbled bed, its tiny modulations of bounce and flow. A woman's body was like that. If you watched it carefully enough you could see how it moved to the rhythm of the world, the deep rhythm, the music below the music, the truth below the truth. He believed in this hidden truth the way other men believed in God or love, believed that truth was in fact always hidden, that the apparent, the overt, was invariably a kind of lie.”

IfsMenWorldWayKindSometimesEnoughFactsBodyLyingWaterBedFlowMovedTinyRhythmStreamsBounceWomen's BodiesWoodlandHidden Truth
Author:Salman Rushdie
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“How to forgive the world for its beauty, which merely disguises its ugliness; for its gentleness, which merely cloaks its cruelty; for its illusion of continuity, seamlessly, as the night follows the day, so to speak- whereas in reality life is a series of brutal raptures, falling upon your defenseless hands, like the blows of a woodman's axe?”

WorldLifeHandsRealityLife IsNightFallSpeakIllusionForgivingSeriesBlowCrueltyBrutalDisguiseGentlenessUglinessContinuityRaptureCloaksDefenselessHow To Forgive
Author:Salman Rushdie
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“Everest silences you...when you come down, nothing seems worth saying, nothing at all. You find the nothingness wrapping you up, like a sound. Non-being. You can't keep it up, of course. the world rushes in soon enough. What shuts you up is, I think, the sight you've had of perfection: why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect sentences? It feels like a betrayal of what you've been through. But it fades; you accept that certain compromises, closures, are required if you're to continue.”

IfsThinkingWorldFeelsEnoughSeemsCertainCoursesSpeakSoundPerfectSilenceAcceptingPerfectionSightBetrayalSentencesManageCompromiseFadesNothingnessClosureEverestWrappingSoon EnoughSaying Nothing
Author:Salman Rushdie
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“Our human tragedy is that we are unable to comprehend our experience, it slips through our fingers, we can't hold on to it, and the more time passes, the harder it gets...My father said that the natural world gave us explanations to compensate for the meanings we could not grasp. The slant of the cold sunlight on a winter pine, the music of water, an oar cutting the lake and the flight of birds, the mountains' nobility , the silence of the silence. We are given life but must accept that it is unattainable and rejoice in what can be held in the eye, the memory, the mind.”

WorldMindHumansSaidEyeFatherGivenWaterNaturalMemoriesSilenceAcceptingCuttingColdMountainBirdHarderTragedyFingersWinterFlightExplanationLakesMore TimeSlipsRejoiceSunlightNobilityNatural WorldTime PassesUnattainableOarGiven Life
Author:Salman Rushdie
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“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?”

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Author:Salman Rushdie
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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.”

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Book:Is nothing sacred?
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“Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.”

WorldWritingTryingDreamStarsParentForgetCitiesTalkingDoubtToo MuchOne ThingChildhoodGoes OnThousandBreathsAimSafetyFingersArguingCertaintyBrokePhrasesInstantSandNever ForgetBloodyDeep BreathSlippingGrinningSafety NetParents LoveTake A Deep Breath
Book:Conversations with Salman Rushdie
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“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.”

WorldLifeKindDoeIdeasBitsDealsBreakTypeHundredAimNotionNineCompromiseChanging The WorldBloodyBreezeNinetyNicheNinety Nine
Book:The Satanic Verses
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