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Quote by Salman Rushdie

“I am gagged and imprisoned. I can't even speak. I want to kick a football in a park with my son. Ordinary, banal life: my impossible dream.”

Quote by Salman Rushdie

Book:Joseph Anton

Work

In this personal narrative, the author delves into the impact of the fatwa, his struggles with security, and the evolution of his identity as both a writer and a public figure. more

Author

Salman Rushdie (born June 19, 1947) is a British-Indian novelist and essayist. Known for his magical realism style, his novel Midnight's Children won the Booker Prize in 1981. His works often explore themes of cultural conflict, religion, and politics. In 1988, his novel The Satanic Verses sparked global controversy, leading to a fatwa issued by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini calling for his assassination. Rushdie spent years in hiding under police protection. He remains a prominent voice in contemporary English literature, celebrated for his literary innovation and defense of free expression. more

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“I determined to make my peace with Islam, even at the cost of my pride. Those who were surprised and displeased by what I did perhaps failed to see that ... I wanted to make peace between the warring halves of the world, which were also the warring halves of my soul.”

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“I reluctantly concluded that there was no way for me to help bring into being the Muslim culture I'd dreamed of, the progressive, irreverent, skeptical, argumentative, playful and unafraid culture which is what I've always understood as freedom.... Actually Existing Islam ... which makes literalism a weapon and redescription a crime, will never let the likes of me in.”

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“Ideas are interesting to me, and religions are a place where ideas have been very subtly embodied for thousands of years. All literature started as sacred literature.”

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“I'm a novelist. Fortunately I don't have to rule the world.”

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“Islam doesn't have to mean blind faith. It can mean what it always meant in your family, a culture, a civilization, as open-minded as your grandfather was, as delightedly disputatious as your father was.... Don't let the zealots make Muslim a terrifying word, I urged myself; remember when it meant family.”

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“No story comes from nowhere; new stories are born from old.”

Book:Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Source: Haroun and the Sea of Stories

“Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I've always carried about is rather more vulnerable.”

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“Science fiction is where I started out, really. When I was a kid, I was a complete addict of science fiction. It was one of my earliest interests as a writer, and I've just taken a long time to circle back around to it.”

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“Some people are paralyzed by the consciousness of death, other people live with it.... The fatwa certainly made me think about it a lot more than I ever had. I guess I know I'm going to die, but then, so are you.”

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“Everything I see, I now see through a mother's eyes.”

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