Best Satanic Verses Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“When the Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine's Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwah, I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying, and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship—though I like to think that my reaction would have been the same if I hadn't known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a civilian citizen of another country, for the offense of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. President George H.W. Bush, when asked to comment, could only say grudgingly that, as far as he could see, no American interests were involved…”

Source: Hitch 22: A Memoir

“India was the first country to ban The Satanic Verses- which was proscribed without following India's own stipulated due process in such matters, banned before it entered the country by a weak Congress government led by Rajiv Gandhi, in a desperate, unsuccessful bid for Muslim votes.”

Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie Rajiv Gandhi Ayatollah Khomeini

Book:Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002

Source: Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002

“To be born again," sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, "first you have to die.”

Rushdie Satanic Verses Opening Line Of The Novel

Author:Salman Rushdie

“I had a fall out with Satan. Repeating satanic verses.”

Fall Satan Verses Satanic Satanic Verses

Author:Layzie Bone

“I've read The Satanic Verses and I thought it a nasty, sneering, free-thinking book... I can understand why the book is offensive and it didn't seem to me to be anything but offensive when I read it.”

Thinking I Can Book Seems Verses Offensive Nasty Satanic Free Thinking Satanic Verses

Author:Maurice Cowling

“Prophet Mohammed would have no objection to The Satanic Verses.”

Motivational Prophet Verses Objections Satanic Satanic Verses Prophet Mohammed

Author:Salman Rushdie

“Satanic Verses is a despicable book that could not have been written by a person who wished to behave decently and responsibly.”

Persons Has Beens Book Written Behave Verses Despicable Satanic Satanic Verses

Author:Orson Scott Card

“So when I studied history at Cambridge, I did a special subject in that, exactly that. And then actually that - while I was studying it was where I came across the so-called incident of the satanic verses.”

Study Special Subjects Verses Incidents Satanic Cambridge Satanic Verses

Author:Salman Rushdie

“Well, we're still in the middle of it. And it doesn't show any sign of going away. And these attacks that were - that seemed so odd at the time, with "Satanic Verses," because we didn't have any context for this. You know, where did that come from? It seemed to come out of nowhere.”

Knows Wells Stills Shows Middle Odd Going Away Verses Satanic Satanic Verses

Author:Salman Rushdie

“I opposed the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie. I read the book and took a critical distance. I did not think The Satanic Verses is a blasphemous book. I did not consider the book as being a great read, but as an intellectual I read, I assess, and I respond. I make a difference between true freedom of expression to which we owe a response and provocation, which we ignore.”

Thinking Book Differences Expression Intellectual Distance Response Critical Making A Difference Verses Freedom Of Expression Satanic True Freedom Provocation Rushdie Satanic Verses

Author:Tariq Ramadan

“A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.”

World Poetry Names Sides Sleep Courage Poet Shapes Argument Poetry Is Fraud Going To Sleep Great Poetry Poetry By Poets Satanic Verses

Author:Salman Rushdie

“Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.”

Use Earth Names Sound Common Habit Mere Dust Buried Etymology Satanic Verses Naming Things

Book:The Satanic Verses

Source: The Satanic Verses

“'The Satanic Verses' was denied the ordinary life of a novel. It became something smaller and uglier: an insult.”

Novel Ordinary Insult Denied Verses Ordinary Life Satanic Satanic Verses

Book:Joseph Anton

Source: Joseph Anton

“In writing 'The Satanic Verses,' I think I was writing for the first time from the whole of myself. The English part, the Indian part. The part of me that loves London, and the part that longs for Bombay. And at my typewriter, alone, I could indulge this.”

Thinking Writing Firsts Whole First Time London Indian Verses Indulge Typewriters Satanic Bombay Satanic Verses

Author:Salman Rushdie

“When I was writing The Satanic Verses, if you had asked me about the phenomenon that we all now know as radical Islam, I wouldn't have had much to say. As recently as the mid-1980s, it didn't seem to be a big deal.”

Ifs Knows Writing Bigs Seems Deals Islam Radical Phenomenon Verses Big Deal Satanic Radical Islam Satanic Verses

Author:Salman Rushdie

“Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.”

Speak Language Ability Courage Communication Novelists Essayists Conceiving Satanic Verses

Book:The Satanic Verses

Source: The Satanic Verses

“To be born again,' sang Gibreal Farishta tumbling from the heaveans, 'first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly Tat-taa! Takatun! How to ever smile again, if first you won't cry? How to win the darling's love mister, without a sigh?”

Ifs Needs Firsts Earth Dies Winning Born Land Cry Sigh Darling Born Again Tumbling Satanic Verses

Author:Salman Rushdie