#be

The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#because #change #conservative #crimes #culture

Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#central #century #condition #doubt #human

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. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#always #because #books #disappointing #know

When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#becomes #excessively #finest #painful #remedy

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

— Salman Rushdie

#best #drops #else #everything #out

I don't like books that play to the gallery, but I've become more concerned with telling a story as clearly and engagingly as I can. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#books #clearly #concerned #gallery #i

I used to say, 'There is a God-shaped hole in me.' For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#become #find #hole #i #important

I've never seen anywhere in the world as beautiful as Kashmir. It has something to do with the fact that the valley is very small and the mountains are very big, so you have this miniature countryside surrounded by the Himalayas, and it's just spectacular. And it's true, the people are very beautiful too. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#beautiful #big #countryside #fact #i

The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#air #begins #constructs #fiction #givens

Such is the miraculous nature of the future of exiles: what is first uttered in the impotence of an overheated apartment becomes the fate of nations. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#becomes #exiles #fate #first #future